Former 'Clean Diesel' Maker Wins Notorious Harvard Prize
It has been a year since we learned that Volkswagen’s tranquil and oh-so-green “clean diesel” utopia was actually a carefully constructed facade hiding a scorched wasteland of pollution and lies. Apparently, that doesn’t mean the jokes need to stop.
The scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research has awarded the financially hurting automaker with a notorious prize that most recipients usually build a fun evening around. It’s extremely, no, absolutely likely that Volkswagen didn’t appreciate the humor.
On September 22, AIR held their Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Harvard University, celebrating unusual, offbeat and often pointless scientific achievements. Actual Nobel Prize winners usually hand out the awards. This year’s recipients included the late Ahmed Shafik, who won the Reproduction Prize for studying “the effects of wearing polyester, cotton, or wool trousers on the sex life of rats, and for conducting similar tests with human males.”
Last year’s Chemistry Prize went to a group of Australians who developed a chemical process to partially unboil an egg. However, this year’s top spot in chemistry went to a group of Germans (known to most as “Volkswagen”).
The automaker was awarded for “solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically, electromechanically producing fewer emissions whenever the cars are being tested.” According to the university, nobody showed up to collect the prize. Had the automaker sent a delegation, their grim faces would likely have sucked the life out of the room.
It’s possible that the increase in environmental scrutiny and new testing methods developed in the wake of the diesel emissions scandal warranted Volkswagen a Peace Prize, but that award went to a group of Canadians for their study, “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit.”
h/t to Rudy Lukez
[Source: Popular Mechanics]
(Correction: the Ig Nobel Prize is administered by the publication Annals of Improbable Research, with the ceremony occurring at Harvard University. The university does not organize the event. The story has been changed to reflect this.)
More by Steph Willems
Latest Car Reviews
Read moreLatest Product Reviews
Read moreRecent Comments
- SCE to AUX It's fun when liberal interests fight each other.
- Varezhka Suzuki Jimny, Toyota Century, and I know it technically just ended production but Honda e.
- CoastieLenn For those that care to read the details of the crash NOT included in this article but published elsewhere- this happened at nearly 10pm when the CRV was stopped in the center lane of travel, lights off, with the driver remaining in the car. Not only is it not known if Blue Cruise was being used, it would have been a nightmare for most alert human drivers to mitigate that driving the 70+mph speed limit on many sections of I-10 in Texas, much less an AV system.
- Jeff This is what I would want: Toyota has now released an affordable truck called the Toyota IMV 0. The newly developed vehicle made in Thailand comes with a rear-wheel drive and a gasoline 2.0-liter inline-four matched to a 5-speed manual transmission. NEW $10,000 Toyota Pickup Has Ford & GM Crapping ... YouTube · Tech Machine 8 minutes, 46 seconds Dec 26, 2023
- Jalop1991 At the same time, let's take these drivers off the road--at least the ones that haven't yet taken themselves off the road.I can guarantee, at no point was this guy or any of the dead Tesla-stans actually driving the car. They were staring at their phones, because, HEY, SELF DRIVING!!
Comments
Join the conversation
While no one is arguing VW played outside the rules, but I am damn sure my MKIV TDI is just as dirty as the now much maligned 2.0TDI but the only thing that made them illegal was some arbitrary set of rules set out by some faceless bunch in some boardroom. While cleaner air is terrific, why don't they outlaw all the older cars that don't even have converters much less some DEF system. Funny how they chose the one class of vehicles that domestic manufacturers did not even give two hoots about and still don't.
What about the Annual Donald Trump "Bend The Truth" Award?