New Dutch law allows mass claim against Volkswagen over Dieselgate

DutchNews, March 17, 2020 - By Robin Pascoe 

Photo: Depositphotos.com

A Dutch foundation is taking car maker Volkswagen to court on behalf of 8.5 million car owners to demand compensation for manipulating emissions tests in the Dieselgate scandal. 

The Diesel Emissions Justice Foundation is taking advantage of new legislation in the Netherlands allowing mass claims and giving plaintiffs the right to go to court if the company concerned refuses to reach a settlement. 

Robert Bosch, the company which developed the software used to fiddle the emissions reports, car importer Pon and a number of Dutch car dealers are also named on the legal documents. 

In autumn 2015, Volkswagen admitted that it had sold 11 million cars worldwide with secret ‘defeat device’ software that ensured it would pass emissions tests in a laboratory, while the cars emitted higher levels of pollution on the road. 

‘This law offers access to justice for millions of injured customers, both within and outside the Netherlands,’ said the foundation’s managing director Femke Hendriks in a statement. ‘Volkswagen has rejected our invitation to engage in negotiations, which compels us to go all the way.’ 

The car company’s actions, she said, had caused ‘tremendous harm’ to consumers, the environment and public health. ‘It is time for Volkswagen to be presented with the bill for its fraudulent actions across Europe.’ 

Fines 

Volkswagen has already paid billions in damages and fines as a result of legal proceedings in the US, Australia, Canada and South Korea but has largely escaped in Europe. 

In February the company agreed to pay out €830m to 400,000 drivers following a case brought by German consumer groups. 

‘This is the first time that Volkswagen has taken responsibility for its actions in Europe and is attempting to dispel the past, although only for a small part of affected consumers and for relatively small amounts,’ Hendriks said. 

In 2017, the Dutch consumer and markets association fined Volkswagen €450,000 for ‘unfair commercial practices’ for advertising cars as eco-friendly ‘while the results of emission tests had been manipulated by illegal software.’ 

No basis 

Volkswagen told DutchNews.nl in a reaction that when the case starts, Volkswagen will defend itself, ‘as it believes there is no basis for the compensation of damages or other remedies for consumers in the Netherlands’. 

‘Our customers in the Netherlands have not suffered any loss or damage, as all cars can be used in traffic and are safe,’ the statement said. ‘They are still driven by more than a hundred thousand customers every day. All necessary approvals are valid and in place. For these reasons, we see no legal basis for customer complaints. This new initiative does not change this position.’

Audi to slash 9,500 jobs in Germany by 2025

Yahoo – AFP, Yann SCHREIBER, November 26, 2019

Audi is to shed jobs as it shifts to electric models (AFP Photo/CHRISTOF STACHE)

Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - German luxury carmaker Audi said Tuesday it planned to slash 9,500 jobs in Germany by 2025 as part of a massive overhaul to help finance a costly switch to electric vehicles.

The job cuts will be achieved through an early retirement programme and natural turnover at its two German plants, the company said in a statement.

At the same time, the Volkswagen subsidiary said it would create 2,000 new jobs in the areas of electromobility and digitisation as it pivots to the smarter, cleaner cars of tomorrow.

The shake-up comes as Audi, like other carmakers, grapples with slowing demand in a weaker global economy, tougher pollution rules and the huge investments needed for the battery-powered era.

"In times of upheaval, we are making Audi more agile and more efficient," said CEO Bram Schot.

"This will increase productivity and sustainably strengthen the competitiveness of our German plants."

The remaining roughly 50,000 workers at Audi's Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm factories will have job security until the end of 2029 under the hard-fought deal struck with labour representatives.

"We have reached an important milestone," said Peter Mosch, head of Audi's works council.

"The extension of the employment guarantee is a great success in difficult times."

Audi said the reorganisation would help boost earnings by six billion euros ($6.6 billion) by 2029, keeping the premium brand on track to reach a profit margin of nine to 11 percent.

New CEO

The jobs cull comes after Audi was hit by falling sales, revenues and operating profits over the first nine months of 2019.

But the company is far from alone in feeling the pain from an industry in the throes of transformation and buffeted by the knock-on effects from US-China trade tensions and Brexit uncertainty.

German car parts suppliers Bosch and Continental have themselves announced thousands of job cuts to slash costs, while Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler is reportedly planning to axe 1,100 managerial roles.

Hoping to turn the tide at Audi, the Volkswagen group earlier this month said it had picked former BMW purchasing chief Markus Duesmann to replace Schot as the brand's chief executive from April.

Under Schot, Audi suffered more than other German manufacturers from the introduction last year of strict new emissions testing standards in the European Union, which led to expensive production bottlenecks.

And like its rivals, Audi is spending billions on new technologies, including battery-electric and hybrid vehicles, connectivity and autonomous driving.

But the firm last year also had to pay an 800-million-euro fine over its role in the "dieselgate" scandal.

The saga erupted in 2015 when the Volkswagen group admitted to installing cheating devices in 11 million diesel cars worldwide to dupe regulatory emissions tests.

Audi's engineers are suspected of having helped developed the software used to make cars emit less pollutants under lab testing conditions than on the road.

Volkswagen faces first mammoth diesel lawsuit on home turf

Yahoo – AFP, Yann SCHREIBER, September 30, 2019

Dieselgate is now 'part of the group's history' (AFP Photo/John MACDOUGALL)

Braunschweig (Germany) (AFP) - A case pitting hundreds of thousands of owners of manipulated diesel cars demanding compensation opened against German car behemoth Volkswagen Monday, four years after the country's largest post-war industrial scandal erupted.

Around 450,000 people have joined a first-of-its-kind grouped proceeding, introduced by lawmakers after the "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal broke in 2015.

The first hearing in what is likely to be a grinding, years-long trial began at 10 am (0800 GMT) in Brunswick, around 30 kilometres (19 miles) from VW headquarters in the northern city of Wolfsburg. The second is planned for November 18.

Consumer rights group VZBV, representing the plaintiffs, says the German carmaker deliberately harmed buyers by installing motor control software that allowed vehicles to pollute far more on the road than under lab conditions.

"I would like Volkswagen to reimburse the purchase price" said Andreas Sarcletti, a customer who had made the trip from nearby Hanover, "but I'm worried the trial is going to last a very long time."

Uwe Reinicke, who bought a manipulated vehicle in 2011, said "I don't think it's right, the way Volkswagen treated us."

VW fooled authorities about the real level of harmful emissions from 

its cars (AFP Photo/THOMAS KIENZLE)

"VW ought to finally, properly admit that they lied," he added.

The trial is Germany's largest so far in the tentacular diesel scandal, which last week saw VW chief executive Herbert Diess charged with market manipulation over his role.

50 questions for judges

"Several regional tribunals have already found against Volkswagen" and granted plaintiffs compensation, judge Michael Neef noted as the proceedings opened.

Alongside the grouped proceeding, 61,000 individual lawsuits have been filed in Germany, but Brunswick may not follow those earlier rulings.

Of the around 50 questions about the case judges must decide on, whether Volkswagen "caused harm" by acting "dishonestly" will be "one of the central, difficult questions," Neef added.

"We're confident of our chances, since Volkswagen committed fraud," VZBV lawyer Ralph Sauer told AFP ahead of the hearing.

VW lawyer Martine de Lind van Wijngaarden countered that there was "no harm and no basis to this claim" because "hundreds of thousands of cars are used" on the roads without problem.

A lot of files to get through (AFP Photo/Ronny Hartmann)

Judges said that even if they find there was harm, the amount diesel owners receive in compensation would be based on the present-day market value -- not the original purchase price.

Every owner registered in the trial will have to claim individually, even if the plaintiffs were to win the case.

VW thinks a final judgement could arrive in 2023 at the earliest, if the case is appealed all the way to the Federal Court of Justice.

Individual proceedings could then take at least another year -- in the court of first instance.

By then, the cars' market value will have further eroded, making a buyback cheaper for the firm.

Instead, the judges mentioned the possibility of a settlement, while allowing that such talks "would not be easy" given duplicates and foreign residents on the list of plaintiffs.

The VZBV says it is "open" to an out-of-court settlement but "in that case, VW would have to pay a significant sum after all," Mueller told AFP.

VW for its part finds a mass settlement "hard to imagine".

Most of VW's fines payments have gone to the US (AFP Photo/Geoff Robins)

30 billion euros

Since 2015, when Volkswagen admitted to manipulating 11 million vehicles worldwide to fool emissions tests, the scandal has cost the group over 30 billion euros ($33 billion) in fines, compensation and legal costs.

Most of that sum -- $22 billion -- has gone to the US, while in Germany VW has so far paid just 2.3 billion euros spread across three fines.

Alongside car owners, investors are claiming damages for losses they suffered when the group's share price plummeted after it came clean.

And earlier this week, chief executive Herbert Diess and supervisory board chief Hans Dieter Poetsch were charged with market manipulation.

Former chief executive Martin Winterkorn, who stepped down over the scandal, has been also charged with fraud.

The clouds of scandal still haven't blown away (AFP Photo/Julian Stratenschulte)

Away from the legal battlegrounds, "dieselgate" has sped up the fuel's decline from its status as lower-carbon alternative to petrol, favoured with government subsidies.

In Germany, its market share among new registrations has fallen from 46 to 33 percent. Car bans are also looming in some city centres because of the level of nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions.

The diesel scandal is "part of the group's history" just like the famous Beetle and Golf models, says VW brand chief Ralf Brandstaetter.

"The diesel crisis was a catalyst for our transformation," Brandstaetter told AFP in a recent interview, pointing to VW's 30 billion euro investment in a new electric range to "regain society's respect".

Stripped-back auto show mirrors German car industry gloom

Yahoo – AFP, Yann SCHREIBER, September 8, 2019

Major foreign carmakers are shunning Frankfurt's International Auto Show this 

year, but climate protestors plan to attend (AFP Photo/Odd ANDERSEN)

Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - Frankfurt's biennial International Auto Show (IAA) opens its doors to the public Thursday, but major foreign carmakers are staying away while climate demonstrators march outside -- forming a microcosm of the industry's woes.

"There have never been so many cancellations by carmakers," said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer of the Centre for Automotive Research (CAR).

"The IAA is turning into a trade fair packed with problems," he added, in the image of the German manufacturers who host it.

Giants like Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen are seeing their engineering advantage and profit margins eroded -- even as the global economic outlook darkens.

The potential blow of US tariffs on European auto imports hangs over many carmakers, who have already suffered from an escalating Washington-Beijing trade confrontation due to their American factories.

Meanwhile three of the world's four largest carmakers will stay away from the IAA this year: the French-Japanese Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, Japan's Toyota and US-based General Motors (GM).

Other heavyweights like Italian-American Fiat-Chrysler and France's PSA have also absented themselves, as well as some of the best-known luxury brands.

The remaining manufacturers huddled in Frankfurt's massive trade fair complex have one major priority: stoking enthusiasm for new electric models set for release this year, as new EU carbon emissions limits enter into force from 2020.

Porsche expects well-heeled clients to fork over a hefty sum for its new 

battery-powered Taycan model (AFP Photo/Patrick Pleul)

Pricey targets

If manufacturers cannot squeeze the average carbon dioxide (CO2) output of their fleets below 95 grammes per kilometre, they will be fined a hefty 95 euros ($105) per excess gramme on each car registered.

After years of delay, German manufacturers still lag foreign competitors like California's Tesla on the costly research and development for electric alternatives that can score in the mass market.

Even at the high end, Volkswagen subsidiary Audi has failed to dent Tesla with its e-Tron electric SUV.

And stablemate Porsche is betting buyers will be prepared to fork out a massive premium over the Californian brand's top models for its new battery-powered Taycan.

That makes VW's Frankfurt launch of its ID.3 -- a compact all-electric car that it compares to the legendary Beetle and Golf -- of vital importance, as the tip of the spear in the sprawling conglomerate's 30-billion-euro electric offensive.

The first model based on VW's modular MEB electric platform, ID.3 "is almost critical to survival" for the company, Stefan Bratzel of the Center of Automotive Management told AFP.

"It has to be a success, the shot has to hit home, because a lot is riding on it."

Climate campaigners inspired by Swedish militant Greta Thunberg plan to stage 

major protests at the Frankfurt auto show this year (AFP Photo/Oliver Berg)

Marchers expected

Where big international competitors will be lacking, climate demonstrators are planning to make up the numbers at this year's IAA.

Thousands are expected to hit the streets Saturday, reaching the trade fair on bicycles or on foot, while a blockade is scheduled Sunday amid calls for a "transport revolution".

After taking on coal mining over the summer, the environmentalists are turning their fire on a sector that long seemed untouchable.

As Germany's biggest manufacturing industry employing around 800,000 people, the car sector was also protected through deep connections to traditional political parties.

But the winds are changing in German politics.

Climate change has shot up voters' agenda after a fierce 2018 drought and months of "Fridays for Future" demonstrations by schoolchildren, while the Greens are polling at unprecedented levels and made big gains in this year's European elections.

Meanwhile a years-long diesel emissions cheating scandal rumbles on, as a case by 400,000 car owners against VW over "dieselgate" opens in three weeks' time.

And on September 20, all eyes will be on Chancellor Angela Merkel's beleaguered coalition government in Berlin, as it unveils a comprehensive new climate strategy ahead of a UN summit.

German prosecutors charge ex-VW boss Winterkorn with fraud

Yahoo – AFP, April 15, 2019

German prosecutors say former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn was as
 "guarantor" to authorities and customers that the group was not selling cheating
vehicles "even after he knew about the illegal manipulations" (AFP Photo/Tobias
SCHWARZ)

Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - German prosecutors said Monday they had charged former Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn and four other managers over the group's "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal.

They "are accused of multiple crimes realised in a single criminal action, especially a particularly serious case of fraud and an infraction of the law against unfair competition," the prosecutors said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear whether the other accused -- who were not named -- still work at VW or have since left the company.

Winterkorn has been singled out for his role as a "guarantor" to authorities and customers that the group was not selling cheating vehicles "even after he knew about the illegal manipulations" -- knowledge the prosecutors said he had "from May 25, 2014".

That date was more than a year before VW publicly admitted to fitting 11 million vehicles with software to make them appear less polluting in the lab than in real driving conditions.

"In the end, this resulted in the imposition of higher fines against Volkswagen AG in Germany as well as the USA," the prosecutors said.

As well as failing to inform authorities of the cheating, VW "with the knowledge and approval of Winterkorn" issued a software update in November 2014 whose only purpose was to cover up the so-called "defeat devices" that enabled the cheating, said the statement.

VW shares were little moved by the charges, gaining 0.4 percent to trade at 154 euros around 1:15pm in Frankfurt (1115 GMT), slightly outperforming the DAX blue-chip index.

The Wolfsburg-based group has so far suffered costs of 29 billion euros ($32.8 billion) related to dieselgate, much of it in fines, compensation and buyback schemes in the United States.

In Germany, the group has paid 1.8 billion euros spread over two fines.

Aftershocks from the scandal have been serious enough to change the gigantic firm's course, with bosses now making a massive bet on electrification over the next decade.

But the legacy of dieselgate is still clinging to VW, with hundreds of thousands of customers in Germany bringing cases demanding compensation for their manipulated vehicles.

And investors have opened two court cases against VW and its holding company Porsche SE, saying bosses should have informed markets sooner about the likely financial impact of the cheating.

BMW, Daimler, VW broke antitrust rules, EU says in 'preliminary view'

France24 –AFP, 5 April 2019

Exhaust from cars is a major source of air pollution in urban areas and numerous
cities have enacted or are considering restrictions on driving heavily-polluting
vehicles in city-centres dpa/AFP/File

Brussels (AFP) - The European Union warned German car giants BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen on Friday that a preliminary inquiry has concluded they colluded not to compete on emission control technology.

"As a result, European consumers may have been denied the opportunity to buy cars with the best available technology. The three manufacturers now have an opportunity to respond to our findings," EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said.

The EU Commission has concluded that BMW, Daimler and the VW group -- Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche -- held so-called "circle of five" meetings to rig competition in emissions technology.

This allowed them to limit the introduction of "AdBlue" or urea to diesel engine exhaust gases, reducing its effectiveness as a way to produce cleaner emissions, the statement said.

The firms also -- "in the Commission's preliminary view" -- colluded to avoid or delay introducing OPF particle filters to reduce harmful particles in petrol exhaust fumes.

The findings form the basis of a "statement of objections" to which the firms will have a chance to respond before the Commission decides whether to pursue a case under competition rules banning cartel agreements.

A Damiler spokeswoman told AFP the firm was aware of the report but had already been cooperating with investigators and "does not expect to receive a fine in this matter".

Germany finds truckers cheating to hide emissions

Yahoo – AFP, April 2, 2019

Emissions cheating in trucks is rampant and getting harder to detect (AFP Photo/
Christoph Schmidt)

Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - German authorities have identified hundreds of trucks "manipulated" to save their operators money by shutting off exhaust treatment systems, saying many more cheating vehicles could be at large on Europe's roads.

Of around 13,000 trucks whose "AdBlue" filter system was checked on German roads last year, 300 were "defective", a government answer to a parliamentary question from the Greens party seen Tuesday by AFP showed.

Of 132 such defects spotted since August last year, 84 could be traced back to deliberate manipulation rather than a technical fault, the government added -- a distinction not drawn in statistics collected before then.

Electronic devices available for around 100 euros ($112) allow users to deactivate the exhaust treatment system, allowing some trucking firms to make massive savings, daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) reported after revealing the scheme.

But with their catalytic converters switched off, the trucks spew far more harmful pollutants.

"The fact that we are finding more manipulated systems than faulty ones is an alarm signal," Greens MP Stephan Kuehn said.

With time, "the parts needed for the cheating are becoming smaller and smaller and more sophisticated, and therefore more difficult to find" during spot checks, the government added.

The SZ reported that operators can save up to one-third of the costs of running a truck supposedly meeting the Euro 5 or 6 emissions standard by installing one of the boxes or modifying software -- an even harder-to-detect option.

Devices or software changes can enable cheating in a number of ways.

Some fool the engine control software into thinking the catalytic converter is still working, preventing a warning to the driver or an automatic reduction in performance.

Others produce fake readings for the outside temperature, triggering a system that deactivates exhaust treatment at below -11 Celsius (12.2 Fahrenheit).

Clusters of similar rule-breaking have been identified elsewhere in Europe, especially in Spain.

Without exhaust treatment, trucks emit far more nitrogen oxides (NOx), which studies have shown is linked to various respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

Since Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to cheating emissions tests on 11 million vehicles worldwide, alarm has spread in Germany about levels of the gas in city air.

Federal, state and local governments are battling to prevent drivers of older diesel vehicles being banned from city centres as courts order a growing number of exclusion zones.

Volkswagen to spend 44 bn euros on 'electric offensive'

Yahoo – AFP, Florian MÜLLER with Michelle FITZPATRICK in Frankfurt, November 16, 2018

VW will convert two existing German plants into assembly lines for all-electric
vehicles from 2022 (AFP Photo/Tobias SCHWARZ)

Wolfsburg (Germany) (AFP) - German auto giant Volkswagen said Friday it will invest 44 billion euros by 2023 in the smarter, greener cars of the future as it ramps up efforts to shake off the "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal.

Over the coming five years, VW said it aims to spend "almost 44 billion euros" ($50 billion) on electric, self-driving and connected cars as well as mobility services like car sharing.

The figure represents roughly a third of the group's planned expenditure between now and 2023, and the bulk of it will go on developing e-cars, VW said following a supervisory board meeting on future strategy.

Volkswagen's "electric offensive" underscores just how serious the automaker is about closing the gap with Asian competitors and US tech giant Tesla who have had a head start in the e-car race.

"We want to make Volkswagen the global number one in e-mobility," CEO Herbert Diess told reporters.

"The time has come to take further technology and product decisions to achieve that goal."

The group, whose brands range from luxury Porsche and Audi to the budget-conscious Skoda and Seat, has set itself the ambitious target of offering more than 50 electric models by 2025, up from six today.

It has high hopes in particular for the "affordable", zero-emission Volkswagen ID compact which will have a battery range of 550 kilometres (340 miles) and cost roughly the same as a VW Golf -- in a direct challenge to Tesla's mass-market Model 3.

As part of the new strategy, VW intends to reshuffle some production sites in a bid to boost efficiency and achieve savings by bundling production of different models across brands.

"We are making our plants fit for the future," VW board member Oliver Blume said.

Teaming up with Ford

Two existing German plants will be converted into assembly lines for all-electric vehicles from 2022.

The plant in Emden will specialise in building small electric cars and sedans for several of the group's brands, while the Hanover factory will make the ID Buzz, the clean-energy version of VW's iconic camper van.

VW hopes its clean car drive will help dispel the clouds from 'dieselgate' 

(AFP Photo/VLADIMIR SIMICEK)

In a nod to concerns about job losses, Diess acknowledged that electric motors, which require fewer parts than combustion engines, are "much less complex" to build.

But VW has promised to guarantee jobs at both sites until 2028, focussing instead on phasing out positions by not replacing those who retire.

VW also announced plans to open a new factory at a yet to be determined location in eastern Europe.

Diess additionally confirmed that VW was "currently in talks" on teaming up with US competitor Ford in building light commercial vehicles, which would involve sharing factories.

But he stayed coy on speculation that the cooperation could extend into electric and autonomous car manufacturing.

Diess said partnerships were becoming necessary to achieve cost savings at a time when the industry is undergoing an expensive transformation.

Looking further ahead, VW said it was still "exploring the potential" of manufacturing its own batteries for electric cars as concern grows in Europe about the Asian dominance in battery cell production.

Diesel bans

Volkswagen's pivot towards e-cars has in part been spurred by efforts to shake off its ongoing "dieselgate" scandal.

The group was forced to admit in 2015 that it had installed cheating software in 11 million diesel vehicles designed to dupe pollution tests.

Suspicions of trickery later spread to other carmakers too, badly hurting the industry's reputation.

The saga also fuelled a backlash against diesel, with a string of German cities now facing driving bans for the oldest, most polluting diesel cars.

Faced with increasingly angry drivers, the German government has come under pressure to avoid the bans but its efforts to get carmakers to commit to cleaning up engines have had limited success.

The "dieselgate" fallout has so far cost VW more than 28 billion euros in fines, buybacks and compensation and the company remains mired in legal woes around the world.

Nevertheless customers have remained loyal, helping Volkswagen to record sales last year.

The group said last month it was on track to beat last year's revenues of 231 billion euros.

Porsche first German carmaker to abandon diesel engines

Yahoo – AFP, 23 September 2018

There'll be no Porsche diesels in the future, CEO Oliver Blume says. Instead,
the German company will focus on "powerful petrol, hybrid and, from 2019, purely
electric vehicles"

Sports car maker Porsche said Sunday it would become the first German auto giant to abandon the diesel engine, reacting to parent company Volkswagen's emissions cheating scandal and resulting urban driving bans.

"There won't be any Porsche diesels in the future," CEO Oliver Blume told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

Instead, the company would concentrate on what he called its core strength, "powerful petrol, hybrid and, from 2019, purely electric vehicles".

The Porsche chief conceded the step was a result of the three-year-old "dieselgate" scandal at auto giant Volkswagen, the group to which the luxury sports car brand belongs.

VW in 2015 admitted to US regulators to having installed so-called "defeat devices" in 11 million cars worldwide to dupe emissions tests.

It has so far paid out more than 27 billion euros in fines, vehicle buybacks, recalls and legal costs and remains mired in legal woes at home and abroad.

Diesel car sales have dropped sharply as several German cities have banned them to bring down air pollution -- a trend that Chancellor Angela Merkel was due to discuss with car company chiefs in Berlin later Sunday.

Stuttgart-based Porsche in February stopped taking orders for diesel models, which it had sold for nearly a decade.

Porsche's move out of diesel enjoys follows the three-year-old "dieselgate" scandal at 

auto giant Volkswagen, the German group to which the luxury sports car brand belongs

Blume said Porsche had "never developed and produced diesel engines", having used Audi motors, yet the image of the brand had suffered.

"The diesel crisis has caused us a lot of trouble," he said, months after Germany's Federal Transport Authority ordered the recall of nearly 60,000 Porsche SUVs in Europe.

Blume promised that the company would keep servicing diesel models on the road now.

According to the paper, Porsche also faces claims of having manipulated engines to produce a more powerful sound with a technique that was deactivated during testing.

Blume acknowledged that German regulators had found irregularities in the 8-cylinder Cayenne EU5, affecting some 13,500 units.

Merkel, Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer and heads of German auto companies were due to meet in Berlin later Sunday to discuss steps to avoid more city driving bans.

The German government hopes to see one million fully electric and hybrid vehicles on the road by 2022, up from fewer than 100,000 at the start of this year.

After years watching Tesla's electric cars speed ahead while they have been on the defensive over an industry-wide diesel emissions scandal, German high-end manufacturers have finally unveiled their first challengers to the Californian upstart https://t.co/11uuHMpZTj

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 23, 2018

Air pollution linked to higher risk of dementia: study

Yahoo – AFP, September 19, 2018

Chemicals cast off by tail-pipe pollution such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and soot are
known to boost the risk for heart disease, stroke and respiratory problems (AFP
Photo/Ina Fassbender)

Paris (AFP) - Urban air pollution, mostly from vehicles, is associated with an increased risk of dementia, according to research published Wednesday.

The link remained even after heavy drinking, smoking and other well established risk factors for dementia were ruled out, the researchers reported in medical journal BMJ Open.

Worldwide, about seven percent of people over 65 suffer from Alzheimer's or some form of dementia, a percentage that rises to 40 percent above the age of 85.

The number afflicted worldwide is expected to nearly triple by 2050, posing a huge challenge to healthcare systems.

"Primary prevention of all dementia is a major global public health concern for the coming decades," the researchers wrote.

Chemicals cast off by tailpipe pollution such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and soot are known to boost the risk for heart disease, stroke and respiratory problems, especially asthma.

But whether they also make Alzheimer's and other kinds of dementia more likely has remained unclear.

To find out more, a team of researchers led by Iain Carey of the University of London's Population Health Research Institute combed through health records for 131,000 people living in Greater London who, in 2004, were aged 50 to 79.

None showed signs of dementia when the study began.

Based on residential addresses, the scientists estimated yearly exposure to both NO2 and fine particulates known as PM2.5, and then tracked the health of the participants over a seven-year period.

During that time, nearly 2,200 patients -- 1.7 percent of the total -- were diagnosed with dementia.

The fifth of these patients living in the most heavily polluted areas were 40 percent more likely to be afflicted than the fifth residing in areas with the least NO2 and PM2.5.

Public health gains

Because the study was based on after-the-fact analysis rather than a clinical trial in an experimental setting, no firm conclusions can be drawn as to cause-and-effect, the authors cautioned.

But the findings strongly suggest that the chemical byproducts of burning diesel and petrol can damage brain function.

"Traffic-related air pollution has been linked to poorer cognitive development in young children," the study noted.

And even if the impact of air pollution remains relatively modest, they added, "the public health gains would be significant if it emerged that curbing exposure might delay progression of dementia."

The study was welcomed by experts who reviewed it before publication.

"There is a growing body of evidence of the link between air pollution and brain health, including dementia and Alzheimer's," said Martie Van Tongeren, a professor of occupational and environmental health at the University of Manchester.

"This adds to it."

Kevin McConway of the Open University praised the study but noted that it only estimated exposure to pollutants at home, and did not account for NO2 and PM2.5 levels at or near places of work, or the amount of time spent away from home.

In September 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency revealed that German car manufacturer VW has installed so-called "defeat devices" in its cars to cheat in emissions tests.

The European Environment Agency estimates that more than 400,000 people in Europe's urban areas die prematurely every year due to outdoor air pollution.

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“..  The Biggest Filter that Hinders Truth is Your Biased Knowledge

The biggest filter of humanity, the one that keeps Humans from actual truth, believe it or not, is called knowledge. We speak of that which humanity perceives currently as knowledge. That which you do not know is, therefore, future knowledge. Now, every single scientist understands the difference - every single one - for they know what is coming is going to teach them what they don't know yet. This is part of the scientific process. Even so, they take what they know, or think they know, and completely let it temper the experiments for what they don't know. They base the future on what they know or believe, even though they know better!

A medical doctor will look in the past and he'll remember being taught about a time when humans would report to the barbershop for healing. That's when they would actually bleed people for healing. By the way, that's the reason for the barber pole having the red stripe on it - it's the tradition of barbers doing the bleeding. So back then, you went to get healed in the barbershop by being bled! This, of course, led to many deaths because there was no understanding of germs, sterilization or today's common sense. Doctors know this, and they laugh at how far you all have come from this. So doctors absolutely know that what is coming will someday be actually laughable, yet they are also absolutely and completely closed to what it might be. They just think it will be an advancement of what they currently know.  ….”

“..  Medicine - Where It's Going

I want to show you some other areas to consider. There are several categories that we'd like to talk about, but they're not in a specific order except for the last one. So let's talk about medicine. What is future medicine going to look like?

The most elegant predictions of medicine fall short of what's really coming. What you have today is a high-tech approach to designer chemistry. Now, since the body is made up of chemistry, it makes sense to look at this chemistry and work with it. It makes total sense to discover how it reacts to disease and then design cures with more chemistry. It's absolutely normal what you have done, but it's going to reach an end very soon. Because the future of medicine is physics, dear ones, not chemistry.

You're going to start understanding and developing new medical physics. You will discover that medi-physics is going to literally speak to cellular structure and give it instructions, without one chemical involved. There's always a reaction to chemistry, isn't there? There's always a side effect. When you push one thing, something else reacts, doesn't it? How do you like it so far? Your most elegant chemical designs, the ones that are helping with the worst diseases on the planet, all have side effects - and some of those side effects are death! I say to you, how do you like it so far?

Does it really seem elegant to you? Or perhaps it's just a more sophisticated way of bleeding in the barbershop? Dear ones, that's how you're going to look at it someday! You're going to slap your heads and say, "Remember the day when we did everything with chemistry and drugs?"

Right now, these kinds of changes have already started in several areas. There are discoveries being made that are healing some of the most heart-breaking diseases you have. I reveal one, because it's not a secret. I will always give you information that is either being worked on or has been postulated through free choice on this planet. That is the guideline of channelling. We can't give it to you. You've got to develop it yourself. However, we can put you in an energy that has a faster discovery potential - that is to say, discoveries become more obvious.

Alzheimer's is heart breaking. There are millions on this planet who develop this condition, more all the time. You're living longer and a plaque-like material that literally obfuscates your memory within the brain is becoming more common. It clings to certain parts of your brain, encrusting and restricting it, imprisoning the Human's ability to remember and eventually process information at all. The result is death, slow death. It's caused by your environment, a fact which will be discovered eventually. Your long-lived Ancients didn't have it.

It's going to be cured with physics. Your science is starting to find out that the plaque-like substance has a resonance that allows it to be weakened with sound. High-frequency sound, tuned to a certain frequency and amplitude, will cause the sheaths to weaken, dissolve, and come off. There's a lot of research to do yet, but it's a Eureka! moment - realizing that physics alone, without chemistry, can change the structure of biology. This is with no side effects whatsoever. It's coming, it's coming.

There are those working with fresh umbilical cord stem cells right now who are using pure physics to guide the stem cells to a specific destination in the body in order to repair failing systems. Dear ones, the future of health and healing is not through better chemistry, yet medicine is still waiting for better pills! Did you connect the dots and realize that all biology is physics based? There is magnetics, leverage, the energy of consciousness, electricity and much more within cellular structure. With physics alone, you can "tune in" to disease and destroy it! You can fine-tune your system with cooperative resonances and extend life with benevolent, physical assistance. Sixteen years ago, I told you this when I spoke of the Temple of Rejuvenation. I described the super-cooling needed to do it and the temperatures needed to work with it (-55C). This is physics!

Now, the false expectation of greater chemistry for the future is totally caused from the filter of knowledge. What you have and know then gives you your expectation of what is going to take place. It literally blocks you from seeing some of the potentials that you may have.  ….”