VWSA should distance itself from article

ON MONDAY, October 5, The Star carried a front page item entitled “No recalls in SA, says VW” by Henri du Plessis, following a flood of reports about Volkswagen’s (VW) cheating software debacle that is plunging the mighty, once so highly-regarded firm, into enormous expenses and fines, serious loss of reputation, the resignation of its chief executive and recall of possibly millions of vehicles. VWSA now sees its plan for a major expansion of its local manufacturing base in jeopardy, due to “severe financial pressure and big drop in sales”.

In a clear attempt to assuage and reassure the local market, the firm said none of its vehicles sold locally “failed to comply with the national regulator’s local emissions requirements and that it would not be required to apply a recall here”.

The requirements correspond to the EU2 standard as opposed to the stricter EU5 one, which applies to many other countries. To clarify: this allows local diesel-engined vehicles to emit nitrogen oxides at more than three times the level allowed elsewhere. “There is, therefore, no action required on either the part of the customer or our dealers”. The issue that is sidestepped in these pronouncements is the very reason for the huge international VWdebacle: the firm’s modifications to its engine management software – and probably hardware too – to cheat in testing.

A few days later VW has admitted that 11 million vehicles worldwide were fitted with software to cheat emissions tests since 2009. It therefore seems more than likely that such vehicles are on the road and being sold in South Africa. Now it is clear that to meet local standards the vehicles in question would probably have passed, even without the offending modifications.

Would it not be far better for its image if VWSA were to put its cards on the table, openly announce the actual state of affairs and offer those owners who would feel aggrieved driving their otherwise compliant cars, albeit with the offending software, to have it removed at no cost? Probably, many would not even bother.

In any case, it would be a far better public relations exercise than the witch hunt its parent body management now says it is conducting on its lower-ranking officials to find out who was to blame for the software modifications, methods all too familiar to South Africans in their ruling party.

The very next day Keith Bryer (“VW is not the emissions monster of press design”, Business Report, October 6) made his own contribution to the damage control. But he does his cause no favours by the stream of factual clangers, downright scientific nonsense and jeering put-downs he delivers.

These are no less than an insult to the intelligence of his business readers that leave one wondering about the level of subediting in the paper. Where to begin?

Bryer focuses on nitrous oxide, only one of a host of vehicle exhaust emission products, many of them toxic. To stress his opinion about what he regards as the ridiculously low levels demanded by law, he states that only a teaspoonful – please note: of a gas (!) – is allowed per 167km driving. Also known as laughing gas, odourless and used as a mild anaesthetic, he invokes the zero hazard of a running athlete breathing pure motor car exhausts emissions producing no more than a giggle. Bryer reckons that being “lighter-than-air… it dissipates, so we can safely say that the pristine lungs of Californians are in safe hands”. A very neat reductio ad absurdum of the entire concern about pollution? A few words of sober science. High pressures and temperatures in engines produce, among other toxins, various nitrogen oxides. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) combines with air moisture to form nitric acid, acid rain and with airborne hydrocarbons photochemical smog that poisons city dwellers. Another is nitrous oxide (N2O) “laughing gas” in medical use gives rise to nitric oxide (NOx) in the air that reacts with ozone. Additionally, N2O is a major greenhouse gas 300 times more warming than carbon dioxide.

As to Bryer’s deeply insulting remark about Californians’ “pristine lungs” let us recall that California in the 1950s was facing health and environment damaging urban smogs as bad as occur in present-day Beijing. For decades it had to battle against the vested interest juggernaut of the vehicle industry to gain the simple acceptance of exhaust fumes being a major cause. It has striven ever since to set ever higher standards with a goal to have an emissionfree transport system.

To this day, California’s geography produces windless inversion conditions that trap smog and pollutants close to the ground. Every mitigation measure needs to be taken. To discover that a car manufacturer tried to pull the wool over their eyes just to break into their market must be deeply angering.

Enough about this and the rest of what Bryer has dished up. Suffice it to remark that in order to maintain any vestige of prestige in this country, VWSA should firmly distance itself from this disgraceful piece and rather practice complete transparency. A final word. Surely the role of the press is to inform and cast a critical journalistic eye rather than allowing its pages to be used to cover up corporate misdemeanors.

BALT VERHAGEN, BRAMLEY

The role of the press is to inform and cast a critical journalistic eye rather than allowing its pages to be used to cover up corporate misdemeanors.