Volkswagen Dirties It 's Hands

Motor vehicles are a leading source of air pollution. Even though automobile and truck engines have become far cleaner in recent decades, the sheer

Every day, millions of Americans turn on the engines of their cars and drive to school or work. What these people do not realize is that the vehicles they operate greatly pollute the planet. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent website post, “Environmental Impacts from Automobiles”,

Cars and truck account for 20% of all U.S. global warming emissions, where more than 24 pounds per gallon of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases come right out of the car’s tailpipe (“Union of Concerned scientists”). This frightening statistic is part of the reason why the federal government has put in place many policies and incentives such as the Clean Air Act, The National Program for greenhouse gas emissions, Catalytic Converter Federal Laws, and incentives of $12,000 in California to get people to upgrade to more fuel-efficient cars. With such programs and incentives put in places, it is also important that car companies such as Toyota and Ford also take action to further cut pollution rates. They have done so by

This book, written by Michael H. Westbrook in 2001, offers a thorough depiction of the current status, history, and the future advancement of electric cars. The Electric and Hybrid Electric Car book analyzes slants in electric auto improvement from a global viewpoint, with numerous illustrations drawing from the creator's own encounters in American and European car commercial ventures. Starting with the experimental revelations that made electric vehicle innovation conceivable at the beginning of the 20th century, author Michael H. Westbrook

2015 was not a banner year for the car manufacturer, Volkswagen. In September, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that many VW cars being sold in America had a “defeat device”- or software-in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance accordingly to improve results (Hotten 1). It was found that the defeat device altered the emissions of the Volkswagen’s diesel engine; the defeat device software had the capability of sensing if it was in a testing situation or driven normally. In the test environment the software would function properly to provide the expected test results and then revert back to unsafe emissions levels. As a result, the EPA issued notice of violation to Volkswagen on September 18, accusing the company of installing a defeat device that caused NOx emissions at 40 times the standard limit (Alter 4). At the time that the EPA violation was levied it was believed that at least 480,000 cars in the United States would be affected by the defeat device.

First, by drawing from Burki’s (2015) article on, I will discuss one of the main factors that gave rise to VW being able to falsify their emission tests and how it can be prevented in the future. Burki noted that the testing system

Legal: Legal action taken by car owners, shareholders and the EPA have the power to fine and sue VW for up to 37, 000.00 dollars per vehicle for breaching environmental standards regarding nitrogen oxide emissions from their vehicles, and a maximum fine of roughly 18 billion dollars may be issued by the EPA (Hotten, 2015). Breaching legal regulations, particularly environmental regulations, set out by government departments will result in poor company reputation as VW will be seen as a significant contributor to environmental issues such as air

The American automotive industry is a massive force, to say the least. The historical impacts of automotive technology and assembly line manufacturing has effected economies around the world and has also created world-wide ecological challenges. Governments, under pressure from environmentalists, have had to realize, create, implement, and constantly refine manufacturing and emission standards. Consumers, who foot the gas bill for vehicles, continue to express their desire for less expensive autos that require less fuel without sacrificing style, comfort, safety, or performance.

Did you know that the “the transportation sector [alone] is responsible for over 50% of NOx total emissions, over 30% of VOCs emissions, and over 20% of PM emissions in the U.S.” (United States Environmental Protection Agency)? Because the effect of these pollutants is not immediately felt, many engineers do not hesitate to bypass these regulations. James Liang is no exception. A recent publication unveiled the truth behind the emission’s release of one of Volkswagen’s models. Unable to design an engine that complied with the US emissions regulations, Volkswagen instead developed a software that would fool the emissions exam. The software was designed so that the vehicle would operate using the appropriate emissions release during the exam

Volkswagen was founded in 1937 but they were known as Gesellschaft zur Vorbereitung des Deutschen Volkswagens mbH. In that same year, they renamed the company to Volkswagenwerk, which stands for “The people’s car company,” (This day in history). Volkswagen was doing great in business and did not have any scandals or issues until the year 2005. Volkswagen started pushing for a diesel line in their industry, but not just any diesel line, they wanted to make cars diesel. They did just that and everything was going great until the May of 2014 when West Virginia University Researchers published a finding of significantly higher in-use emissions in the 2012 and 2013 TDI models (Barrett and Speth, 2015).

In September the world of car industry went upside down when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revealed the car manufacturer company Volkswagen had installed a software on their cars to evade the emission of high pollution during the tests. Volkswagen was proven of violating the United States code title 42 chapter 85 Subchapter I Part A 7412 that specifies that any modification in a product that increases the emission of any air pollutant is considered dangerous and violates the Clean Air Act. Other than Volkswagen more companies are being suspects like Robert Bosch who is believed of being the developer of the device.

The first reason why electric cars are better than gas powered car is that the electric car has less emission. Cars powered by electric motors are energy efficient and can help reduce atmospheric pollution. Here`s a question how much cleaner are battery electric cars compared to gasoline powered cars? To find out the union of concerned scientists study the total global worming emission if each vehicle throughout every stage of its life from manufacturing to driving to disposal and there is big difference. Both cars start on the assembly line with similar parts for gasoline car it produces seven metric tons of emission battery electric cars meanwhile are powered by large battery, which requires more energy and materiel’s to produce bringing its emission up to eight metric tons. But what happens when they hit the road gas powered cars produced pollution with every gallon of gas they burn with even more emission coming from extracting refining and

Since the industrial revolution, the environment has gotten contaminated with carbon dioxide, the product of any combustion reaction. For many years a lot of improvement has been made in order for big industries to release less harmful gases to the atmosphere. Since 2012 the number of electric cars roaming around the world have quadrupled. This growth is linked to subsidies offered by different governments in order to reduce greenhouse gas emission. These cars are popular in many places like Norway, Quebec, and California. Recent ads suggest shifting to these cars due to their “zero emission feature”, since they run on electricity, their engine doesn’t have a combustion reaction and no carbon dioxide gets released. While it’s true that the act of driving one of these cars doesn’t contaminate the environment, there’s other factors to consider for if this transition is really all that beneficial like the media claims.

With billions of dollars invested and hundreds of thousands of Americans employed (Department of Commerce, n.d.), the automobile industry has a vast influence in the United States. Since the time Henry Ford developed the assembly line production (Statista, n.d.) the industry has grown into a global market with no signs of slowing down. Top car companies are constantly searching for new innovations to set them apart from their competitors. Among those companies is Volkswagen (VW). A company which strides in emissions and fuel efficiency turned, not only to be false, but caused a severe amount of damage (Ewing, 2016).

There are more than one billion cars around the world up to date and this number is increasing rapidly because of the demand for them. Most of the cars in the world have big engines right now. Big engines are made of eight cylinder (V8), ten cylinder (V10), or twelve cylinder (V12 / W12). Those types of engines have been used for many years in the car industry. Most of the car manufacturers prefer to use those engines because their customers like them and thinking that more cylinder means more power. For many years, those car manufacturers have not realized one thing that big engines emission rates are actually really important for the environment