Volkswagen is reversing course on the use of controversial weather-altering technology at a major Mexican car plant after local farmers complained that the system caused drought by preventing rainfall.
The German carmaker had installed hail cannons, which fire shockwaves into the atmosphere, at its Puebla site to prevent the formation of ice stones that had been damaging finished vehicles parked outside its facility.
But local farmers said the devices, which were set to fire automatically under certain weather conditions, caused a drought during the months that should have been Mexico’s rainy season.
Gerardo Perez, a farmers’ representative in the area, told the AFP agency that the cannons meant the “sky literally clears and it simply doesn’t rain”.
A group of local farmers claimed that 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) of crops were affected, and filed a suit claiming 70 million pesos (€3.2m) in damages from the carmaker, AFP reported.
In response, VW said it would install netting above the cars to protect them from hailstorms in the future.
The company’s Puebla plant in Mexico is the second largest in VW’s global portfolio, and its biggest outside of Germany, making 450,000 cars and employing some 15,000 staff.
The carmaker invested in the hail cannon technology to prevent damage to its vehicles earlier this year.
A spokesman for VW said on Wednesday that the company would immediately suspend the use of the machines in automatic mode, following meetings with state authorities this week.
“Once the anti-hail nets are installed in the yards, they will be used as the main measure for the protection of vehicles, while the devices will serve as a secondary tool and will only be used in manual mode,” he added.
“With these actions, Volkswagen de México expresses its commitment to maintain sustainable relationships with its stakeholders: environment, neighbouring communities and authorities.”
Hail storms present significant problems for car manufacturers, which often have large numbers of finished vehicles parked outside at distribution centres or plants.
In 2008, a freak hailstorm in Germany caused millions of pounds of damage, including chipped paintwork and dented bodywork, to thousands of VW vehicles at its Emden facility.
Typically carmakers install canopies or netting over the parking areas to protect vehicles, though some also use the cannons.
When Nissan installed cannons at its Mississippi plant in 2005, neighbours complained about the noise of the devices, which push water droplets away to prevent them from forming hail, firing off shockwaves every six seconds during stormy periods.
Caesura109 posted:From what I've read about hail cannons, its that they're mostly bs and dont work. I dont think there's much evidence they could cause a drought.
nice hailodomor denial
stegosaurus posted:the best part about this is that hail damaged cars are fine except they dont look 100% spotless. my sister got a hail damaged white subaru for a song which is the stupidest shit to me. why not just drive the damn thing around with dents in it. who the fuck cares.
this is what i did. i bought a near-new car (also a subaru; man does the mountain west love subarus) for something like 65% of kbb value because of hail damage and it owns. i jumped up probably 2 years and 30-40k miles from what i was looking at in my price range. feels great to profit off of the shallowness of the average consumer
one potential drawback: in some states (not mine) a car totaled by hail damage can get labelled with a salvage title. that makes it hard to tell whether its caused by some structural issue after an accident or just the hail damage. you also may need to get the title "cleaned" through some sort of inspection to show that its actually sound to drive before you can insure or register it
another sweet car lifehack is getting a big check from your insurance company because your car is "totalled" due to hail damage because body work is generally so expensive. a friend of mine got a payout for more than they paid for their car because of cosmetic damage and kept the car for years after. you cant double dip, though, if it gets destroyed in an accident later on
also, its possible that hail damaged cars better gas mileage because of the dimples. at least according to mythbusters thats a thing that happens
TG posted:also, its possible that hail damaged cars better gas mileage because of the dimples. at least according to mythbusters thats a thing that happens
my wife
