Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Was there a punishment when GM recently had a major oops?
Sept. 17, 2015: GM will pay $900 million to settle the U.S. Justice Department case, which charged GM with wire fraud and scheming to conceal a deadly safety defect from U.S. regulators, according to a criminal information filed by federal prosecutors ..... GM separately Thursday said it planned to take a $575 million charge in the third quarter for settling nearly 1,400 lawsuits arising from the defective switch.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
cheating at emissions
This wasn't just some simple "cheating" . . . this was large scale "fraud". If the Feds in the US wanted to, they could RICO VW. That would essentially put them out of business in the US. But VW has a puny market share in the US, when compared to other foreign auto producers in the VW or Audi price range. So the government in the US is probably thinking of what the collateral damage would be for VW car dealerships, independent mechanics, etc. VW got the worst possible penalty that anyone can levy: the VW stock got mauled. Their brand has been emasculated.
But the worst is yet to come. Germans take their reputation for great engineering very seriously. The German government is now pissed off at this as well. For Americans, this would be like a team cheating in the Super Bowl. Germans and their cars, have a relationship like Americans do with their guns.
The CEO of VW can start cleaning out his desk, and a bunch of executives will be headless in the coming weeks, as well. That serves them right. However, in typical corporate fashion, VW will end up firing ordinary, innocent workers, who had nothing to do with the fraud at all.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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.
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.
diesel is different from gasoline. optimizing power and performance has a lot to do with fuel injection timing. We tested my 2014 TDI at a local shop. NOx was higher when tested with just a probe in the exhaust... when connected to the state inspection system you can smell the DPF regen cycle kicking (fuel is injected in the exhaust and ignited to incinerate ash collected in the DPF) in and the engine fuel injection timing changed. NOx was low. But injection on the early side results in performance loss and lower mpg.