jamest wrote:You have to be stupid if you think that you can get away with this sort of scam on a large scale. Why would they have done it? Why not simply design the engines to properly comply with the regulations? This is VW of Germany, for heaven's sake. I just don't get it.
The thing is that people don't buy cars on their emissions performance.
The figures that interest buyers are horsepower, torque and fuel economy.
I just so happens that when you tune the engine for best economy etc, you get worse emissions.
So what they did was try to maximise the important stuff, and at the same time get emissions low enough, under test conditions.
There's big money in eking out a few extra miles per gallon. Fleet buyers will base their decisions on it.
Of course, more mpg is better for the environment too, but you still have to get the car through the emissions test.