Volkswagen Diesel Scandal Logistics Imply Sizable Conspiracy

Guinnessy writes with an interesting analysis of the Volkswagen software cheating scandal: Physics Today's Charles Day takes a look at how diesel engines work, and why it's clear it's not just a lone software engineer who came up with the cheat. "...[S]oftware is impotent without hardware. To recognize when a car was being tested and not driven, the defeat device required data from a range of sensors -- sensors that a noncheating car might not need.... Whereas it's conceivable that a single software engineer, directed by a single manager, could have secretly written and uploaded the code that ran the defeat device, installing its associated hardware would require a larger and more diverse team of conspirators," he says.

Comments

Engine control firmware is tightly controlled.

[mssuxorz]

I've worked as a partner for some car companies in both the US and the EU, and I know for a fact that the firmware that goes into their control systems is very tightly controlled, requiring sign-offs from senior execs for design and feature changes. There's no way code this critical could have simply been dropped in by some R&D leads. No. Way.

Re:Engine control firmware is tightly controlled.

[Carewolf]

I've worked as a partner for some car companies in both the US and the EU, and I know for a fact that the firmware that goes into their control systems is very tightly controlled, requiring sign-offs from senior execs for design and feature changes.

There's no way code this critical could have simply been dropped in by some R&D leads. No. Way.

Yeah, but we already know where it comes from. Bosch wrote it for VW supposedly for internal testing. From there it is just an order to leave it on in production.

Re:Engine control firmware is tightly controlled.

[__aajfby9338]

There has to be more to it. I doubt that Bosch would have written the code that determines whether an emissions test is under way - there is no legitimate reason for such code to exist.

But there are legitimate reasons. For example, traction control and antilock braking systems need to know that the vehicle is on a dynamotor test stand so that they don't freak out when one axle is spinning at 65 MPH and the other is at 0 MPH.

Article is a load of rubbish.

[Afty0r]

Modern cars use a system to stabilise the car in the event that one or more wheels starts to lose adhesion - commonly called things like ESP/DSP/ESC

The car wants to know when it's on a dyno or other testing device where only one set of wheels move, and the others do not - if this were NOT the case, it would assume that the rear wheels have lost adhesion with the road, and will serious interfere with the power provided to the front wheels.

So "the defeat device required data from a range of sensors -- sensors that a noncheating car might not need" is totally and utterly rubbish, it likely needs a single line of code like this:

> if(EngineMode.Test){ ... do something to improve emissions ... }

Furthermore, many cars may already have a "very low emissions" mode or similar - there may not be a "special" mode specifically for EPA tests which a different profile for timing, fuel injection etc. - the cars computer essentially changes the "configuration" of the engine on the fly, based on driving conditions, driver input, gear, fuel quality, engine feedback etc - and it does all this during NORMAL operation.

If a "high efficiency / low emissions mode" already existed, then the code could be further reduced to
> if (EngineMode.Test ){ Engine.PerformanceProfile = LowEmissionsProfile }

Of course, it's unlikely that there would be a high level language available to engineers to make it quite so readable as above - but hopefully the code illustrates the point.

FWIW I strongly suspect that the "low emission profile" in place here in VW *IS* a "special" doctored one to fool emissions tests, but the detection of actually being in a test? Probably already existed.

Obviously fraud

[sjbe]

At what point does a group of people, perhaps thinking they're working to create something good, but that actually results in something that maybe isn't so good, become a "conspiracy"?

The moment it becomes obvious that what they are attempting is impossible and they start looking for illegal ways to circumvent a test. At that precise point they should have stopped and done something else.

There is no real grey area here where people weren't fully aware of what they were doing and at no time were they under any illusion about the legality. The people who implemented this are professional engineers who knew(or should have known) what the rules were and decided to go ahead anyway. This isn't a piece of consumer software where there are no federal laws involved. This wasn't a piece of software where what seemed like a good idea ultimately didn't work. No, they intentionally and with premeditation committed this fraud. Stop it with trying to excuse what they did.

Never should have gotten past R&D

[sjbe]

I think that you missed the point of the previous post. It could be that many people involved thought that they were adding a performance function.

I did not miss the point. The point was wrong. They did not think they were adding a performance function. That's not how it this stuff gets developed. They would have known if this idea worked or not before it left R&D.

Granted, at some point it clearly crossed the line.

And that is where they should have stopped. No equivocation is necessary. The moment they realized it was illegal/impossible they should have stopped. It was reasonable to try to come up with a clever way to avoid the cost of adding a urea injection system but the would have known if this was feasible before the idea left the R&D lab. Once it got to the production engineers, there is no possible way they didn't know that what they were doing.