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Emissions Scandal Expands: Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda, and Mitsubishi (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Volkswagen has taken some serious heat for deliberately circumventing emissions tests with "defeat devices" in some of their vehicles. While no other cars have been found to use specific devices to fool tests in the same way, we're now learning that many manufacturers still mysteriously perform worse in the real world. Last week, the Guardian revealed that diesel cars from Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo, and Renault emitted significantly more pollution in realistic driving conditions than the tests supposedly allow. Now, we learn that vehicles from Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda, and Mitsubishi emit substantially more than they should as well. For example: "Mercedes-Benz's diesel cars produced an average of 0.406g/km of NOx on the road, at least 2.2 times more than the official Euro 5 level and five times higher than the Euro 6 level. Honda's diesel cars emitted 0.484g/km of NOx on average, between 2.6 and six times the official levels." This provides clear evidence that the automotive industry is designing its cars to follow the letter of the law (passing tests), but not the spirit (actually reducing pollution).
Or it reveals that the testing mechanism was always wrong. It's a leap to say that differences between the tests and "real driving" represent fraud, until it's proven that the cheating mechanism is actually there (as it is in VW).
I know they are available, but they are of no relevance in the US as you can't buy a Diesel-powered Honda in the US for any amount of money. I see that the source here is from the UK - where they are available - but the headline or summary could better reflect that this does not include any Honda vehicles on the road in the US today.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Is there some compelling reason why these tests aren't being conducted in realistic conditions in the first place?
I don't think diesel passenger cars will be a thing much longer in North America after this. And time to change the tests to measure results in real world usage conditions.
These people are killing the planet, and by extension us, for their own profits. It's time to start hanging executives.
They have been doing this for years with MPG ratings - making the cars perform better in the conditions used by the tests vs. real world driving. Why is anyone surprised they also do this with emissions ratings?
Ok, if they want to cheat then they should have to forfeit 3X any revenues (not profit which is a much smaller figure) they made from the products they sold. Have the money fund the EPA or something similar or refund the customers. Any engineer or manager who signed off on or was involved in this should be liable for damages as well as criminal charges with no corporate protection since this was a fraud.
I've also read in the last day or two that VW is (predictiably) trying to claim that management knew nothing about the emissions and that "a handful" of engineers were responsible. While there were obviously engineers responsible I have NO doubt whatsoever that management requested and signed off on this. They're just trying to throw a few peons under the bus to save their own skin.
The law says "pass this test" so they pass the test.
How is this different than standardized testing in schools? The state says "pass this test" so the teachers train the kids to pass the test.
Do they actually LEARN anything useful for the real world?
Do these cars actually have low emissions when driven in the real world??
You be the judge.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
This is a classic design for performance problem.
As Thomas Johnson said: “Perhaps what you measure is what you get. More likely, what you measure is all you’ll get. What you don’t (or can’t) measure is lost”
The regulation doesn't specify an acceptable level of emissions, generally, it specifies an acceptable level of emissions within a test protocol. Inevitably the protocol is not the same as reality, so performance in reality is not the same as performance on the test.
This is about the long-standing and well-known issue that cars use more fuel and pollute more when tested on the road vs. the NEDC standardized rolling road test.
This is due to the fact that the NEDC uses a driving profile (throttle position vs. time) that is much slower than the average car is driven.
Bottom line: when you put the pedal to the metal, of course you're going to burn more fuel.
this is called real world testing so of course they are going to produce more toxins it is just called common sense, emission test are not done in a real world case. your car is hocked up to a machine and left to run the engine is doing much less work hocked up to a machine then driving around on a daily bases. so of course you are going to have different results
What? A business followed the letter of the law vs your unarticulated wishes? Clutch the pearls!
I don't understand why we're seeing all these gasoline hybrids instead of diesel ones. Aren't diesels running in their optimum range much more efficient? And with all these emissions issues turning up, isn't it feasible to set up diesel hybrids to basically always run in a narrow range with the best emissions and efficiency possible?
fencepost
just a little off
This is a nightmare scenario really for VW and anyone else involved in owning/fixing these cars. It's most likely going to cost thousands per car to add the system necessary to clean the NOx gasses out of the exhaust that larger trucks use. And there is a good chance additional modifications will be needed that will likely give a significant hit to fuel mileage. These manufacturers are staring down the barrel of thousands of dollars per car fixes plus class action lawsuits up the wazoo from customers who's cars are suddenly getting double digit worse mileage.
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/v...
http://www.popularmechanics.co...
I'm I the only one that gets annoyed with the term "Defeat device" ?
There is no physical device designed to defeat emissions testing. It is computer programming models that change based on certain criteria.
Defeat algorithm maybe?
No limits on the amount of fuel being used. Gas guzzlers using petrol are fine. The reason that there are no laws is to protect the home market.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED to find that people are doing what is required from them in tests.
Parameter optimization is always a difficult problem. Even if the engine parameters change with varying conditions, the "operational envelope" is not going to be uniform under all conditions.
If you have to choose between optimizing "road" emissions or "test" emissions, which one do you think is going to ship?
Note I'm not talking about VW style cheating.
"This provides clear evidence that the automotive industry is designing its cars to follow the letter of the law (passing tests), but not the spirit (actually reducing pollution)."
While that statement could be true, it's a bit presumptive.
I think the facts as presented show clear evidence that cars are emitting significantly more pollution in realistic driving conditions than when being tested, but I don't think it proves that the automotive industry is designing cars to do so (with the exception of VW).
It could be any number of things. Maybe the testing methodology doesn't reflect realistic driving conditions. Maybe only new cars are tested, but emissions change over time. There are many possible causes, and at this point, there aren't enough facts for the other makes to know. The cause for VW is known. Don't apply that assumption to the other makes until you know.
Beating test cycles by engineering to the test is hardly a new phenomenon, and it is the bulk of why current EU tests are being replaced by new standards currently in development that are harder to game. Even with this improvement, expect some level of optimization for test conditions while either ignoring or even harming real world performance.
The relentless cycle beating has had a myriad of harmful effects beyond just not accomplishing the purpose.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I remember while listening to the autobiography of Smokey Yunick as read by John Z Delorean, he was talking about his days as a vehicle tester for GM in the 70's when emissions became a thing. He talked about how they would drive the standard shift cars in a hilly area, always riding the clutch, always turning the car off at lights and stops etc. This would give the car much greater test numbers than real world use. Cheating the system isn't new, and the fact that there seems to be NO ONE checking on these guys speaks volumes.
No matter what they say, even when we factor in the result from the 'pollution emission' scandal, diesel fuel is still much more eco-friendly than gasoline!
The VW boss recently said "It's the decision of a couple of software engineers, not the board members." It looks like those two software engineers snuck into all these other car companies and altered their systems also! How nefarious!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
It's no big secret that manufacturers do everything they can to make sure a car passes the test regime; that is not illegal as long as they don't do something VW does even though the test configuration may not represent what the real world emissions will be. There is a big difference between optimizing a design so that it passes a test and, in theory at lest, if the vehicle is maintained and driven the same way was in the the test conditions will have the same emissions and designing a system to perform one way during a test and then bypass the controls on actual vehicles. One is good engineering and the other is criminal. Part of the problem is the test design doesn't really simulate real world driving conditions and if they changed the tests cars wouldn't pass and then they'd have to lower the standards to much indignation and outrage from politicians and the public. So we all play a silly little game and don't ask embarrassing questions.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
This is the greatest thing to happen to the libre firmware movement.
Maybe now, people will be more wary of the ever more complex, proprietary software being run without their knowledge by the low-level systems in their devices. Go read about the Intel Management Engine and the associated Active Management Technology for starters! It will make your skin crawl...
The governments of the world are making a lot of futile noise about the dangers of encryption, but only to distract from the fact that the real backdoors have already been designed and are becoming widely deployed.
CAPTCHA: alarmist
It shouldn't be any surprise that if you ask a set of engineers to make the car pass a set of tests, that they design the car to pass the set of tests. The real issue is the quality of the tests. There should be an actual tailpipe sensor and a standard driving course rather than a dynamo test.
I would be surprised of the government collects $50B before its over.
I'm I the only one that gets annoyed with the term "Defeat device" ?
There is no physical device designed to defeat emissions testing. It is computer programming models that change based on certain criteria.
Defeat algorithm maybe?
That's common parlance among, err, "computer scientists", see "Duff's device":
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duff%27s_device
VW should have spend some extra money and hired guys finishing in the top ranks of the "Underhanded C Contest", then they wouldn't such an embarrassing position now ;-)
While I think we should strive for a cleanest possible emissions at a specific price point, eliminating diesel engines entirely by making it too expensive to meet would do no favors to the environment. Diesels are more efficient than gasoline engines, so phasing them out in favor of gasoline engines will end up producing more total pollution.
The correct approach is incentives, tax pollution via fuel taxes and give out incentives to manufacturers exceeding the average. This way cleaner diesel, that are more expensive to produce, will be eligible for a credit, making them cost-competitive.
The root cause of VW fiasco is that they couldn't produce a clean engine at a price point. Making too-expensive car that very few people would ever buy (because it costs too much!) does not benefit the environment in any way.
A round of wrist slapping followed by executive bonuses for successfully dealing with the crisis.
Sad but probably true...
Unfortunately the marketing for diesel cars, at least in Europe, failed to sell the point of the diesel car, hence a bunch of eejits deciding that illegally removing the particle filter would be a good idea: Diesel cars are great for long journeys! If you use them to go to the shop, never exceeding 60km/h and with the engine barely reaching the optimum temperature, it'll clog the particle filter on the long run. But no, people still were following the other sheep because "diesel is better" (which is debatable, depending on your usage pattern of a car). As for unreliable test results, VW scandal aside, there's been plenty of news around that auto car makers do cheat on those to get better figures: over-inflated tires, cars somehow stripped down of normal components/features, duct tape covering panel gaps, etc. The testing standard is really not the best. My suggestion: do a 5 minute drive on all the different speed limits of your country/location/state, with a standard version of a car. Calculate the average between all the different limits, voila?
Some year ago, I worked at an engineering consultancy specialising in IC-engine emissions. Back then, people in the industry were quite sceptical about meeting the strict targets in the upcoming regulations.
Engine manufacturers are making tremendous efforts to reduce emissions, but the whole situation is crazily hard: people want their cars to be more powerful but less contaminant?! This is impossible! Everyone has lied here: manufacturers, regulators (by promising what cannot be delivered; or perhaps by making important decisions without the required knowledge) and even people to themselves (by seriously expecting more powerful & less-contaminant cars).
I look forward to seeing all the liars taking responsibility for their actions and, hopefully, learning from their errors.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
There's no way the other diesel manufacturers were unaware of what Volkswagen was doing. Here's a little more on this: http://geekcrumbs.com/2015/10/...
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
Corporate lawbreaking is "human nature" but whining isn't?
You are welcome on my lawn.
VW is a scandal because it detected the car being not on the test bench and relaxed to emission control.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
There was an article in last week's Economist on this. From recollection... in Europe, the testing is not done by an EPA-equivalent government agency, but by third party test labs. There, to get the business, the testers allow the auto manufacturers to rig the test: remove mirrors, remove all weighty optional equipment, remove seats, tape the door and window cracks, etc., etc. In other words, they are not testing the same car that they are selling.
I'm not sure "the majority of slashdot readers are in the US."
But I suppose -as you said- that The employees for Slashdot all work in the US. They select articles with all those strange units nobody use except US : gallon, mile, inches...
There was an article in last week's Economist on this. From recollection... in Europe, the testing is not done by an EPA-equivalent government agency, but by third party test labs. There, to get the business, the testers allow the auto manufacturers to rig the test: remove mirrors, remove all weighty optional equipment, remove seats, tape the door and window cracks, etc., etc. In other words, they are not testing the same car that they are selling.
If you look at air pollution statistics from any first-world country, you'll find they have been getting significantly better over the last decade.
The ONLY way forward from this "cheating" mess it to raise the standards to allow what cars are already emitting - because we know for a FACT that pollution has gone down with those levels of emissions actually allowed.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I still am amazed at how stupid people are about this. The failures of these engines directly relates to an industry and frankly governments who realize emissions are too tight and too restrictive and have generally not looked too closely as any questions about some engines not meeting those standards. Its like anything you find a way to satisfy the requirements and what happens after that is Ok. Its very likely that almost every engine does not meet emission standards in regular driving. People no doubt drive way more aggressively then what is done when certifying these engines. Stop and go traffic, different weather conditions, and other factors can affect the emissions output. Sorry to burst every "green" freaks notion that emissions are constant, they are not. Compliance might indeed change after the VW mess. But it will no doubt mean a more real world testing process that auto makers will have to meet. But let's also not forget that in major areas like California San Francisco the air quality has still improved dramatically. Maybe with even tighter emission compliance that would have been even more. But it does mean auto makers are not making any attempt at reducing emissions. Just that companies like VW are finding it difficult to satisfy the customer needs with meeting all the emission standards. Sad part for drivers is that more standards will probably mean less choices in engines.
The EPA and their counterparts in other countries have a lot of very fancy equipment to test these emissions; equipment that would need to be calibrated against "reality" to be meaningful - this means measuring real cars outside in the wild at least once in awhile. It is almost inconceivable that all of these organizations don't know that their tests are being circumvented at least a little bit and that it is the norm to do so. VW may have just pushed too far...
At this point we should consider banning cars. Replace extra lanes with bike only lanes and outright mandate people use public transportation.
"This provides clear evidence that the automotive industry is designing its cars to follow the letter of the law (passing tests), but not the spirit (actually reducing pollution)."
Sounds a lot like the educational system of today too. We got a lot of work to do.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Skirting artificial barriers to gain advantages is "human nature". The problem is, that it is acceptable from just about everyone. I dare say that just about everyone here on Slashdot supports breaking artificial barriers in at least one area. If you're upset in one area, and complicit in another, you're just a hypocrite (we all are)
Immigration
Corporations
Politics
DMCA
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
That is the real problem. The entire basis for the corporate system is avoidance of responsibility. Maximize profits at any cost, even human life. And bad emission controls do threaten human life, see the killer smogs in London in the 50's or in China today. Look at the BP oil spill, the Piper Alpha, or Bhopal India and not a single C level manager or member of the BOD was held responsible, despite the fact that when things go right they get bonuses.
Until we hold executive officers, whose title comes from the word "to execute" as in to make happen, or members of the BOD are personally held civilly and/or criminally responsible then nothing will really change.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Auto manufacturers have been told to limit NOx emissions to levels far below that produced by nature. So sure, they'll 'comply' with regulations written by a bunch of crazy hippies in California.
If what the greenies want is to eliminate cars, then why don't they just propose that law and get all the whining over with?
Have gnu, will travel.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that most if not all vehicle manufacturers are doing this.
I don't think they all are, but would I be shocked to find out they are? Nope.
"No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up." - Lily Tomlin
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Not to worry, your relevance is quite insubstantial to all countries in Europe, Asia, South America, Australia, and especially North America.
Have you ever worked in a larger corporation?
Probably more than most people reading this and I've spent a good chunk of my career (several decades) dealing directly with large automotive companies. I run a small company that is a supplier to some of these big companies we are talking about.
There are quite a few layers of managers and worker bees, so the upper layers don't necessarily know what the lower layers are doing.
At least in the case of VW this wasn't some minor engineering decision. I don' t have a doubt in my mind that some folks pretty high up the food chain at VW knew. As for the other companies, we'll see. If it is merely a difference in real world vs test bench then that is one thing. If they intentionally did something different like VW then they should be spanked just as hard as VW. If they intentionally cheated then I hope they suffer the wrath of $diety.
So the managers may well have been in the dark about the "defeat device", because the managers are not engineers, and would not have seen that level of report. All they would see is a single bullet item on a PowerPoint slide: "meets EPA limits for emissions."
I doubt it went all the way to the CEO but I'm pretty sure more than a handful of middle management knew and there is a more than trivial chance the folks in charge of engineering, testing and/or R&D were well aware of what was going on. If they didn't then they weren't doing their jobs competently. Are you seriously going to argue that the head of R&D wouldn't know that it was impossible for a diesel engine without urea injection to meet EPA standards?
Or, as the old saying goes, "Never attribute to conspiricity that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Oh I think there is plenty of stupidity in play here. But I also think the people involved knew what they did was wrong. Greed and fear can make people cover up stupid decisions.
Its one big deceit foisted on a gullible public for the benefit of political class gravy trainers.
Here's something for all you CI/CD volkswagon geeks out there.
https://github.com/auchenberg/...
Thank me later
Your parochial, small-minded attitude is ridiculous.
Honda, Volkswagen, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo, Renault, and Mercedes---the companies mentioned in the post---are all foreign companies with markets that comprise most of the countries in the world. Why would you assume the article is about the US market?
What an utter loser.
It's not a couple of software engineers, but proving that will be impossible
I wouldn't be so sure of that. I guarantee you that there is a paper trail here. NOTHING happens in an automotive company that large without a lot of documentation being generated. R&D, engineering, testing and management all HAD to be involved. If the government really decides to go after this (big if I know) I don't think it would be hard at all to prove that it was more than a few folks involved.
It's possible to get to the truth. It wouldn't even be that difficult; just arrest some engineers and file criminal charges. At some point one of them would cut a deal and talk. That won't happen, however.
It might if the right people are doing the prosecuting. It will take years however and the damage is already done. You are correct that even if they aren't willing to talk it wouldn't be that hard for a prosecutor to work his way to the real story.
Mazda didn't bring their diesels to the US because they were trying to meet standards and still keep the car lively.
Mazda6 Diesel would have KILLED in the midsized market, so I'm crying BS about this being an intentional thing.
Yes, I was thinking the same thing. If you focus on the testing, the result is something (or someone) that is good at taking tests. This is particularly bad when there are aspects of what you're doing that aren't (or can't be) tested.
In the case of emissions, part of the issue is that the tests aren't realistic. It sounds like the government should require a validation test where they monitor the emissions while the car is actually being driven. The manufacturer would pay for the testing, and the government would spot-test a few cars of each model every year, in addition to the regular emissions testing.
Or leave the system as it is, but then pay bounties funded by fines for anyone that proves the emissions of a given car model don't live up to the standard in real-world situations.
The game is obvious: "We all did it. You can't punish us all Together, we're too big to fail."
Naked capitalism.
Of course all companies tune their devices to look good in the tests. This is nothing new and appears in all industries. The silly Mhz race with processors or the same shit with graphic processing units. Even on food labels they state calories, sugar etc. based on funky units, like meal size or portion. And we all know that cars use more fuel than advertised. True VW has really gone too far with it, but all the other are also cheats. And if there is a hell they will all go there.
Engineers design things to meet the constraints they are given, This doesn't indicate malice on the part of the engineers, this indicates that the testing methods are faulty. Put the cars on a dynamo and simulate real world driving conditions!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Everybody who knows anything about cars has know this for years. The test environment is very specific and will always give close to "ideal" numbers for that car. EG test environments have very specific timing, very specific turns, very specific speeds etc. and data is acquired at very specific points. But the real world can never be so ideal - there's a lot more stopping, there's a lot more acceleration and deceleration, there's a lot more idling, and there's also bad drivers.
The Prius for example is a fantastic example of this, as a good Eco-conscious driver could get better gas milage in poor conditions than a driver unaware of what good Eco-driving is in ideal conditions. I recall a video where they just taught a driver about better breaking and acceleration and immediately saw nearly 30% improvement in fuel consumption. It turns out if you drive a Prius without being mindful you get close to no benefit and real world driving presents a lot of situations where you simply can't be mindful ~ EG: block-to-block stop-start city driving.
So, go f* yourself guardian, you're alarmist idiots trying to make an issue out of something we've already known.
The governments of the world are criminalizing otherwise legitimate business by enacting laws that make the cost of doing business such that actually complying would put them out of business. Not to mention it might not be technically possible to comply! I'm not sure about the situation here although mandates that criminalize legitimate businesses will merely turn those legitimate businesses into outlaws. That may be what is happening here.
I'm in a similar position as a small business owner. Should I try and comply with the law or skirt it? There is *not* negative effect to anybody by skirting most legislation. For example if I don't add an option asking the user to confirm that they are over 13 years of age I'm breaking the law. Who is served by this law? Nobody. If I technically comply then the person will be denied the ability to checkout at my online store. What will the child do? They will check the box that says "I'm over 13 years of age". Good intention? Sure. End result? Excess regulation that has no positive effect and increases the cost of doing business. We have hundreds of thousands of these rules and there is not way to comply with them all even when you build off of pre-built packages. Despite hundreds of developers participating we don't have a base to build off that makes it feasible to comply with all the different silly rules/laws
Now the FCC is passing a law that is going to *outlaw* for all practical purposes my business. Is there intent good? Sure. I want to be able to use the airwaves and we need some regulation. However banning free software doesn't solve the problem of stopping a small number of people (the ones intent on breaking the law) from continuing to violate the good rules. In the mean time we end up with massive collateral damage. Billions of dollars massive. Should everybody involved in GNU/Linux just stop shipping product and go out of business? Those who don't are outlaws. Either they follow the law, lock down devices, and violate other laws on copyright, or they stop shipping there product!!!! Yes- this is really happening. www.savewifi.org or for more detailed info on what is happening check out this blog: http://prpl.works/2015/09/21/yes-the-fcc-might-ban-your-operating-system/
"This provides clear evidence that the $agent is $working to follow the letter of the law, but not the spirit"
Seriously, is that anything but routine behaviour for apprx. everyone? If, as a legislator/regulator, you enact laws such that you'd be unsatisfied if followed to the letter, then you should not be drafting/enforcing said laws. It's a waste of time.
As you note, diesels have changed. Neither of the articles makes any mention of how actual diesel emissions compare to levels before restrictions became law.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
suspend odious, unjust EPA regulations that excellent car companies cannot meet. Screw the earth! You communists won't be happy until we are reduced to riding horse carts.
Create unrealistic emissions standards based on political ideology and not based on current technology and this is what you get. Set realistic standards and get real gains.
I used to sell Jeeps. Never saw a car leak so much when new before. Every other unit leaked ... from the factory.
Not surprising if you are talking about the Wrangler. It's one of the least sophisticated, least updated, poorest made vehicles out there. It gets terrible fuel economy, is known for being terribly unreliable, loud, isn't practical for most people who buy one, is uncomfortable to drive or ride in, and it isn't exactly cheap either. Sure it can climb rocks and has great traction in sloppy conditions but that's about the only really genuinely good thing about it. And for reasons that elude me it still sells like crazy. Jeep dealers don't even discount it.
I used to work for Dana Corp and I've been in the factory where they make the axles and done some projects there. I've also been in the Toledo assembly plant. The Wrangler plant builds cars VERY fast. It's one of the fastest plants measured by time to assemble the vehicle. But I think that comes at a cost. Jeep makes little effort to improve the Wrangler because people keep buying them and not demanding that they get better. The axles on the Wrangler are about as low tech as it gets. Jeep has a product that people love irrationally like Harley Davidson motorcycles in spite of the fact that the product is objectively badly made and unreliable.
It's time to revise these rules, and update the tests knowing this is to be expected.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Don't know why it's been modded down to zero. We all know the Scandi stereotypes; axe wielding alcoholic fuelled sea borne robbers - but you have the advantage that such events never happen these days... though the alcohol problems seem to be endemic.
What would be the result of the other way around, failing the test but doing well in the real world? It wouldn't matter because you couldn't sell the car because it FAILED. Passing the test is what matters because that's how the government set up the test.
In other news, college students that do well on tests don't always do well in the real world.
"Volkswagon's mistake..."
Apparently it wasn't a "mistake". Apparently Volkswagen used special hardware and software to break the law.
Yesterday on PBS NewsHour the CEO of Volkswagen said the dishonesty was the fault of unknown rogue software engineers, and no managers knew about it. However, special hardware was designed into the system; that couldn't have happened without help from other people in the company, including hardware buyers.
See this article: Older VW diesels will need software and hardware fixes, Horn tells lawmakers.
The CEO seems to be lying deliberately. He says "software". Then later mentions "hardware".
That Auto News article was apparently written by someone who doesn't understand that, if hardware is required, the dishonesty must have been approved by Volkswagen management.
Wrong. Some barriers are good and some are bad. Having an opinion on which are good and bad doesn't make you a hypocrite, nor does following some and shitting on others.
Gas engines do this too, though perhaps not so blatantly addressing the testing mode as VW's diesels did.
The fact is that emission certification tests are designed for use in a lab, which produces numerous constraints on how the vehicle is driven. In particular, the standard tests don't have full-throttle accelerations or high speeds; even if a standardized cycle for those could be developed (several have been, but none are standardized at least in the US), the hard acceleration and high speeds cannot be safely done in many facilities. So we have a compromise that *is* standardized so you can compare cars both to each other and between model years. Look at the emission systems section of most car service manuals for gasoline-powered vehicles and observe how most or all of the emission control systems are gradually turned off as the throttle opening and engine speed increase. In a "real world" test, would they look much different from the diesels (I hope so, but suspect not)?
If "real world" testing is required, it's no wonder that car makers want more lenient standards.
This is why you don't let auto firms run or design the tests.
And why you don't let people that worked for the regulators work for the industry as "consultants".
A few 20 year jail terms will clear the minds of senior top ten executives at all the firms.
Without bail. And with confiscation of all trusts they may have set up to store looted gains.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Europe still has trouble meeting American pollution standards without cheating. Many manufacturers had to leave the market in the 80s and 90s, and now it looks like it's happening again.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Most auto regulations are equipment based when they should be results based.
Mandatory air bags when a 5 point safety harness would be safer, lighter and cheaper (if used)
Mandatory catalytic converters when an electroplated exhaust with a vortex generator could be just as good but improve engine efficient.
Mandating the stoichemetric setpoint that slightly improves emissions at a significant cost to efficiency, how do you think all those mod chips that improve efficiency _AND_ power are so effective?
No other government agency gets to operate like that. Of course companies are going to find ways of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, especially when their way is better. A vw diesel actually emits less during driving conditions because it operates more efficiently and burns less fuel per mile when it operates using its current settings. If you own one and want to do the "right thing" for the environment, only take it in if you spend most of your time parked with the engine running for heat/air (the only conditions where the EPA setpoints work) If you drive a gas guzzling American behemoth and want to do the "right thing" for the environment you have to use a "mod" and possibly be in violation of the DMCA to do exactly what a couple of rogue vw software engineers already did for you.
300 bagillion dollars to the EU. If missing a Browser selection ballot in software was worth a billion, this should be loads more than that! Congrats EU, maybe you can spend that money on Greece again or whatever else you do there...
...is that the cell phone companies game the bandwidth tests and prioritize that traffic.
Much of my early career was consulting to the auto industry (in particular, Ford and GM) during the early periods of electronic engine controls and their interaction with the emissions test regime in question. I did some work with engine controls, but most of it was emissions testing automation and data reduction.
We all (executives, engine designers, test equipment designers, and regulators) knew:
- The test conditions were arbitrary but standard.
- Detecting them and switching modes would be trivial to implement and look good at first, but also illegal, immoral, and financially disastrous for the company when they were eventually detected.
- Because engineering was done to meet the regulations - which met score well on the tests - even with honest efforts and no cheating it would eventually evolve the vehicles to do well on the tests but probably not so well on other operational cycles. (You see this with "your mileage may vary".)
- Tests and design processes were VERY expensive and the companies highly competitive. They couldn't afford to engineer for BOTH the regulations and to be good all the time out of niceness: The "nice guys" would "finish last", be driven out of the market, and you'd STILL only get cars that only met the regulations. A level playing field was needed.
- So it was the responsibility of the regulators to write test specifications that modelled the driving cycle well enough that engines tuned to them would also perform adequately in general, despite the "design to the test" evolutionary pressure, and the engineers to meet the law on the tests that were imposed, not do so by explicit detect-the-tests cheats.
The executives and early-stage engineering departments were aware of the temptation for engineers to write cheats, and (at least at one I worked for) put some draconian controls in on software changes to the engine control, to prevent them. (The official explanation given to the inconvenienced engineers was "insuring regulatory compliance".)
I was told that the regulators came up with the standard test by
- instrumenting a car (with a bicycle wheel speed recorder on the bumper and some event-recording switches),
- parking behind various cars (in Denver?) and, when their owners started up, surreptitiously tailing them to their destination and recording their warm-up idle time, speeds, acceleration, braking, standing waiting for lights, etc. (but not the upslope/downslope and wind).
- picking one of these trips, which contained both city and highway driving and looked pretty typical, and adding a "cold soak" to the start (engine is not run for several hours) to standardize the starting conditions and model an initial start, and a guesstimate of a final idling period before shutdown. (To meet the cold-soak requirement, cars were pushed into the test cell by hand or things like electric pallet jacks.)
The test measures exhaust airflow volume and concentration of CO2, CO, and unburned hydrocarbons. So gasoline consumption can be easily computed by "carbon balance" - you know how much carbon is in a gallon, you measure all of it as it comes out, none is lost and only a tiny bit of burned lube oil adds any. So you get mileage for free by postprocessing the data. The regulators got the bright idea of putting this computed mileage on the stickers for customers to make objective comparisons when shopping.
It's easy to measure the average mileage of cars in the field: Just divide the odometer mileage by the gallons pumped to refill the tank, and average over several fillups to smooth out variation in how the tank was topped off. It quickly became apparent that:
- Mileage in normal service varied substantially.
- The trip defined as the standard one got substantially better mileage than was typical.
Thus was born the caveat "your mileage may vary" and a regulation change to partition the sticker mileage into separate pieces for the stop-and-go city por
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So with ... selection pressure ... Engineers, with the best intentions, would tend to design engines that pollute a bit more when off the test.
By "a bit", after 30+ years of selection pressure I wouldn't be surprised by as much as 25 to 50% extra NOx on "off the test" readings from just optimizing with only the test and field mileage for feedback.
Unless there's something special about diesels that makes them inherently troublesome on some non-test cycles, though, 2x or more seems too high to be honest fallout, and should prompt a detailed search for explicit cheat code.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This should produce some interesting points for AGW. Basically, nations and businesses can NOT be trusted on how much pollution, esp. CO2, that they emit. It is time to move to global monitoring via satellite (OCO2 and OCO3), along with a tax on ALL GOODS based on where the worst parts come from. This will be the ONLY way to drop global CO2.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Until we hold executive officers, whose title comes from the word "to execute" as in to make happen, or members of the BOD are personally held civilly and/or criminally responsible then nothing will really change.
But... but... then (borrowing from the argument for copyright-for-life-plus-95-years) - if corporate officers and board members can't commit crimes without impunity - how will they be incentivized to make profits? The entire economy will come tumbling down unless they are given free reign to "feed the invisible hand"!!!!
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Now they did factor in the fact that on the road the engines would be taking in pollution from other vehicles right?
America's pollution standards are not as stringent as those in Europe or Canada. These guys are cheating ALL of the western nation's standards. The ONLY reason why this is a big deal here is because America caught them at it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Modern traction control systems include one or more accelerometers to help keep track of the cars movement and adjust throtlle position and/or wheel by wheel braking to regain control of the vehicle in a slide. It would be rather trivial to take advantage of th(os)e sensors to sense a test condition (wheels moving but no acceleration in any direction) to trigger the special emission passing code.
The only other environmental condition that might trigger the code would be accelerating on ice, and fast performance doesn't matter then.
See Faced with overwhelming evidence, VW admits thwarting pollution controls for years. (Page 2)
Quote: "For a company to engage in such blatant trickery, top executives must have been informed, said Guido Reinking, a German auto expert."
My opinions were formed partly from watching a PBS News video of a congressional inquiry. A congressman also strongly disagreed with the statements made by the Volkswagen regional subsidiary CEO. The problem is that CEO strongly denied that any managers could have been involved, not just him.
One problem is that none of the reports I've seen were written by technically-knowledgeable people.
Yes, there could be a mistake. Maybe no extra hardware was involved.
http://www.scientificamerican....
It's just another massive pay-for-play system, passing on the immense costs to the consumer.
If the government wants to sniff our tailpipes, they certainly have the power to force the issue.
We have one state level EPA in California, and a Federal EPA, and the Clean Air Act forbids other states from creating more EPAs.
Real world testing is what we already have. They take $ 60 or so, put our vehicles on rollers, and run them through a few specific tests. Perhaps one day we'll have onboard, continuous monitoring.
What really needs to be done is establish real emission standards by fuel and weight, and end the massive pay-for-play system described in the Scientific American article above. Businesses should be able to meet standards, not engage in endless secret negotiations by year, make, and model of the vehicle.
If VW had spent the extra funding to include the AdBlue / Urea injection system, their diesels would be cleaner than many gas powered vehicles. We should be pushing more diesels. Unfortunately, the cost of AdBlue appears to have the effect of pricing the low end diesels out of the market.
The envelope of the investigation does need to be expanded -- the US needs to end the secret pay-for-play system, dissolve the dual-EPA construct, and investigate the board members that suddenly dropped the NOx level to 1/2 of the EU levels for the low end diesels.
California may have done this to increase tax revenues -- taxation without representation. Their gasoline is already about $ 1 more per gallon than the rest of the nation, and diesel fuel has much lower levels of taxation. If CAL-EPA and CARB intended to increase tax revenues by banning low end diesels, we're questioning the wrong organization.
The dual EPA system needs to end, and real emission standards need to be published by fuel and weight.
That diesel cars are inherently bad for the environment? Get outta town!
Obviously anything not concerning US citizens should be labeled as such. After all, the site's motto is "News for US Nerds, Stuff that matters to US only".
It was created in the US so naturally it'll lean more in that direction. You don't see me commenting on articles on British news sites complaining about lack of US news. Cry me a river.
Relative to cleaner electric vehicles, it is apparently hard to build clean fossil fuel vehicles. Thus, society has even more reason to migrate to electric. DUH!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
If the Germans were not following the spirit of the law [number 1 auto engineers in the world], and the Japanese were not following the spirit of the law [second best auto engineers in the world], was everyone else in on this act of cheating too? Was this the deep, dark and dirty secret (no pun intended) of the entire auto industry? And if so how long has it been going on? Wow, thank you auto industry for pushing climate change closer and closer to the tipping point.
"Audi; truth in engineering". Geez guys, perhaps you don't realize that the current crisis might require you to revisit some of your marketing? quickly??
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I think faking a test counts as violating the law, and I believe the EPA regulations are quite specific about it.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Sure, it has a bunch of drawbacks. But it has a "fun factor" that is impossible to measure.
That's no excuse for it being a poorly made product. Quality and fun are not mutually exclusive. Jeep Wranglers are well known for falling apart even when never driven off road. They have their charms but being well built is not among them. I think this is more of a Chrysler problem than a specific problem with Jeep but I think the problems are particularly pronounced in the Wrangler.
I'm sorry that you're not capable of seeing things from other people's perspective, by choice or not.
That's rather insulting and not true either. Don't mistake the ability to look at things objectively with an inability to see what other people think. The Jeep Wrangler is an objectively poorly made vehicle. It has other charms which people like which are mostly intangible but only a handful of buyers actually are a good fit for the vehicle. This is not conjecture on my part nor is it an inability to understand what is happening.
I run a small manufacturing company that makes a large chunk of our revenues selling aftermarket parts for Jeep Wranglers. I probably understand the buyers of Jeep Wranglers better than you do. I work with them daily, have designed products for the Wrangler and do a lot of aftermarket sales to some of the biggest vendors of aftermarket Jeep parts. And my statement stands. The Jeep Wrangler is not a well built vehicle. Few buyers of the vehicle are doing so for rational reasons. It has substantial and unnecessary design flaws and it is demonstrably not well constructed by today's standards. This cannot be argued. I get why people buy them. I don't get why people don't insist that they be better than they are. Every problem the Wrangler has could be improved without sacrificing what makes it special. You can have fun AND have a reliable, well built vehicle to do it in. I LIKE the Wrangler but I truly wish it were a better vehicle than it is.
As an owner of a lifted, modified 98 TJ Wrangler, I have to say that two of the things that you point out in your post are real big reasons I love it so. It is simple to work on parts are readily available, there's a HUGE enthusiast after market.
I make a good chunk of my living making, designing and selling aftermarket Jeep parts. I run a small manufacturing company and Wrangler aftermarket parts are about 20% of our revenue. I'm better aware of the aftermarket for Jeeps than almost anyone reading this.
It's simple, durable, easy to work on and probably the MOST reliable vehicle I've ever owned.
I would mostly agree with you right up until the last bit. Wranglers are many things but reliable is not traditionally one of them. You admit below that you don't use them as a daily driver so it's not really clear to me how you came to that conclusion. EVERY industry reliability publication has the Wrangler pretty near the bottom of the list of rankings for reliability. The Wrangler has its charms but reliability is definitely not among them.
Yeah, it gets super shitty mileage. Yeah, the panel fits (build quality?) are unimpressive.
And it doesn't have to be that way. That is a choice made by the engineers at Chrysler. To me that sort of sloppiness is just inexcusable. It's not just bad build quality. They are needlessly badly designed by the engineers. The bad quality is because it is designed that way.
I gotta admit, the "low tech" DANA 30 front and DANA 44 rear axles are pretty solid.
They're fine for what they are. Durable, simple, cheap. But they also aren't necessarily the best. Don't get me wrong, I like a simple, cheap solution to a problem and if it isn't broken don't fix it. But I think Chrysler could do better. I very much doubt that the Dana axles could not be improved and I say this as someone who once worked at Dana and has watched them being made.
Did I say it's simple and easy to work on enough yet?
Sure. It's one of the nice things about it although that is less true in current editions than it was in earlier models. The electronics and modern engines are by necessity more complicated these days though that's not necessarily a bad thing. For example there are really only two practical ways to get key-on switched power in current models. You either have to drill a hole in your fusebox or buy an adapter (that my company makes - contact me if you want one) to run power off the cigar lighter behind the dash. Jeep did NOT make it easy to get third party devices to work on current model Wranglers even though they certainly could have. I would also argue that Chrysler could make them much easier to work on than they are and have intentionally chosen not to do that.
I would NEVER buy a jeep for a DD, mines a fun drive that sits in the driveway 9/10's of the year,
That is NOT what describes most Wrangler owners. Most Wrangler's are bought as daily driver runabouts by people who want to fantasize about living the rugged outdoor life but in reality are just suburban yuppies.
How about Ford lying about its MPG?