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Volkswagen Ordered To Recall 500K Vehicles Over Its Own Malicious Programming
Etherwalk writes: The Obama Administration today ordered Volkswagen to recall 500,000 4-cylinder Volkswagen and Audi vehicles from model years 2009-15. The vehicles were programmed to turn on more thorough emissions control and generate cleaner readings when tested for emissions than they did when in ordinary operation. In effect, the software made everything operate normally when you looked at it, just like any good malware.
So VW incorporated stuff you see advertised in the back of hot-rod mags into the car. Now they'll have to go after those after-market guys, assuming the chips actually do what they say. It's not like anybody even tells state inspectors they swapped out the chips. I'm not sure how much this goes on. I've got a relatively new car and have only had it smogged once since I bought it. No, I don't plan on ever messing with it. I just know that such things exist.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Driving around with a known polluting car is awful. You are a jerk for suggesting folks just ignore their cars being 40x out of compliance. Diesel particulate emissions are a major contributor to diseases like lung cancer, asthma, etc. Eff you.
I couldn't easily find if VW is just going to update the software, or what?
Something plugged into and actively reading data from the OBDII port I suppose. Wouldn't be hard to setup
It's probably how VW got a Euro spec engine to meet US regulations. Euro specs measure pollution per distance - the way to win is to burn fuel really efficiently. US specs measure pollution per unit of fuel consumption - the way to win is to burn fuel really cleanly. That difference is a big reason why they have much more fuel efficient vehicles in Europe. It's much easier to get a larger engine to burn cleaner. Most manufacturers that sell the same engine in both continents use different tunings in each, where the EU one gets better fuel economy and the US one burns cleaner.
Manufacturers have been trying to bring the incredible economy that small diesels in Europe get to the US for years but it turns out making a diesel that is significantly more efficient than a comparable gas engine and also meets EPA regulations is really hard. For example, Mazda has been promising Skyactiv-D (diesel) engines in the US for years now, but they keep getting delayed because they're not satisfied with their performance.