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VW Fiasco Puts Ethics In Engineering Under the Spotlight, CEO Steps Down
szczys writes: By now you've heard that VW has been accused of doctoring the software in their small diesel models to sidestep emissions standards. The thing that hasn't been talked about is engineering ethics. An algorithm in the code detects when the vehicle is under test conditions and causes it to perform differently. This couldn't have been accomplished by just one person. Brian Benchoff looks at the conditions leading up to the scandal and discusses the engineering ethics involved. Automotive engineers are held to a higher standard because mistakes and cut corners can kill people. This kind of suspected deceit goes well beyond concerns of environmental damage. Willing ethics violations challenge our trust of the engineering as a whole. Volkswagen‘s chief executive Martin Winterkorn has announced he is stepping down.
To be more specific: N2 + O2 is thermodynamically favorable at lower temperatures and pressures, while NOx is more favorable at higher temperatures and pressures. Combustion of fuel is also more efficient at higher temperatures and pressures. So pretty much whatever you do to get more power and efficiency out of your fuel, also tends to give you more NOx. Now, there's a wide range of things you can do to try to reduce the NOx; the ones with few drawbacks are pretty much universally done, while the others (such as urea injection) come at a cost. But the easiest way to reduce NOx for emissions tests is simply to burn cooler, at lower pressures, for shorter periods of time - aka, hurt your power and fuel economy.
Crowd: What do we want? Fry: Fry's dog! Crowd: When do we want it? Fry: Fry's dog!
There's a difference between a substance being bad (which has been empirically demonstrated) and it being dangerous at the concentrations being suggested. There's research that shows drinking too much water is bad for you, but we're not going to start making laws about water consumption for obvious reasons.
What if we made the current emission standards two orders of magnitude more strict? Obviously that would be even better for the environment and human health, but if the current regulations are already to a point where the amounts being released have a negligible impact on health, pollution, etc. then making them more strict does not amount to much real good, but adds potentially significant costs.
The point raised is an interesting one as at one point in time it would have been unethical to not return an escaped slave. While it's obvious that there's a gulf of distance between the ethics of vehicle emissions and that of slavery, it cuts to the point lgw was trying to make in that if the standards themselves are meaningless (an open question that neither of you have presented actual evidence in support or contradiction of) then the only reason to stay within their confines is because it is the law, which says nothing about its usefulness in and of itself.
The crux of the matter is how good the law actually is. If it's a regulation that requires $10 of cost to prevent $1 of harm, it's a poor law and is wasting resources so that someone can satisfy their own sense of morality. If it's a case of $10 of cost preventing $100 of harm, then it's a good law that prevents damage to society or shared resources. If we have a bad law, then it should be broken through acts of civil disobedience because a bad law is more harmful to society than the behavior it seeks to prevent.
We'd be better served putting aside notions of whether the behavior is ethical, feelings about corporatism, and stances on government environmentalism so that we can objectively examine whether the emission laws that exist are reasonable because they do reduce harm or whether they're simply the result of someone deciding that they get to choose what's best for everyone else. Only then is it fair to answer whether the behavior is ethical, else we're just arguing assumptions or semantics.
I sincerely don't think Germans think that way. These are the people who turned off all their nuclear plants for solar. I disagree with that action, but I have a lot of trouble believing that they think that the regulations of the US, of all places, are ridiculous. Germans are not known for their dislike of regulations.
More likely, some engineers either were directed to do that, and preferred to not undermine their company, or they saw it as a challenge which they are proud of because they figured out how to beat emissions tests reliably.
Not condoning the cheating, but there is another issue. Many Americans drive, as their family vehicle as well as work vehicle, "light" trucks (e.g. Dodge RAM 3500) and SUVs which have much larger Diesel engines in them than the ones being discussed in these VW cars.
What I've been told about the structure of the EPA regulations is that driving a much more polluting large Diesel pickup truck as your personal vehicle is allowed, but driving a relatively much more efficient and less polluting small European Diesel vehicle is not allowed.
Something is seriously messed up there.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Normally it is a case of pointing the finger down the food chain until someone cannot point any further.
Engineers are normally the Middle Class people, They don't have the money for a prolonged out of work. So there is only so much risk they would take at their job. It would be nice that everyone would be brave enough to stand up and say "This is wrong, I won't do it!" however with the risk of getting fired, plenty of the power is still in the higher ups.
Also it is quite possible that the engineers could design something without full realization on what they are doing.
I need you to code a function when variables are between this range, that returns a value in this range.
The function is created.
Then it will go to an other engineer, We have the function to optimize fuel efficiency in place, could you add this function to your code.
The function is added.
The higher ups can organize their orders so the engineers doesn't have the full picture of the scope. However when things goes down they will see in the comment that engineer who had made the function and the other who added it. They get canned, for doing their work, and never had an inkling on what they were doing on the grand scheme of things.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Take a quick look at the fate of whistle-blowers in the USA. Every single one, even those who finally (usually 10 to 15 years later) get their cash settlement, are blackballed within their industry, if not outright shunned by 'most everyone they knew in their former company. Typically a (USA) company engages in a propoganda war against the whistle-blower, starting with firing him for misconduct or violating IP or similar nonsense; then moving on to significant character assassination.
Whistle-blowing ain't gonna happen, so quit trying to blame the technical staff.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
It doesn't actually work that way, i.e. the EPA doesn't tell the car that it's being tested now. What happens, though, is that the tests are under carefully controlled conditions in the interests of reproducibility. The car is placed on a chassis dynamometer and run at a constant speed. VW programmed their engine computer to look for a combination of constant speed and zero steering input, which would never happen during normal driving, and switched into low emissions mode when it detected that combination.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Bull. There are only a handful of diesel SUV models sold in the US, and their sales are extremely low. Diesel engines are more popular in extremely heavy-duty trucks, but still not very popular, and those aren't viable "family vehicle(s)", and very rarely used as commuter vehicles, at all.
It only makes sense for heavy vehicles to have more powerful engines. You need that power to tow trailers and other large cargo... things a little car is NEVER going to do, however polluting the engine might be. Why don't you go complain that those 16-wheel semi-trucks are allowed to pollute more than small cars, too? It doesn't make sense.
And NOBODY is going to buy a huge pickup, because they couldn't get a tiny diesel car... It's not a competition at all. Gasoline cars pollute far less. So much so that Europe is developing huge smog problems, with those famous landmarks covered in soot. Paris even banned pre-2011 diesel vehicles to deal with the problem.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...
Frankly, this is the death-knell for diesel power small-cars in the US. It puts the lie to the claims of their advantages, that most people were doubting without evidence, even while their other unremarked problems have been made undeniably obvious. No question in hindsight that Europe made the wrong decision promoting diesel over gasoline, and now it looks like they're bound to continue declining in popularity there, too.
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WVU which ran the tests which detected the cheating VW cars also tested a diesel BMW X5. The X5 passed.
The larger diesel trucks use a urea injection system to reduce NOx emissions. The larger size of the truck makes it easier to add the system, and the truck's higher price means the system makes a smaller (relative) increase to the vehicle's purchase price. The brouhaha over VW's EA189 engine was that it (purportedly) complied with NOx emission regulations without the added cost and complexity of a urea injection system. That would've been wonderful if true, but alas it wasn't.
Except that the regulations for small diesels are far stricter in the US than in Europe, so the Germans probably have good cause for thinking the US regulations are ridiculous.
Of course, here in Europe, we have Urea injection (AdBlu) which solves the problem on a test bench, but adds urea to the pollutants in any real life situation. Since Urea injection was introduced, everyone in London is complaining of "hay fever". I don't see a lot of hay in London, but there are plenty of Euro4 and Euro5 trucks (AdBlu), since they have taxed the older ones off the road.
Since a 40 ton truck can go from burning 5 litres of diesel per minute, to none, and back again in about 20 seconds (gear change while pulling from the lights) there is no way that the amount of urea will be correct. And you may have 16 or 24 gears to go through between 0 and 56MPH (speed limit for trucks). Burning slower and cooler gives longer engine life too.
It presumably also adds massively to bribes for European commissioners from the AdBlu monopoly.
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