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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).
I took autoshop in the late 90s. I remember my autoshop teacher swearing up and down that diesels could not be cleaned up enough to make a good passenger car engine. He swore up and down that they were cheating on emissions tests back then. Never underestimate the "shadetree mechanic" type of person.
Are you telling me that the official mpg figures might not reflect real world consumption as well? Outrageous!
While they point out in TFA that there is no evidence of cheating, I'd actually be surprised if most of the major car manufacturers DIDN'T cheat VW-style
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
The testing mechanism may not necessarily "wrong" as much as it may be overly limited to specific conditions. Testing that specific conditions that are only present during tests (front wheels not moving while rear wheels are at 35.1 & then 55MPH for X distance) & changing the fuel injection to limit NO as VW did is cheating. Defining "realistic driving conditions" as rriving uphill or at higher speed than specified in the tests & producing more pollutants isn't.
IMO, the book values on HP & torque should be performed while performing the anti-pollution tests. It wouldn't cover all cases but would limit the games & would have outed VW's cheating.
Posted Anon after modding up the parent post.
The standby generator market which I am very familiar with half jokingly refers to the next round of emission standards as "diesel air cleaners"-- the standby generators will be required to have cleaner air out of the exhaust pipe than what comes in.
Emission standards have become very strict; while the objectives are good, they are pushing the realm of what is viable.
For standby generators, continuous monitoring is practical, but when it takes 20-30 minutes to come up to full temperature and the normal run time is less than an hour, actual emissions are going to be much worse than the idealized continuous running state. We actually need to add artificial load to make the emissions control systems work properly-- increasing CO2 and NOx, and DPM t(o some level) in absolute terms, but reducing them relative to the engine size. I imagine cars are in a similar condition; "real world" is an ambiguous design condition.
It sounds like these others are not engaging a "test mode"; but have optimized themselves for conditions that are tested for (at the expense of power and fuel efficiency) while optimized themselves for power and fuel efficiency in conditions that aren't tested for.
Or the tests simply don't reflect the typical driver at all. Look the EPA sticker on my car says 39mph high way. Where I live there isn't much other traffic most of the time. Its pretty rural so the determining factor is more my driving than anything else. Weather and time of year in terms of summer blend vs winter gas probably has an effect as well. If I moderate my driving I can get well over the sticker, I have averaged as high as 42mpg over a tanks. The way I usually drive, I get about 27.
I don't suspect cheating either because I can reproduce the results to my satisfaction. It don't even think its a case of optimizing to the test. I think its just a case of optimizing period. The best fuel economy is observed by traveling at a constant speed and accelerating slowly when that is required. Highway travel is usually constant speed over several miles or more @55-75mph, so that is the behavior that should be targeted. Its pretty easy to work out that is what the car is optimized to do just using your trip odometer and recording how much fuel you buy. Sure you could tune it to deliver better acceleration (just change the gear ratios would be one obvious way) but the cost would probably be economy cruising, anyway you go about it.
As other have pointed out the test has to be specific and control for as many variables as possible, otherwise we can't use it for comparative use cases. So add additional test conditions, maybe publish results and set standards for different driver profiles, aggressive, nominal, hyper miler, and publish them all. Don't develop a new single test case because you will create a perverse incentive to target that use case and it will likely be more distant from actual use than city/highway profiles they have now.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Here's a newsflash: particulate emissions are regulated by mass, but biological harm is proportional to the number of particles. The fact that those carcinogenic particulates from Diesels are big enough to form a visible cloud means they're less dangerous than the much larger number of tiny invisible particulates that gasoline engines emit.
(Not to mention, the modern Diesels being discussed have particulate filters -- which do actually work; the "emissions cheating" is about NOx, not particulates -- but modern gasoline engines still don't. And by the way: gasoline engines emit a fun mix of toxic substances such as benzene and formaldehyde that are much lower in Diesel emissions, and which are totally unregulated. New gasoline engines are way more carcinogenic than Diesels, even by a wider margin than they used to be.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"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.