Slashdot Mirror
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.
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 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.
"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.