Dieselgate – A year later (33c3)

33c3 preroll music

applause

Herald: So, has anyone of you heard of
Rolling Coal? It's a mostly American

phenomenon of modifying your car in such a
way as to maximize the emissions so they

are visible as a big black cloud of smoke.
Apparently I heard that VW cars are now

very popular among the friends of Rolling
Coal. But let's not joke so much and focus

on the topic at hand. Daniel Lange has the
mission to stop the omissions of emissions

at VW. He spoke to hundreds
of people since...

laughter
applause

Last year he also gave a talk together
with a colleague about the same topic and

since then he has spoken to hundreds of
people and has gained some new insides

that he will now share with us. I welcome
you to Dieselgate—one year later.

applause

Daniel Lange: Thanks very much. Can you
hear me? Okay. Wonderful. Thank you very

much. A very quick announcement: The talk
will be about 40 minutes, so if you have

to leave after 30 minutes because you have
a dinner appointment or something like

that, please do so quietly. I was really
unable to reduce the slides down much

further without taking all the jokes away.
So, my name is Daniel Lange. I have worked

on the Dieselgate stuff on and off over
the last year because I worked with press,

so I worked with litigation people. And
last year I was here because I felt that

this Volkswagen notion of there being this
“rogue group of engineers” was so

utterly wrong, and everybody in the
automotive industry actually knows this,

that I just felt I had to speak up. And I
don't know why, but they kind of keep

motivating me to come back and point out
their lies, so that's actually what I'm

going to do. I myself have worked for 16
years in the automotive industry. 14 years

of that at a Bavarian manufacturer that's
not located in Ingolstadt.

laughter

And I run my own company, right,
Faster IT here is a consultancy, but we

don't work for the automotive industry,
right, so that's why I can actually talk

here and don't have much of an issue.
Hello, next slide, okay, this was broken

in the process, so I'm fixed here. I can't
walk. So everybody basically cheated,

right? The emissions thing is not a
Volkswagen scandal. It's Dieselgate. It's

something where nearly everybody basically
has an issue. So this is why I'd actually

like to show you this slide to just, you
know, relieve my conscience. This is about

the temperature window. This is kind of
the second last finding that came out in

the middle of this year, that basically
everybody has a temperature window, where

they reduce and at some point in time
switch off the emissions treatment system.

And if like at Opel, which Felix is going
to talk about later a bit more, or Nissan

or Audi for example, these kick in at
17°C, that kind of has a flavour to it,

that has a taste to it, because the
testing is being done at 20°C and there's

a 2°C margin of error. So that means,
testing can be at 18°C to 22°C and if

you're starting to switch off your
emissions treatment at 17°C, you just

start to switch it off, like in most
real-life situations in northern Europe or

in the States, but you're sure it's
available when the car has been properly

set up for testing. So, sadly so that's
the only slide I'm going to show, which is

not on Volkswagen, so I'm also guilty of
not putting enough focus on the others,

but Volkswagen is just so entertaining
that, you know, I can't make that up with

anybody else. So, this is the money slide.
This is kind of to update you in case you

have been living under a rock for the
last, I don't know, six months. There's

two class action suits. Class action suits
are a legislation in the States which

allows to collect actions from individual
people that have owned a Volkswagen and

have been betrayed together and they have
split the solution to these class action

suits into two, because on the 2 liter it
was rather easy—Volkswagen said: “Yes,

we cheated.”—, but on the 3 liter they
maintained for quite a long time that they

didn't cheat, so there were extended
negotiations. And what you see here is

basically a breakdown of the overall cost,
which is currently estimated to be in the

$ 12 billion range for settling these. For
the 2.0 liters, Volkswagen basically has

to buy them back. A bit more on this
later. And for the 3.0s they have split

them into a Generation 1, which they also
buy back, and a Generation 2 and those

vehicles will be getting a new catalyst,
they will be getting up to three new

sensors, they will get a turbine mixer for
the injection of the Diesel emission

fluid, they will get a new Diesel emission
fluid—Ad Blue is the brand name—dosing

valve. All of these have to be approved by
the EPA and if it is approved, Volkswagen

can retrofit it. If not, they also have to
buy back the vehicles, so this is why it

says “GOTO 1” there, right, because
then they will be treated the same as

Generation 1. Now if you compare that—I
don't know whether you saw the talk last

year—in Europe there is this plastic
tube, this flow rectifier, a kind of, I

don't know, 3 Euro part, which is put into
your car and all is well, right? Now,

okay, that's, you know? Honestly, 2 liter
engines, 3 liter engines, they are

different. 4 cylinders, 6 cylinders, but,
you know, I guess everybody, you don't

need to work in the automotive industry to
understand that a plastic part for 3 Euro

and some better flow calculations are not
the same as investing substantially in

each car to really equip it with what it
should have been equipped with right from

the beginning. So that's kind of the
settlement there. The process is quite

interesting. Volkswagen has to reach 85%
of all customers bringing in their vehicle

for fix or buying back those vehicles. If
not, there will be additional penalties.

So that's the way that the US folks
actually make sure that this is successful

and somebody in the States gets like
$ 10,000 to 20,000 on top of the value of

their car. So that's kind of quite
substantial. For the States themselves

this is also quite interesting, because
the last lines you're seeing there is

$ 2.7 billion on the 2.0 settlement and
another $ 225 million on the 3.0 liter

settlement. They go into an environmental
trust and this is then used to, you know,

buy new bus fleets, build up forests, do
infrastructure for zero emission vehicles

and so on and so on. So there's a lot of
money actually being available now to the

government of the United States, and
Canada has settled for a very similar

thing, to actually do good for the
environment and set off the damage that

Volkswagen has done to the environment.
There's an unofficial figure which I

didn't put on the slides, so the press
people that only read the slides don't get

it, so they really need to see the talk,
Bosch seems to have settled for a $ 300

million fine as well, so they will pay
$ 300 million into the fund to offset their

participation in the Dieselgate. I think
you probably remember that we were

discussing how much did Bosch know last
year and we basically showed that it's not

possible to do this type of cheating
without a close cooperation between the

supplier of the electronic control unit,
which is Bosch in this case, and the OEM,

which is the Volkswagen group. The
callback process itself is quite

interesting as well. This is the form that
you have to fill when you bring in your

car and Volkswagen has hired more than 700
people in the States just to conduct this

process. So this is not only, you know,
about $ 5 billion to the environment and

to zero emission vehicles and building up
the infrastructure, it is also really a

job machine, because at every dealer's
there is a dedicated person taking care of

this process and there are 700 people that
run it for Volkswagen central in the USA.

I find this mildly funny here, because in
the process they're actually making you

fill that your car has gone the milage
which is shown on the odometer, so about

30%-40% of our old cars sold in Germany
have falsified odometer readings. This is

really another scandal. This is something
that is not being so widely reported on,

but if you buy a used car, you have a
chance of one in three, that it's actually

a car that is not worth the money you're
paying. And it's so easy to fix this

problem, but the OEMs don't seem to have
an interest to do it. And the outcome here

is that actually Volkswagen tells you:
“By law you are required to give an

honest statement on how many miles does
that car actually have”. You know, it's

quite funny that they actually are bitten
by the same problem which they have

ignored in the market for a long time.
Okay. So, the thing is, the official

narrative from Volkswagen is, they want to
buy back transparency and trust to their

customers. This is from Mr. Müller, who
is the CEO of Volkswagen group at this

time: “From the very start I have pushed
hard for the relentless and comprehensive

clarification of events. We will stop at
nothing and nobody. This is a painful

process, but it is our only alternative.
For us, the only thing that counts is the

truth. This is the basis for the
fundamental realignment that Volkswagen

needs. The Board of Management of
Volkswagen deeply regrets this situation

and wishes to underscore its determination
to systematically continue along the

present path of clarification
and transparency.”

Can I have an applause
for this please?

applause

Thank you very much. And, you know,
because heads of states and ministers

don't read press clippings, they actually
write letters like these to every head of

state, to every minister in Europe, at
least as much as I could verify, where

they personally update the ministers to,
you know, give them the latest

claims—this is from May 2016, so it's,
you know, half a year later and you can

read it here, it's the same narrative as,
you know, “we're doing well” and, you

know, “we keep you informed” and, you
know, “there's no need to listen to

anybody else. We own the narrative. We are
actually informing you”. So, let's check

one thing. Hello? Thank you. Right when
the Dieselgate scandal broke there were

two things. There was the NOx issue,
which has clarified that it's a real

problem, that there are defeat devices in
the engines. They are being fixed. And

there was the CO2 issue. The CO2 issue
was pretty clear, because, you know, the

cars actually consume much more fuel than
the sticker rating says, so there must be

a problem there, right? There is a problem
there, but Volkswagen called it off really

quickly and this is my Maha moment, right?
Martin Haase is here. If you read that

line here: “No unlawful change to the
stated fuel consumption and CO2 figures

found to date” right? So there is
Volkswagen saying: “We didn't find

anything to date.” Now that kind of, you
know, that's a pointer, right? So, let's

keep on looking. This is from November
this year. This is a new class action suit

and Audi in this case here is sued,
because inside their gearbox, inside their

automatic gearbox there is yet another
defeat device. There is a defeat device

that actually makes this car drive like a
dog, so it shifts up really early, it

doesn't provide any torque, but that is
sufficient to run through test cycles and

obviously, if the car doesn't have any
power, it consumes very little fuel and

thus you get very good sticker ratings and
you get very good CO2 emissions. So, we

found it, right? Felix will give a bit
more details on the technical side here,

but this is a class action suit, so this
is the same thing, which they have settled

for with the engines now running for the
gearbox and the module in the engines that

cooperates with those gearboxes here. Next
fact check. Warranties. Volkswagen refuses

to give warranties in Europe. So, you
know, we're only getting those cheap

fixes, but then people like the ADAC, the
German biggest car owners' club, asks:

“Couldn't you please kindly at least
give us a warranty? Can't you warrant that

it will not have a negative effect on the
car?” And Volkswagen says: “No, we

can't. We'll give you a certificate. We'll
give you a paper, but it's not a

warranty.” And this is 'juristische
Feinheiten', so this is legal intricacies,

right? We can't do this, It's very sorry,
but you'll get a paper. Now if you look at

the States, this is the settlement, which
came out on 20th of December, so the

second part of the settlement and the
American customers get a 10 year warranty

or 120,000 miles, which is about 200,000
kilometers and they get 4 years or 48,000

miles after the fitting the new catalyst
and all the other stuff insight the car.

So that means not only do they get a stash
of money, not only do they get their cars

properly fixed, they also get a warranty
that the proper fix is proper and if not,

Volkswagen has to redo it. So, you see
that it's possible, but there's a huge

discrepancy between the American legal
system that forces a company to do this

and the European legal system that
apparently does not have any scare factor

or any lever to motivate them to give a
warranty. And they're not giving it by

free will, right? They could. They could
just be generous and say like: “Of

course. We fucked up. Sorry, we'll give a
warranty.” But they've been asked over

and over and over again and they've
refused to do this. So, Jack Ewing from

the New York Times, one of the few really
good journalists working on that topic put

it well: “In the US, VW owners get cash.
In Europe, they get plastic tubes.”

applause

And there's another thing I want to point
out to you. We ran this here in the

Süddeutsche Zeitung a few days ago.
Volkswagen says, it wants transparency,

but what it does is, it actually goes and
keeps as much information secret as

possible. So in this case here, every time
somebody sues Volkswagen, they settle and

they used to be settling in court,
which means, you could get the

information, you know, what was the
settlement value? Did they buy back the

car? And now they've learned and they
settle out of court, because then the

court only records that the two parties
have settled, you know, somebody pays the

fee for the court, which is only a few
hundred Euros and everything is fine. And

you don't find out what the settlement is.
So this is something which they're now

doing quite on a big scale and the thing
here is, we have a very odd situation. The

Kraftfahrtbundesamt says: “You need to
do the recall”, but legally they have

not ordered the recall. So this is
something that is voluntary. Well

voluntary actually means, it's voluntary
for both sides. Volkswagen voluntarily

fixes the car and you voluntarily agree to
have the car fixed. If you don't want to

have that voluntary agreement, you can
sue. And we can't do this as a class

action suit. You can't do this like in the
States so it's done once and for all. It

has to be going through the regional
courts and everywhere, but the pattern we

are seeing as Volkswagen is afraid of
getting actually judges to trial this and

actually get fines and have to buy back
the cars, so they settle quite generously

outside of court. The downside is, when
people settle, they need to subscribe to a

non disclosure agreement, to keep
everything silent, and they put really

hefty sums on this, so there's like five
figure Euro sums that people have to pay.

So they kind of get their car bought back
for, you know, a few thousand Dollars or

Euros on top and then, if they were
talking about it, they would be having to

pay hefty fines to Volkswagen. So that's
the way they keep people quiet. Another

way, which is quite interesting, is a
court case which is running at the

Landgericht Paderborn actually asked Mr.
Winterkorn to come around and testify. And

he's a witness, so, you know, courts can
ask witnesses to show up. But Mr.

Winterkorn actually said: “No, sorry,
sorry. I would like to have my right to

remain silent on it.” Remaining silent
is a legal privilege against self

incrimination. So you cannot be forced to
say something in court which will be later

causing a problem to yourself. But the
issue here is, Volkswagen always said:

“You know, he's not our boss anymore. We
continue to pay him and he gets a hefty,

hefty income still for sitting at home
and, I don't know, watching TV or watching

this talk.” Hi!

laughter

The thing is, if the narrative is true and
he didn't know, he can go to court and he

can say: “I didn't know”. He may be on
oath, so that means, he has to really be

sure that he didn't know, but that's the
only thing that could happen. But they're

fighting this really hard. So in this case
here, that's an invitation for 20th of

January. On 20th of January the court will
have a hearing only on the fact of Mr.

Winterkorn having to show up and testify,
so the thing is another pattern which

we're seeing here and that pattern is:
Volkswagen is trying to delay everything

as much as they can. So in this case
they're not saying: “Yeah, we'll bring

him along and, you know, yes, there will
be some press, but, you know, we fucked

up, so, you know, that's fair.” They
delay everything as much as they can.

We think, the legal issue behind this is,
they granted an extension on the deadlines

for cases to be brought against them until
31st of December next year. So we think,

they kind of reconsidered and are now
trying to drag everything out beyond that

deadline. Because legally, because there's
no class action suits here in Germany,

that means the right to sue has voided
because of the time when people bought the

cars and, you know, there's warranties of
two years and that's it. So that's kind

of, you know, what's probably happening
and that's probably the tactics, which is

behind that. Okay, one thing for the
journalists: This is a list from Rogert &

Ulbrich, who are lawyers working on the
Volkswagen cases, of all the German court

cases where Volkswagen was forced to buy
back, compensate or terminate the leases.

So they are happening and the red ones
here are Oberlandesgerichte. They're like

higher level courts. But I guess, you,
like me, have not really seen much press

reporting on this. And that's one of the
issues here. The Volkswagen people are

very good at communicating to the press,
doing regular press clippings, have all

the good marketing and advertising running
and journalists need to do tedious work.

They need to go to those courts and say,
like, you know: “Can I please have the

documentation?” And they need to write a
piece on that and stuff like that. So, we

really need to get the message over to the
journalists that it would be really cool

if they were reporting both sides of the
picture, because then actually the people

that read the magazines, that read the
Internet and possibly newspapers, if

people still do that, they will actually
get a more fair picture, because this

information here is out there. It's
available for grabs, if you have all the

Aktenzeichen here, so, please folks, pick
it up and write some pieces on this.

applause

One of the things I predicted in 2015 was
accidental data loss, right? Because

always when these big things happen and,
in the States the thing is, you actually

get the right to request the other party
to produce data for you. So, it's

different from the way it's here in
Europe, and that's kind of a very big

tool. It's quite logical that it's very
hard for the incriminated side to go and

produce all the material that will
actually proof that it has betrayed, that

it has committed fraud and so on. So, it
was a quite sure bet and here is the

result. We have two incidents here: The
one on the top is a gentleman called

Daniel Donovan. He worked as an
information manager at the general

counsel's in the legal team of Volkswagen
group of America and he said: “I

questioned whether you are actually
preserving evidence well.” And this is

why he was fired. And then they
settled. So, there is an agreement or a

communication here again by Jack Ewing
reported, which is word by word the same

between his legal team and the Volkswagen
legal team and they agreed on very

amicable terms. And it was settled out of
court, so we don't know how much he was

paid. And then there is another lawsuit.
I didn't give the name here, because it's

not publicly known. You can find it out if
you know how to use Google, but it's not

very publicly known. There was a German
law advisor at Volkswagen and he requested

his colleagues to delete documents. So he
basically wrote an email to his colleagues

and said, like: “You know, we're getting
under pressure. Please delete all

incriminating stuff.” That's not a very
cool thing to do if you're a company

lawyer. And then we have the FTC, the
Federal Trade Commission, and they brought

a lawsuit against Volkswagen because,
read the first line here, they lost or

accidentally erased 23 mobile phones. I
don't know. These things just, you know,

whoop, another one gone. I don't know.
The other issue they had is, Volkswagen

brought a witness and they said: “This
witness was either unprepared or unable to

provide information because 250 times
he said: “I don't know” to all the

questions. And the funny thing is, and
here we have another Maha moment of

over-communication, in the reply
Volkswagen said: “Oh, he was very well

prepared. We spent 20 days with him,
just preparing for that deposition.”

laughter + applause

So it took Volkswagen 20 days to make
one engineer say “I don't know” a

sufficient amount of times. Okay, so why do
we all have this problem in Europe, right?

It seems to be working in the States
somehow. Where does that come from? And

the root cause here is actually copy and
paste regulation, or regulation by Stack

Overflow, or however you want to call it.
The thing on the upper side is the

American regulation. They define two
things. And I'm sorry, you won't be able

to read it all, but the slides are being
made public and then you can dig into

this. But the basic idea here is, the
Americans define Auxiliary Emission

Control Devices, so things that actually
modify some physical values which have an

effect on emissions. And then there's a
defeat device. A defeat device is an AECD

which reduces the effectiveness of
emission control, so it doesn't improve it

for example, and in many cases it is not
disclosed, so you may have AECDs. You may

even have AECDs that reduce the
effectiveness of an emission control

system and those are then called defects.
And there's an amount of defects which

you’re allowed to have. And the amount of
defects decreases from year to year, so

that is a way to steer the automotive
industry into compliance. A very clever

system. Now whoever wrote the law for the
European Union actually just copied and

pasted, which you can see because you'll
find all the same words there, and there's

a second slide coming up and you'll find
more of the definition here at the top,

vehicle speed, engine RPM, transmission,
manifold vacuum and so on. And, so, they

just copied and pasted and thought like,
“We don't need AECDs”, you know, they

just say: “A defeat device is an AECD,
so, let's ditch the AECD.” It's like,

you know, people that copy and paste or
Debian working on the random number

generator. It's like, you know, “I don't
understand that code. It doesn't seem to

be used. Let's ditch it.” And so they
did “I don't understand AECDs. They

don't really … necessary. Ditch it.”
But the problem here is, this is

why Volkswagen can actually say: “We
don't have a defeat device.” And the way

they say it is again very lovely. They
say: “We have no unlawful defeat device

under European law”, right?

laughter

So we have a defeat device, but it's not
unlawful and not under European law. And

they clarify this and say: “The
efficiency of emissions cleanup systems

will not be reduced in those vehicles,
which however would be a prerequisite for

the existence of an unlawful defeat device
in the legal sense.” So that's a quote.

So what that actually means is, they found
the loophole and the loophole is there

because people have been doing bad copy
and paste regulation. Okay, now, the other

problem the European Union has, is that
it's herding cats and the only tool it has

is this one very long stick, which is the
EU Treaty infringement process,

Vertragsverletzungsverfahren in German.
So, the thing here is, they actually would

want to have proper emissions'
regulations, but they can't, because it

needs to be put into local laws and there
are 3 countries that didn't put any

sanctioning mechanisms in place over 7
years and there are 4 countries which

didn't use those sanctioning mechanisms.
One of them is Germany, obviously.

Actually the UK will probably evade this
because they can just sit it out. Brexit.

Okay, so this guy here, he was really
really pissed because Fiat didn't show up

when he said: “But you are actually
emitting way to much. We caught you in our

lovely report, which we made. So would you
please show up and, you know, we'll really

tell you off.” And Fiat said: “You
know, we're an Italian company. We are

regulated in Italy. We will answer to the
Italian people, but we don't really want

to chat with you.” So he was really
pissed. He made a press report, that was

from the press report, and said like:
“This uncooperative behavior from Fiat

is completely not understandable.” All
right? This is from Süddeutsche Zeitung

and it basically says that his people went
and took the report, which was already

very amicable. We know the quote „Mit
industriefreundlichen Grüßen“, right?

I don't know whether you read newspapers.
And they softened it down even more,

right? I was at the IMIS commission of the
European Union, which is the investigative

committee on Dieselgate and I just called
that report a joke and I'll repeat that

here. It's a joke and I wouldn't wan't to
have my name on that, so any scientist

that does, sorry, that's more kind of
shameful. Perhaps take it out of your CV,

so as to try and hide it. So, the funny
thing is, here it is said, also in this

press statement: “It cannot be that a
European law is formulated in a way that

manufacturers of underdeveloped engines
can hide behind engine protection

reasons.”
Audience: Only German ones!

D: Right. So, I'm sorry, this is German.
But the car he meant was obviously the

Fiat 500X, which was measured in this
report, but if you look at this engine

here, which is from his own report, it's
the Audi A3, the 3 liter, the one, which

has just been settled in the States, and
it is allowed to emit 180 mg, so in the

cold and in the warm it does this, but as
soon as you go below 10°C, remember,

there was this temperature window, right,
it does 663 mg and when you do it on the

road and you actually move the steering
wheel and it detects that, it does 868 mg.

So underdeveloped engines are made in
Germany and actually produced in Hungary,

because that's where the engine comes
from. I was in a cold retreat on an island

in the mediterranean sea. I run my own
company, so, you know, we can do great

things for our employers and somebody
brought this. And I don't read Bild

Zeitung. I have to read Bild Zeitung
because they are the only ones who have a

leak and get some information out of
Volkswagen and everybody copies them, it's

really weird, right? Bild am Sonntag
reports it first and then the Süddeutsche

Zeitung writes an editorial on it. And in
here I found a gem and the gem is the

Kraftfahrtbundesamt doesn't actually have
people who are able to analyze what Opel

gives them, so they have tasked Felix
Domke, the guy who is coming after me, and

asked him to actually verify whether Opel
has actually implemented a fix. So, you

know, I'm very happy they support the
hacker community, but I don't think that

is a very sustainable business model
for authorities, right?

laughter

applause

Okay, so, second to last point.
Braunschweig. Braunschweig. The

Braunschweig general attorney's office are
the ones that actually should be analyzing

the case of all the Volkswagen senior
management. They have now 28 people which

they are investigating against and that
includes Mr. Hans Dieter Pötsch, who is

the former CEO, Martin Winterkorn, and the
current head of Volkswagen, the Volkswagen

brand, which is Herbert Dress, who came
in from BMW. So that's great. That's

great. They're actually doing something.
The question is just, what are they doing?

Because we never get any feedback.
So, I don't know. I have no clue what

they're doing. You know, I'm in good
contact with nearly everybody, but they

actually only rang me once and the only
thing they asked was: “Do you have Felix

Domke's phone number?”
laughter

Perhaps Felix knows more. Perhaps, he's
able to tell us more about what they're

doing. The good thing is other people are
doing something. That's the court of Mayo,

which is in Ireland, very nice place. You
should go and visit it. And they have the

same legal mechanism as they have in the
States. So they have the capability to

order somebody to produce documents to
clarify the case, so in this case the

judge, Ms. Devins, has ordered Volkswagen
to produce documents. And they hate this.

They were furious. So what happened, is,
the next time they had a meeting, which

was in September of this year, the legal
representative told the court that this is

completely inappropriate and unfair. “I
did not bring anyone except for myself

because we think you do not have
jurisdiction in the case.” Now, it's an

Irish lady that has bought a Volkswagen
from an Irish dealer, but Volkswagen is

sure they don't have any legal beef in
this, right? So, I don't know what they're

thinking. And to actually add, you know,
to this, they walked out of the court. So

in protest, the representatives of
Volkswagen, their lawyers walked out of

the court. So, the thing is, the judge is
a very cool lady and she said, she would

continue “without Hamlet”, referring
to the play, and said, the Volkswagen

legal team had a spectacular walk-out.
That has not happened to a court before.

And the other thing is, so the Irish
people are trying to help the case a bit

and the States' people are trying the
same. They have a gentleman called

Mr. Liang who has worked long time for
Volkswagen. First in Germany and then in

the States. And he is now basically the
principal witness. They made a deal with

him and said, you know, “We will limit
the cost you will have or the time even in

jail that you have to do if you cooperate
with us”. And the thing boxed here in

red is: “Defendant shall cooperate fully
with the government, and any other law

enforcement agency, including but not
limited to the Staatsanwaltschaft

Braunschweig in Germany”, right?

applause

So, the Americans are actually bringing
the witness to Braunschweig and I have not

heard whether they even had a chat with
him. At least there's nothing publicly

known. All right. Bonus round for the last
5 minutes. Somebody on reddit actually

managed to get his car bought back. Cool.
Super. He received $21,000 for it. The

thing is, the buyback terms say, it
is okay if your car has damages...

laughter

... because they actually want to make
sure that somebody who has, you know, a

scratch or so, it doesn't get so
complicated, right? So the buyback process

actually just goes on, like, what car is
it, what did it cost initially and what

is the milage, and, you know, we know
about the milage now. So, this car

apparently had some damage and the guy
thought: “You know, it's damaged anyway.

All the front parts...

laughter

applause

All the front parts would be pretty good
use for my friend who has a Volkswagen and

wants to keep it. So, you know, I just
removed them.” Now the interesting thing

is, we have a company here, which has
betrayed millions of its customers, more

than half a million in the States and …
Oops, there's a slide missing. That's not

good. Sorry. I hope this wasn't deleted by
our friends who set up the video, which

was a difficult thing at the beginning.
Ohh no, it's deleted. That's not very

nice. Ohh, it's moved there. Okay, let's
use this one. It actually shouldn't be

there. It's the second to last slide.
Yay. So this is from a meeting of this

settlement class. I'm reading it.

laughter

applause

“At least one owner went so far as to
strip the car of almost every removable

part, including seats, doors,
a radio, and even the air bag.”

laughter

Now remember. That company has actually
betrayed half a million people in the

States, a few million worldwide. They've
made people pay way more for a car which

is dirty, because they believed it was
clean, and now there's five people who

stripped parts of their cars and they
complain to the judge. Okay, that's it.

applause

Takeaway points. I just wanted… The
takeaway points here: Everybody's

cheating. I only did one slide, but
please don't forget this, right? There

will be much more coming out from others.
Volkswagen promises, but their actions

are completely different, so please look
beyond the spin doctoring. Don't buy

the Volkswagen narrative. And the other
thing is, we don't have a functional

regulation in the EU. I hope, Julia Reda
and the others are able to fix it, but

this will be a really tough task.
Okay. Thank you very much.

applause

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