Harm to the consumer via fraud, and to the environment, yes. But corporations almost never see criminal charges. Fuck the environment for 6 years? Pay this fine. Sell some pot? Fuck you asshole go to jail for 3 years.

Well, for the BP spill at least, people were charged with negligence, but the trial is still under way.

Criminal charges seem like a good plan. But its not sufficient.

Volswagen has over a period of time pumped a lot of this gas into the atmosphere and the fine ought to reflect the actual clean up damage. What is it going to cost to remove it and put the environment back to the way it should have been if they hadn't broken the law. That is what these sorts of fines ought to be based on.

No fines should be punitive so they dont do it again. It is not about clean up with particulates, it is about their medical effects, which you cant be specific about.

Fines that would really be enough to clean up the environment would probably obliterate the company.

Capital punishment is a deterrent against rational actors.

My point was that a punitive fine was not necessary (as a deterrent or otherwise), but a fine that realistically represented the clean-up costs would already be enough. (Destroying such companies is fine with me.)

Agreed. This somewhat mollifying quote gives hope:

>"Using a defeat device in cars to evade clean air standards is illegal and a threat to public health," said Cynthia Giles, the E.P.A.’s assistant administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance.

Also, this:

> California, the E.P.A. and the Justice Department are working together on an investigation of the allegations.

Though I hold similar pessimism to cmurf. If we can't even bring criminal charges against people that destroy the economy, I don't have high hopes for anyone being charged for destroying the environment (given the difference in priority they're normally given).

I expect at the least they are going to get hit with the maximum administrative fine, 37,500 per vehicle.

That maths out to somewhere in the ballpark of eighteen billion dollars.

In 2012, the EPA issued $252 million in fines, total. Kia & Hyundai were fined $300 million total in 2014.

I don't see them hitting VW with eighteen billion.

e: Eh, that might not be so unreasonable after all. In 2012, VW made about $28 billion in profit on $250 billion of sales.

If the cars can't pass smog testing without cheating, then they also need to be forced to buy each and every one of them back. $18 billion sounds reasonable to me. This needs to hurt.

I'm sure the patch will allow them to pass the tests. It'll just reduce driving performance as well.

Likely true; the problem with that is the owner ends up with a car with lower specs than they agreed to when they bought it. The owner of the car needs to be compensated.

it would be an insane judgement seeing how little GM paid out for a defect they willfully hid that led to actual recorded deaths.

Which is $18b, so not insignificant. There may also be action in Europe.

$18b would mean they’d still make profit out of this.

And it’s not like only VW did this, every carmaker currently does this. It’s not going to change soon either.

No, they dont make that much profit per car. It could usefully be a few times higher (punitive damages and criminal charges could do that though).

I would like to see VW prohibited from selling any vehicles in the US for a small number of quarters. That would be real punishment.

All those dealers and salespeople? There are a certain amount of cars that need to be sold. If VW is out of the mix, the demand is still there. The dealers can sell something else. I'm certain that Toyota and Ford can quickly come to some arrangement with those dealers, including any state legal issues.

Do you have even the faintest clue of how car sales work? Or of how regulatory enforcement works? The EPA can't ban VW sales entirely.

I believe the AG's office is involved.