VW’s Deepwater Horizon?
Last week one of the biggest environmental scandals since the Deepwater Horizon disaster made its way to somewhere near the bottom of page 11 of most major newspapers. VW admitted to systematically cheating on emissions tests of its Diesel vehicles. This might sound snoozy, until you read up on the details.
Vehicles across the US must satisfy emissions standards for criteria air pollutants (e.g., NOx, SOx, CO2). California, of course, has the most stringent of these standards and enforces them for new and used vehicles. If you have an older car, you need to go get your car smog checked every few years to make sure your clunker is still clean enough to be allowed on California roads. It is for this reason that until recently the share of Diesel cars in California was extremely low, since almost no vehicles satisfied these stringent standards. In come the “clean Diesels”, pushed mainly by German manufacturers of normal people (e.g., VW) and luxury (e.g., Mercedes and BMW) vehicles. Diesel was finally salon worthy! Look! It’s fuel efficient and clean! Many of my Birkenstock-wearing, dog-owning, El Capitan-summiting colleagues and graduate students ran out and traded in their Prii for the VW TDI wagon. So much space! So much torque! So much fuel efficiency! So much clean! Well, it turns out what sounded too good to be true was.
In a Lance Armstrongian feat of deception, VW has now admitted to having installed a piece of software called a “defeat device” that turns on the full suite of pollution control gadgets when cars are being smog tested. As soon as you leave the testing station and head out for your Yosemite adventure with Fluffy barking in the back, your car emits 10-40 times (!!!!!!!!!!!) the amount of NOx you just reported on your smog check card. Just to put this in perspective – this is like that 215 calorie Snickers bar having 2150-8600 calories instead. The EPA will almost certainly sue VW. The penalties involved here are significant. The EPA can ask for $37,500 per incident, which amounts to roughly $18 billion in fines. Plus there will likely be criminal charges filed against VW executives. Further, depending on whether these vehicles will continue to be sold in the US after everything is said and done, this is a disaster for VW as they rely heavily on the high fuel efficiency ratings of Diesels to satisfy CAFE.
In my eyes there are two interesting economic points to be made here. The first, maybe more headline worthy, is trying to determine the optimal fine in order to deter other manufacturers from engaging in such behavior. An economist would argue that what we have here is the classic case of an externality. By selling the dirtier vehicles, VW exposed kids, adults and dogs to massive quantities of local air pollutants. VW is responsible and should be liable for this. Hence VW should correct this market failure by paying the full external costs it caused. This calculation would involve estimating the economic damages from this additional air pollution and passing the bill on to VW. My back of the envelope calculation suggests that for the NOx portion this is about $232 per vehicle over three years (far from $37,500).
But, there is a large law and economics literature on determining the fines to achieve the optimal and efficient amount of deterrence. The problem with just passing on the external damages is that VW was not going to be caught with certainty. If the executives thought there was a 1% chance of getting caught, it might have been more worthwhile to cheat than if they thought that they were going to get caught with certainty. In this case, the penalty should be approximated by the external costs divided by the probability of getting caught. This, of course, would be significantly larger than the external costs alone. Getting the external costs right is hard to do (e.g., you need more pollutants and the damages vary across space), but can be done with standard tools in the talented economists’ empirical toolkit.
The broader question is how did this happen? This is not one student cheating on an intermediate microeconomics exam and thinking (s)he would get away with it. This is the world’s largest car manufacturer intentionally deceiving the federal and state governments by gaming their enforcement strategy. While some cynic might remark that folks will always cheat when there’s a dollar to be made, I think we can rethink how we design regulations by building in evaluation from the get go.
Michael Greenstone, who spends his summers two doors down the hall, has thought a lot about this recently. In the US, we pass many of our major regulations based on ex ante cost benefit analyses. Testifying on Capitol Hill, he recently made two suggestions that would significantly improve things. First, he argues that we should institutionalize the ex post review of economically significant rules “in a public way so that these reviews are automatic in nature”. He also argues that rules already in effect should start being reviewed using retrospective analysis. The relevant agencies should commit to changing or abandoning rules based on these evaluations, or possibly create new rules based on these evaluations.
The big issue here is of course, who should review these policies? He argues in favor of the creation of a regulatory analysis division within the Congressional Budget Office. This division would conduct the regularly scheduled reviews and conduct reviews at the request of lawmakers. I would go one step further and argue that these reviews should not only be staffed with government employees, but require the review and participation by independent academics. There is precedent for this model.
The certainty of independent review of policies and enforcement strategies significantly drives up the probability of detection, which would diminish the expected profits from cheating. By firms large and small. Plus, we are spending scarce public funds on environmental regulation. We should spend it on what works. And we need to figure out what that is.
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Maximilian Auffhammer View All
Maximilian Auffhammer is the George Pardee Professor of International Sustainable Development at the University of California Berkeley. His fields of expertise are environmental and energy economics, with a specific focus on the impacts and regulation of climate change and air pollution.
Energy Institute Blog 
On the notes on diesel torque. This is only for diesel engines that are turbocharged, as almost all new diesel engines are. I know three Europeans each of whom had to replace their diesel’s turbocharger at around 80,000 miles at such a high cost that it mitigated any cost savings from increased fuel economy. Added to this that diesel had a higher C/H ratio than gasoline and so produces more CO2 per liter burned and the environmental benefits may not be as great as assumed.
Also note that this weeks 9/26-10/2 Economist magazine has an article explaining that the European fuel economy test cycle is rigged with specialized firms used to fraudulently increase the measured fuel economy, with no government check on the reported data. The article speculates that perhaps since auto makers in Europe are used to getting away with fraudulent test results this has become normal for them.
It’s been 25 years since I had any responsibility for implementing product design verification and validation efforts- my firms products performance in the field were required to be monitored for critical performance characteristics post market launch- the FDA would likely have a team of investigators camped out at VW’s design and development facilities, likely for months on end, to find out exactly how their systems failed. I assume that TUV and ISO are in the process of determining if VW should have their certifications revoked.
The mean time to failure of the components of the pollution control system(s) are likely greatly improved if they aren’t used! The folks rating the reliability of VW/Audi diesel vehicles will likely be rather interested in knowing some details rather soon.
Re:”First, he argues that we should institutionalize the ex post review of economically significant rules “in a public way so that these reviews are automatic in nature”. He also argues that rules already in effect should start being reviewed using retrospective analysis. The relevant agencies should commit to changing or abandoning rules based on these evaluations, or possibly create new rules based on these evaluations.” and “He argues in favor of the creation of a regulatory analysis division within the Congressional Budget Office. This division would conduct the regularly scheduled reviews and conduct reviews at the request of lawmakers. I would go one step further and argue that these reviews should not only be staffed with government employees, but require the review and participation by independent academics.”
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) currently does conduct policy reviews, including retrospective analyses of economically significant rules and policies, based on the request of lawmakers. Here’s a summary of what GAO does from the http://www.gao.gov website:
“Our Work is done at the request of congressional committees or subcommittees or is mandated by public laws or committee reports. We also undertake research under the authority of the Comptroller General. We support congressional oversight by auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively; investigating allegations of illegal and improper activities; reporting on how well government programs and policies are meeting their objectives; performing policy analyses and outlining options for congressional consideration; and issuing legal decisions and opinions, such as bid protest rulings and reports on agency rules. We advise Congress and the heads of executive agencies about ways to make government more efficient, effective, ethical, equitable and responsive.”
GAO also recommends actions, changes in rules and polices, to executive branch agencies and more than two-thirds of its recommendations are implemented despite having no enforcement authority. While GAO has an internal staff of many economists, other social scientists, technology experts, and statisticians, they also do consult with outside experts, particularly in cases where the question is “what should the policy be?” (as opposed to “what did this policy do?”). In sum, we already have an agency with a strong reputation for this kind of work in a rigorous, non-partisan way–the only wrinkle is that GAO would no doubt need a larger budget to take on more of this kind of work, particularly on a mandatory basis.
Would Americans be calling for the death of Ford if it was the perpetrator instead of VW? Better question, would the U.S. Government balk and offer to bail them out?
David – it shouldnt make any difference if its Ford or VW, the major difference of course is that Ford is more likely to have purchased the necessary congress-critters to ensure a bali-out (cheap insurance, compared to a potential $18b fine). Its about time a major corporation was de-registered to act as a strong deterrent, if Exxon or Union Carbide had seen such a penalty then BP might have taken more care with the Deepwater Horizon.
Max – as you suggest, this is a really big deal that appears to have been approved at the highest levels of the company (or at least the folks ‘at the top’ seem to have known about it). There’s even an ‘Enron’ smell to it – explicitly gaming the system. One of the reasons diesels have had a hard time getting approved for sale in CA is the inability to meet emission requirements (I would argue that particulate emissions are the most important, and to some extent, the hardest to control) and VW appeared to have figured out how to do it technically – I guess that was more illusory than real.
Your post raises several related items that I want to respond to. First, I’m not sure what “optimal and efficient” deterrence is – and it goes way beyond economics, EVEN if one thought we were capable of correctly identifying and pricing out the externalities (for which, I would argue, there is scant evidence – the track record is abysmal for a lot of environmental issues). Besides, it isn’t clear to me to whom VW should pay for cleaning up their mess (increased NOx and particles) – the airborne pollutants will affect a lot of people (and dogs) unevenly and it would be hard to find those most affected. This is in contrast to your comparative – the Deepwater Horizon – where, to first order, BP has had to pay for beach cleanup (because its easy to see blobs of tar) and loss of economically viable employment in occupations like the fishing industry (not to say there aren’t second order, more diffuse, effects for which BP should be held accountable).
You ask the question ‘how did this happen’ – I don’t see how regulatory evaluation (whatever that means) is the answer. The question is highly relevant – assuming that this was a proactive choice by VW (as appears to be the case) – and its hard not to be cynical. Especially since the diesels have a huge effect on meeting the CAFE standards for someone like VW. In fact, on another blog on this topic, there has been a lot of speculation about whether current VW diesel owners will comply with the recall request, if there is a concern about whether the emissions control systems have a big effect on vehicle efficiency (I haven’t seen any analysis of how large/small an effect that might be). I guess the chances of being caught were not as low as VW assumed?? Why else would they take the risk? Their stock prices have taken a big hit today and, likely more importantly, their credibility among state/fed regulatory agencies and the ‘environmentally-aware’ consumers is going to take a huge hit.
Finally, while there is no question that there are regulations that need to be reviewed and perhaps either discarded (because they are no longer relevant) or improved/tightened, I think it is excessively naive or cynical to believe that in the current political climate that such reviews can be conducted on a level playing field. The current Congress has gone out of its way to disregard (and excoriate) analyses from neutral reviewers like the CBO on all manner of issues because the analyses don’t agree with the preconceived notions of the party in power. One doesn’t have to go back too many years to find a similar political response (by the same political party) to the analyses conducted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (a neutral, Congressionally sanctioned body) – in that case, OSTP was dissolved.
One final note – I recently had to take my 2001 Jetta ordinarius (gasoline fueled, no turbo) in for emissions testing and much to my amazement, the whole testing procedure consisted of plugging the test computer (connected to the great CA computer in the sky) into my car’s computer (I think the car was running), downloading whatever data are being stored and certifying that it was good to go — NO probe up the tailpipe and running on a dynamometer. This is certainly a big change in the procedure from the last time (two years ago) when indeed actual emissions testing was done. I can’t figure out what the on-board computer records that would reliably relate to NOx or particle emissions. As far as I know, the only sensor in the car is an oxygen sensor that helps control the air/fuel ratio – which is related to emissions, but qualitatively…
– Rich
Not to be lost sight of is how the car companies have used the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to protect their code. That must go