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Volkswagen CEO Issues Apology Over Emission-Cheating Software
cartechboy writes: Last Friday we learned that Volkswagen got caught cheating on emissions testing via software programming. The punishment? It could get slapped with up to $18 billion in fines. While the company has yet to admit to any wrong doing, the CEO has now issued a formal apology and said the automaker will cooperate fully with any and all investigations. It's issued a stop-sale on all new and used TDI vehicles until further notice. VW's currently in talks with the EPA and the California Air Resources Board in regards to these allegations. It's also ordered an external investigation of its own into the matter. Whether criminal charges will be filed is yet to be seen.
When Toyota had the audacity of becoming number 1, their CEO got dragged in front of the US congress about some acceleration issues.
VW just made the mistake of becoming number 1, and suddenly we discover they've been cheating at emissions. Expect a congress hearing and lots of demands for sanctions.
Was there a punishment when GM recently had a major oops?
The Audi A3 is one of the models implicated in this scam. It appears that it includes any VW and Audi vehicles that don't have a urea injection system.
I suppose I'll have to get my firmware updated which will cut my performance down. I could decline the recall but then I probably wouldn't be able to pass the emissions here in CA to get my tag renewed.
Goodby 42 MPG.
If not, nothing was learned here. Either by accident or intentionally, it will happen again, eventually.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In the German press, the CEO is already painting this as a bunch of rogue American engineers doing this.
One problem: If there was any engineering in the US, it was probably only to tweak the existing calibrations. It's pretty rare to see the actual source to ECUs, which is mostly unchanged over long periods of time. Most of the adjustments made are in the calibrations - a checksummed block of mapped constants in the ROM image file where the symbolic map has been exported by the compiler.
As somebody who has actually authored calibration tools used in the automotive industry, and worked on some of the software used to provide version control, I have a pretty clear idea of what is going on here.
In this case, the code itself - the algorithms used in the ECU, specifically disabled emissions controls (either by an alternative set of calibrations, or by skipping entire routines) when in Emissions Test Mode. If it's using an alternative set of calibrations... it still demands an answer to why it would need a second set of calibrations to begin with.
Sadly, the press and many of the investigators involved in this will probably not understand the techical aspects of this, and why this is a fundamental cheat that could only have been created by the team that engineered the ECU.
US standards are pretty strict in comparison to Europe.
Part of the reason VW got caught was that the people doing the testing were looking at European diesel cars, found they polluted more than they should, and decided to test US cars for comparison.
This will be reduced to some completely unimportant sum like 18 million. Further its hilarious how the CEO is blaming rogue American engineers when it's clearly a upper management decision. Reading 'they launched an independent investigation' actually made me spit up my coffee it was so hilarious.
Obamacare was based on Romneycare from MA, which was created by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. So you are saying Obama is a secret Republican? If so, then I agree completely. He wages war like a Republican, he deports immigrants like a Republican, he drills for oil and gas like a Republican, even in the arctic, and he goes after whistleblowers and journalists just like a Republican. So I think you've got something there.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
Full text: "We're sorry we got caught!"
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
It depends a lot on your driving. If you do a steady 100 km/h on the highway, your mileage will be excellent. At 130 km/h, you may use about 20% more, and can more than double if you take the road for a race track.
Maybe your driving is more economical than most.
There's a reason that Pelosi, Reid and Obama had to ram that law through using procedural shenanigans
Indeed and that reason is the not so latent racism in the GOP base over a black president and the lock step opposition to *anything* he proposed. Every major piece of the ACA was *favored* by the GOP, just not 'Obamacare'.
Also note, the meeting with all the GOP players on the night of Obama's inauguration to 'oppose anything he did'. They knew that if they cooperated at all, Obama would get credit for saving the country from depression and become a transformative icon of history; and of course discredit the GOP agenda for decades to come.
So they played politics with basically everything. The extreme of which was Sen. Cruz voting against funding for Hurricane Sandy relief money...and then demanding quick aid when Texas was hit by floods. His argument? The pork in the Sandy Relief bill. While laudable policy wise, playing political football with people's lives to make a point is exactly what's wrong with the GOP these days.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people