Q.Volkswagen's quick fix to control its diesel emissions

Volkswagen has reportedly agreed to pay a compensation/fine somewhere in the whereabouts of $10 billion to settle claims with its customers in the US. If this deal is accepted by US authorities, then VW will have to compensate each customer affected by the ‘Dieselgate’ scam between $1,000 to $7,000 depending the car’s date of manufacturing and other ‘factors’. The average compensation for each customer is estimated at $5,000 and VW may have to buy back the affected cars too (close to 5 lakh cars were reported to be affected by the scam). In addition, VW has agreed to pay $4 billion towards damages to the environment that their diesel cars caused to the US. The German automaker is facing similar allegations in other countries too and would have to deal with them separately which could cost the company a fortune. The final hearing of the said settlement will take place in a US court on July 26, 2016. Watch this space to find out how much this deal will affect VW’s fortunes around the world.

Anant Geete, minister for heavy industries and public enterprises, recently said Volkswagen cars sold in India exceeded the permissible emission level by nine times. The minister said that the road transport ministry will take necessary steps and could even penalise VW for the violation. The violation was not found during testing at the factory, but while testing it on road, added Geete. He also claimed that the German car maker has accepted using a similar cheat device on the Indian models like the one used in the international models to manipulate the emissions test results. From where I stand, it looks like Volkswagen will take some time to recover and get out of this soup.

After facing flak worldwide for cheating on diesel emissions and being the butt of many jokes and memes, like the one below, Volkswagen claims to have come up with a quick fix for its range of diesel engines. This "fix" will cover the 1.6 litre and 2.0 litre four-cylinder diesel engines from the EA189 engine family. However, this only covers cars in Europe and is not yet applicable to cars in the US. It also does not apply to the smaller 1.2 litre diesel engines. VW Emissions meme: [ATTACH=CONFIG]n1265[/ATTACH] The fix, according to Volkswagen is pretty simple for the 2.0 litre diesel engine, as it involves only a software update and will take less than 30 minutes. For the 1.6 litre diesel, in addition to the software update, there's also what Volkswagen calls a "flow straightener" device, which is basically a straight meshed pipe ahead of the air mass flow sensor, placed between the air filter and the air mass flow sensor. This pipe evens out the air flow from the air filter to the air mass flow sensor, leading to more accurate measurement and therefore better metering of fuel. This will in turn reduce NOx levels. Fitting this takes only an hour and hence will not be that inconvenient to customers. VW vehicles will pass EU emission norms after this fix apparently. Here's a video on what the fix looks like: (right click & open in a new tab, in case it doesn't auto play) [video=youtube_share;jKN8danpIfE]https://youtu.be/jKN8danpIfE[/video]