TTAC News Round-up: Kia's Big Show, Porsche's Diesel Fix and Mller Says VW Just Misunderstood The Law, You Guys

Aaron Cole
by Aaron Cole

Porsche’s CEO is confident that the fix for their 3-liter diesel Cayennes will be approved by regulators, which is more than Volkswagen can say at the moment.

That, Kia’s big Detroit show, GM’s plan to sell cars online and Volkswagen CEO has a momentarily lapse of logic … after the break!

Porsche’s 3-liter fix is in, probably

Officials from Porsche submitted plans in December to fix its 3-liter diesel engine in the U.S., the automaker’s CEO told Reuters on Tuesday.

Oliver Blume told journalists at the North American International Auto Show that he was confident regulators would approve plans to fix more than 13,000 diesel engines that were fitted with an illegal “defeat device” designed to fool emissions. Blume said the fix will include replacing catalytic converters in older cars and a software update for all their affected diesel cars, according to Reuters.

Porsche’s 3-liter engine was designed and built by Audi and was used in Audi, Volkswagen and Porsche cars.

General Motors will sell low-mileage used cars online

General Motors is starting to come around to this e-commerce idea. The automaker announced that it would offer to sell online about 30,000 low-mileage, used Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac and Buick cars, according to Automotive News.

Shoppers will be able to select the cars, which will all have fewer than 37,000 miles, and complete their purchases at a nearby dealership. The “Factory Pre-Owned Collection” cars, which will be predominately made up of lease returns, company cars or daily rentals, will be sold with extended bumper-to-bumper warranties.

Chevrolet, GMC, and Buick cars will have an extended 12-month or 12,000-mile warranty. Cadillacs that are sold under the program will have a two-year or 20,000-mile warranty, according to Automotive News.

Kia can’t fit it all into one show

We got a good look at the full-size Telluride concept (FYI: Gerald McRaney and Delta Burke live in Telluride, Colorado, so there’s your useless knowledge for the day), but Kia also had a refreshed Forte that got lost in the mix.

The updated sedan will receive a new 2-liter four cylinder in lower trims, and a sport trim wedged between the current LX and EX lines.

Kia didn’t specify power from the new 2-liter four, which will replace the current 1.8-liter mill in the LX trim, but said that the current hi-po 2-liter GDI will carry over into the next EX model. A six-speed manual transmission will be available in LX and S trims, with a six-speed automatic as the sole selection in the EX. The new Forte will go on sale by March.

And Kia let us peek a little more at its upcoming hybrid, Niro. The new pictures show us basically what the car will look like, but we’ll have to wait until next month’s Chicago Auto Show to see the whole thing.

Super Cruise halted, for now

General Motors is delaying its semi-autonomous “Super Cruise” driving assistant for an unspecified reason, Automotive News reported. The feature, which was supposed to be included on the new Cadillac CT6 sometime this year, won’t be available until sometime in 2017.

“Getting the technology right and doing it safely is most important, so the exact month of introduction cannot be announced at this time,” the company said in a statement.

The automaker never really specified what Super Cruise would do, or at what speeds it would be activated, so it’s hard to miss something we didn’t know much about anyway, right?

VW’s Müller: It’s all a misunderstanding, you guys

Volkswagen’s CEO Matthias Müller told NPR that the automaker didn’t intentionally cheat the law when it equipped more than 500,000 cars with an illegal “defeat device” to fool emissions tests.

“We made a default, we had a … not the right interpretation of the American law,” Müller told NPR. Engineers were tasked with delivering something, and came up with “software solutions which haven’t been compatible to the American law.”

That response, to me, is … baffling. But then Müller doubled down when he was asked about why Volkswagen didn’t initially come clean with regulators in 2014, when the automaker was told that its cars were illegally polluting the first time.

“We didn’t lie. We didn’t understand the question first. And then we worked since 2014 to solve the problem,” he said.

Oh, boy.

Aaron Cole
Aaron Cole

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  • Lon888 Lon888 on Jan 13, 2016

    "Vee did not understand zee question" Wasn't that used at Nuremburg quite frequently?

  • Callmeishmael Callmeishmael on Jan 13, 2016

    For me, it's a tossup whether Muller is arrogant, incompetent, or both. His "no habla Ingles" defense is downright insulting, both to us and to VAG. He's demonstrated that he's not the man for the job. VW should keep him out of sight until they find a replacement.

    • Brn Brn on Jan 13, 2016

      The only thing they misunderstood was how to react to getting caught. If you're caught, your response should be "we messed up. let's make it right." Instead they continue to try and shift the blame from themselves. They blame vendors (Bosch). They blame regulators. They blame two of their own engineers. As you said, it's insulting. They should put on their big boy pants and convince us they're addressing the issue.

  • ToolGuy Ford is good at drifting all right... 😉
  • Dave Holzman A design award for the Prius?!!! Yes, the Prius is a great looking car, but the visibility is terrible from what I've read, notably Consumer Reports. Bad visibility is a dangerous, and very annoying design flaw.
  • Wjtinfwb I've owned multiple Mustang's, none perfect, all an absolute riot. My '85 GT with a big Holley 4 barrel and factory tube header manifolds was a screaming deal in its day and loved to rev. I replaced it with an '88 5.0 Convertible and added a Supercharger. Speed for days, handling... present. Brakes, ummm. But I couldn't kill it and it embarrassed a lot of much more expensive machinery. A '13 Boss 302 in Gotta Have It Green was a subtle as a sledgehammer, open up the exhaust cut outs and every day was Days of Thunder. I miss them all. They've gotten too expensive and too plush, I think, wish they'd go back to a LX version, ditch all the digital crap, cloth interior and just the Handling package as an add on. Keep it under 40k and give todays kids an alternative to a Civic or WRX.
  • Jpolicke In a communist dictatorship, there isn't much export activity that the government isn't aware of. That being the case, if the PRC wanted to, they could cut the flow of fentanyl down to a trickle. Since that isn't happening, I therefore assume Xi Jinping doesn't want it cut. China needs to feel the consequences for knowingly poisoning other countries' citizens.
  • El scotto Oh, ye nattering nabobs of negativism! Think of countries like restaurants. Our neighbors to the north and south are almost as good and the service is fantastic. They're awfully close to being as good as the US. Oh the Europeans are interesting and quaint but you really only go there a few times a year. Gents, the US is simply the hottest restaurant in town. Have to stand in line to get in? Of course. Can you hand out bribes to get in quicker? Of course. Suppliers and employees? Only the best on a constant basis.Did I mention there is a dress code? We strictly enforce it. Don't like it? Suck it.
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