Problems with exhaust much smaller than anticipated

It is one of the biggest scandals in Germany’s industrial history.

VW has committed fraud on a gigantic scale when it tweaked onboard computers in some of its Diesel cars to show lower emissions than those actually being emitted. Nobody is disputing those findings. But now it looks like the effects for the environment and customers will be a lot smaller than previously expected.

However, the differences in exhaust and particles emitted are a lot smaller than many experts thought they would be. In some cases the manipulated cars only emit 0,1 gram more than they should, in others as much as 4 grams, which is still well within the tolerable deviation.

The news lead the VW stock to rally on tuesday, as it appears that VW will not have to pay all of the $2 billion in fines that were discussed in the media over recent weeks.

Some said that the total amount  in all of VW’S ongoing cases could eventually exceed the $37 Billion paid by BP in the aftermath of the Deep Water Horizon debacle. This now looks more unlikely, even as the larger fraud case moves ahead in the US.