AD #1719 – Is VW Underreporting Claims?, Audi Intros Bi-Fuel A4, ICE Has Room to Grow
October 9th, 2015 at 11:47am
Runtime: 7:17
- Is VW Underreporting Claims?
- Chevy Makes It Easier To Get To Bed
- Audi Introduces Bi-Fuel Car
- Toyota Makes Breakfast with a Racecar
- ICE Has Room to Grow
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On today’s show…the internal combustion engine isn’t dead yet, is VW underreporting death and injury claims to NHTSA? and Toyota’s Le Mans racecar can make you breakfast. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.
This is Autoline Daily for October 9th, 2015.
IS VW UNDERREPORTING CLAIMS?
Earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration fined Honda $70 million for underreporting death and injury claims. And just last month FCA acknowledged it did the same. And now some are wondering if VW is also underreporting claims to NHTSA. A new study from financial advisory firm Stout Risius Ross shows that over the last decade VW reported the lowest rate of claims among the 11 largest automakers in the U.S. It’s so low that many experts think it’s too good to be true. The report compared the number of incidents reported by automakers with the number of vehicles sold by each carmaker that were estimated to still be on the road. It was then converted into a ratio of death and injury reports per million vehicles on the road. That way it’s a fair comparison between large and small automakers. GM had the highest rate at 524 incidents per million vehicles. The average was 301 per million but VW was at just 34 per million. That’s well below FCA and Honda’s rates which were at 101 and 78 per million respectively. And as we just mentioned they admitted to underreporting claims. So far VW has declined to comment on the report. Maybe there’s an explanation but the numbers don’t look good.
CHEVY MAKES IT EASIER TO GET TO BED
Chevy added a clever feature to the current Silverado when it was introduced a few years back. It has notches on the back bumper to make it easier to get up to the bed. While they weren’t the first to do it, the feature has been a hit with customers. And now the updated Silverado is available with another simple but clever feature. High Country models can be equipped with power articulating running boards that swing towards the rear to help with access to the bed. Unlike Ford’s hands-free liftgate that uses a motion sensor, the running board is activated by pushing a button on it with your hand or foot. You have to have the key fob on you for it to work, so you don’t need to worry about anyone horsing around with it.
And we’ll be back with more right after this.
AUDI INTRODUCES BI-FUEL CAR
By now I’m sure most of us have heard of Audi’s electrified e-tron models, but now the automaker is looking to come out with a g-tron model. The “g” stands for gas because this bi-fuel vehicle can run on both natural gas and Audi e-gas, which is a synthetic natural gas, as well as regular gasoline. The turbocharged 2.0L 4-cylinder engine has specially modified pistons and valves and there’s also a controller that reduces high gas pressure coming from the tank down to a workable pressure for the engine. The A4 Avant, which gets this setup, has a range of 500-kilometers or about 310-miles on natural gas and an additional 450-kilometers or about 280-miles on gasoline. Hmmm, funny how if you add that up, it’s nearly identical to the range of a TDI model. We’ll have to wait for pricing announcements until its scheduled launch in late 2016, but most CNG conversions for light-trucks cost around $5,000 – $7,500, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see the same for the Audi.
TOYOTA MAKES BREAKFAST WITH A RACECAR
Some of the best things in life are completely unexpected and based on a video Toyota released the other day, a group of people just got the breakfast of a lifetime. As you may know, the regenerative braking systems in today’s race cars can produce an awful lot of energy. Well, it turns out if you pump that energy into coffee makers, toasters and hot plates rather than the car, you can feed a whole bunch of people breakfast. In one lap of Le Mans, Toyota’s LMP1 car produces about 6,000,000 Joules of energy, which is enough to make 171-cups of coffee, 83-slices of toast and 57-fried eggs. Really the only thing missing were some strips of bacon.
Coming up next, a look at why automakers can meet fuel economy standards without electric vehicles.
ICE HAS ROOM TO GROW
In order to meet fuel economy standards many automakers are turning to hybrid and electric vehicles. But Mary Ann Wright, who’s in charge of engineering and product development at Johnson Controls, told us on Autoline This Week, automakers can meet regulations in the U.S. without building electrified vehicles.
(The ATW preview is only available in the video version of today’s show.)
There’s a lot more great info about hybrids, especially mild hybrids, in that show. And you can watch that entire interview right now on our website.
But that wraps up today’s show, thanks for watching and have a great weekend.
Thanks to our partner for embedding Autoline Daily on its website: WardsAuto.com
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Comments (51)
October 9th, 2015 at 12:19 pm
the power running boards are great on my Avalanche … until they get full of salt and road crap and then they stop working, not so great.
October 9th, 2015 at 12:35 pm
Why doesn’t VW just set the computer on their diesels to run all the time in the test mode and they would be in compliance ????
October 9th, 2015 at 12:37 pm
Ah, the timing of it all. This is the last kind of report VW wants out in the media right now. How many, though, will try to insist that VW’s cheating scandal gives rise to suspicion that the number of incidents per million is artificially low? Even absent the cheating it sounds suspect, but I think the cheating will add fuel to the fire for some.
October 9th, 2015 at 12:47 pm
The Toyota Makes Breakfast with a Racecar is just plain dumb!
October 9th, 2015 at 12:50 pm
vw reporting
When I go to the Bloomberg piece I see that while vw may be very low, Honda and Nissan are also very low compared to the average. Meanwhile GM, Toyota and BMW are almost double the average. The uncalled for joke would be that vws spend most of their time in the shop rather than on the roads like Toyotas. But it is a wide range of results across the carcos and you could question a lot of the numbers; like why is Ford’s score half of GM’s? I’m thinking there’s a methodology issue.
October 9th, 2015 at 1:00 pm
Subaru is really focusing on what the consumer wants and needs out of a affordable everyday vehicle. The Viziv Concept in the attached clip needs to be the styling / design language incorporated into future Subaru’s. I could see a Large Viziv as a Tribeca replacement and a regular size Viziv as the next generation Forester.
I attempted to include this link in my comment yesterday without success. I am trying again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Kvk_2lazwg
October 9th, 2015 at 1:00 pm
The results are also based on estimates of cars still on the road, beginning in 2005. So maybe older vws just don’t last so long.
Also, Nissan says they’re in compliance.
October 9th, 2015 at 1:12 pm
I just watched Autoline This Week,Mary ann Wright was one of the best speakers you’ve had in a while.She has so much interesting information about where everything is going,especially ICE.Fascinating.I had no idea how far the engineers have come as far as integrating various technologies etc.Great show John,thanks.
ps: the show was too short.It indeed flew by and leaves me wanting more.Get her back as soon as you can please.
October 9th, 2015 at 2:01 pm
Toyota may be able to make b-fast with regenerative braking, but can’t seem to want to make their own small car for the US market, instead they have to buy someone else’s product and put a Scion emblem on it
October 9th, 2015 at 2:34 pm
4.
Perhaps. But so was this (at the time), but it worked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeY3RdLFbhE
October 9th, 2015 at 3:13 pm
5 I agree that there almost has to be a methodology difference. I might expect GM to be high, given all of the ratty, and probably ill-maintained 80′s and early 90′s GM cars and S10′s I see, but why is Nissan so low? Do their cars, like VWs, not survive to get in that state? There can’t be that much difference.
October 9th, 2015 at 3:30 pm
CR put out a video of a test they did with the “cheat” VW Diesels and when driving with the cheat code on, it got slightly worse mileage and slower acceleration.
October 9th, 2015 at 3:52 pm
12.
Did they quantify how much worse mileage? New 0-60 time?
October 9th, 2015 at 3:56 pm
It’s a pretty small difference. Like going from 50mph to 46. But if you consider the extra cost of a diesel, maybe buyers wouldn’t be interested. I still want to know if there’s a durability issue that actually motivated the cheat. I read somewhere that the fix from vw will make the cars hit their rated mileage rather than exceeding it. I don’t know if people can sue because performance is slightly degraded. Does a court and jury care if the car is less peppy?
October 9th, 2015 at 3:57 pm
btw, I subscribe to CR on YT, which is why I saw the vid.
Let’s see if there’s anymore Friday afternoon news dumps.
October 9th, 2015 at 4:05 pm
12 yes they did, it’s not much. but it does minimize the “advantage” of operating a Diesel vs a gas engine.
October 9th, 2015 at 4:09 pm
The VW salesman has replaced the Maytag repairman as the loneliest man in town.
October 9th, 2015 at 4:11 pm
BTW, I have not seen any more local TV ads for area VW dealers, they used to run ads all the time on daytime TV shows.
October 9th, 2015 at 4:14 pm
12 Was the test of a TDI with, or without the urea injection? Pre-2015 Golf and Jetta are “without.” Other 2.0 TDI’s are “with.”
October 9th, 2015 at 4:15 pm
18 Those ads get paid for by the OE. So maybe vw is redirecting some of that money and giving directly to the dealers?
Don’t expect me to watch the local news to do my own research, please. Man, lots of car ads over there.
October 9th, 2015 at 4:16 pm
Here’s the link to CR’s vid,…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUPnAA_Y3XI
October 9th, 2015 at 4:16 pm
I really like the idea of GM’s running board moving to the rear to access the bed.
October 9th, 2015 at 4:18 pm
21 Tnx, HtG. I couldn’t find it by searching CR’s web site.
October 9th, 2015 at 4:26 pm
It was on Youtube, that is where I watch all the CR videos.
October 9th, 2015 at 4:29 pm
It looks like they tested both. I’m surprised that the difference was as small as it was, expecially with the 2011 car w/o urea. Still, the 8% drop in fuel economy would quite likely make me buy the 1.8t gasser rather than the TDI, if I were buying one of the cars.
October 9th, 2015 at 4:33 pm
Do you think this difference was enough to motivate the cheat at vw? CR wasn’t testing for what happens to the cars over many miles in cheatmode. Also, extra urea would cost owners more money.
October 9th, 2015 at 4:35 pm
All this should allow Toyota to sell even more Prii, the true mileage champion.
October 9th, 2015 at 4:38 pm
It seems to me that there is “more to the story” than just mpg and acceleration times. I’m wondering if the longevity is compromised in cheat mode, due to using more EGR, or something. There doesn’t seem to be enough difference in performance or mpg to take the risk of doing what they did. Yeah, the new ones might use more urea too, increasing operating cost.
October 9th, 2015 at 6:14 pm
When the VW first broke,I posted a comment where I stated that MAYBE vw did this because the emissions equipment isn’t up to operate 100% duty cycle,and I still believe that.They made it to turn on when being tested,and turned off when on the road.That way they made to system for dirt cheap,and of course would last forever because it wasn’t used.Jmho and I’m still sticking with it…
October 9th, 2015 at 6:49 pm
I still haven’t heard what is actually happening during cheat mode in the pre-2015 Golf/Jetta, but it must involve EGR. Has anyone heard the details?
October 9th, 2015 at 9:45 pm
VW underreporting to NHTSA? Seems opportunistic to me to pile on with this. There is not enough information about methodology, also GM and Toyota being higher and nearly equal, very interesting. There is so much at play here. Demographics is just one thing. VW has the youngest driver profile, and Toyota and GM the oldest, just to think of one.
October 9th, 2015 at 10:08 pm
Forget VW on the death and injury thing. Does Toyota have 5 times as many deaths and injuries per car as Honda and Nissan? I don’t think so. There are major inconsistancies in the reporting methodology here.
October 9th, 2015 at 10:42 pm
30 – Agree EGR and those are LNT so doesn’t LNT need occasional slug of unburned HC to regen the cat’s active NOx conversion sites? Less slugs of enrichment per trip would yield better mpg, no performance effect though.
October 10th, 2015 at 11:55 am
Off topic, but related to recent discussions we’ve had about car color, or lack thereof. I just ran across a 1964 Plymouth brochure, and the paint choices include three blues, two turqoises, and two tans, along with red, white, black, etc. There are 30-some interior choices, with colors including blues, turquoises, red, tan, copper, black, and white. You have to buy a Rolls-Royce to get that kind of choice now.
October 10th, 2015 at 12:23 pm
CR story on TDI’s with emissions active. Very interesting that the difference especially with SCA is so close. Makes one wonder why VW would do this on purpose, and makes me consider the possibility that perhaps this wasn’t intentional fraud, but more likely negligent oversight. This by no means provides and excuse!
To the comments that the 1.8T would be too close to the TDI in fuel economy was the intentional motivation of VW: This makes no sense either. In real world data, using fuelly.com information there is around a 42% difference between the fuel economy of the TDI Jetta and the 1.8T Jetta. That’s a significant difference, even knocking it down 8% in worst case scenario with the emissions fully functional, it would still be 34%.
This whole mess is a disaster for VW, but the worst part of the disaster is probably the way VW is handling it. A letter to owners went out nearly two-weeks later, that should have happened within two days, just as one example.
October 10th, 2015 at 12:30 pm
To the information about Mazda not bringing the diesel to the US market, brought forward in the Auto Insight live segment on this discussion: There is no information to suggest that it was due to emissions issues. In fact, everything about Mazda’s diesel would seem to indicate it should work just fine. Rather the issue was in order to make it work just fine without SCA, Mazda lowered the compression ratio to such a degree, that the efficiency of the engine had dropped the MPG to within about 4-6 MPG of the SkyActive gas engine equipped Mazda 6. So, there seemed to be no reason for it. As I recall the compression ratio of the Mazda diesel and the gasoline SkyActive engine are identical at 13.5:1
October 10th, 2015 at 1:04 pm
@ #29 I believe G.A. may be correct. If I remember correctly part of the EPA testing required the engine be tested for the equivalent of 100,000 miles and that requirement may have increased. If an OEM has rigged the engine you can save money by using cheaper parts.
October 10th, 2015 at 1:06 pm
I thought lowering the compression in a diesel would result in lower ignition temps and therefore less NOx. It’s not like I’m an SAE freemason commando though.
October 10th, 2015 at 1:10 pm
37 I calculated roughly that it takes about ten weeks to drive 100K if you go 70mph 20hrs per day. But we don’t know if vw is going to have to re-certify the cars.
October 10th, 2015 at 2:03 pm
#38, precisely correct. Mazda used lower compression to handle NOx, but it comes at the cost of performance which in turn has a negative effect on MPG. The end result was that the diesel lost that 30+% percent efficiency advantage over the gasoline SkyActive engine.
October 10th, 2015 at 2:40 pm
35 It sounds like TDI drivers posting on fuelly.com are hypermiling, and 1.8t drivers are not. Both the EPA numbers and CR’s test results are much closer than 42%.
October 10th, 2015 at 10:36 pm
41, 35 I just checked fuelly, and what I found is that the 2.0 TDI has about 33% better reported mileage than the current 1.8t. Anyway, it’s an interesting site, and I just signed up.
I looked up two of my cars, for which I have significant date, a 2010 Prius and a 2010 base MINI. My mileage with the Prius is very close to fuelly’s, ~47 mpg, but I do significantly better with the MINI. I got about 37 mpg for the last 10K miles with my MINI, but fuelly reports 31.6 for the same car.
October 11th, 2015 at 6:14 am
Sochi on BBC
It looks like it’s already Halloween on BBC coverage. Just what are Eddie and Suzy’s stylists going for? DC will carry on
Truly though, that’s an autocross track, not an F1 circuit.
October 11th, 2015 at 8:58 am
Rosberg isn’t having much luck with has gas pedals.
October 11th, 2015 at 2:49 pm
@ Kit: ?
October 11th, 2015 at 3:10 pm
Nico Rosberg has dropped out of not one, but two Grands Prix because of problems with his drive-by-wire gas pedal, or related hardware/software.
October 11th, 2015 at 3:54 pm
Looks like Lewis has a substantial lead for the F1 driver title – and Mercedes may have the constructor’s title all sewn up too. Have not calculated it all out but I don’t think is is possible for Ferrari to catch up with only about four races remaining
October 11th, 2015 at 4:13 pm
I just checked the standings, and was surprised to see that Rosberg is now 3rd, 7 points behind Vettel.
It looks like Ferrari and Mercedes would be tied in constructors points if Ferrari got first and second in the last four races, and Mercedes got zero points. Merc should be pretty safe.
October 11th, 2015 at 4:29 pm
Merc took the title today when Kimi was penalized 30 seconds for punting Bottas off the track. It cost Ferrari the three points Merc needed to take an insurmountable lead. Second year in a row Merc clinches the Constructors in Sochi. Hard day for Rosberg; I even feel sympathy for him, the tool.(hate that guy)
October 11th, 2015 at 4:33 pm
True F1 aficionados will be asking what special event Lewis has planned for Roscoe when the inevitable driver’s crown is secured for 2015.
https://www.google.com/search?q=lewis+hamilton%27s+dog&rlz=1CAZZAC_enUS659US659&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CB0QsARqFQoTCK6G0aahu8gCFcVyPgodbwsCyg&biw=1366&bih=633
October 11th, 2015 at 6:08 pm
Does Roscoe like expensive champagne?