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EPA Finds More VW Cheating Software, Including In a Porsche (nytimes.com)
schwit1 writes with this news from the Times that Volkswagen's emissions scandal just expanded to include more expensive vehicles with larger diesel engines, including Porsche, and Audi sport-utility vehicles. According to the article: "The Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday that it had discovered emissions-cheating software on more Volkswagen and Audi cars than previously disclosed and, for the first time, also found the illegal software in one of the carmaker's high-end Porsche models. The German carmaker disputed the claims, however, saying it had not installed defeat software on the models in question that would 'alter emissions characteristics in a forbidden manner.' The company pledged in a short statement that it would cooperate with the E.P.A. 'to clarify the matter in its entirety.' The latest findings by environmental regulators put significant new pressure on Volkswagen and its new chief executive, Matthias Müller, who was previously the head of Volkswagen's Porsche division. E.P.A. officials indicated the latest violations were found during testing performed by federal regulators and their counterparts in California and Canada. The implication is that Volkswagen did not provide the information."
Evidently, those two or three cheating software designers had a buddy over at the Porsche complex.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
However VW denies the vehicles have software designed to cheat tests.
Instead the company says that cars with the 3.0 litre diesel V6 engines "had a software function which had not been adequately described in the application process".
If VW wants to get past this scandal, they really need to adopt a full-transparency, maximum mea culpa stance right now, and this kind of statement does not appear to be helping. If there's a software function that seems to the EPA to be cheating on emissions tests, well, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
Oh no... it's the future.
I don't understand this whole controversy.
Consumer organisations warned from before these tests started that they would be falsified.
From testing by those consumer organisations we've know that the advertised numbers where bullshit.
What's the big difference between physical alterations to the car and software alterations?
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
"These guys learnt about the defeat device in VW models. Then, on their own, without any directives from HQ, without any incentives from us, completely on their own, unbeknowest to the top management, did I say completely on their own, yes on their own, they did it.
We top management are completely blameless. We get paid oodles of money because we are the smartest and best in leading a complex company through difficult markets. So we deserve every penny we get as pay and bonus.
But everytime something like this happens, you can't blame the management, not the incentive structure, not the pressure we apply to deliver new and exciting products to our esteemed customers.
BTW, can we cash all our stocks and options before the company goes bankrupt? Hate to see all those millions of shares and option be priced at zero"
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Up to this point, I suspect all car manufacturers to cheat on emissions, except Tesla, maybe.
It's like in some sports where all world-class athletes use performance enhancing drugs in order to meet some naturally unrealistic goal.
Let's just bankrupt VW and bankrupt them now. Assess the maximum penalty per vehicle sold, don't allow vehicles to be registered unless they pass applicable emissions tests, and allow consumers to sue VW to recover damages in the event that VW can't deliver on its advertised performance specs while obeying the law.
Can we hold these big companies to the same standards you or I would be held to if we intentionally perpetrated millions of cases of fraud? I'm not even asking that the entire management and executive structure be sent to jail. I'm just asking that you take the toys away from the children who won't play nicely with them.
Is that really so much to fucking ask?
To those of you who don't want to RTFA, the diesel engine was an option in only one of Porsche's models and without doing any research I would guess there probably isn't more than a thousand of them with the diesel option in the USA.
So tempest in a teapot and all that.....
love is just extroverted narcissism
The VW touareg and Porsche Cayenne share the same platform, albeit with different a few different parts and tuning (and being built in a different factory). So, why is this a surprise to anyone?
So is it still just a few nefarious software developers/Engineers fault and not anyone higher up the ladder?
I'm not even asking that the entire management and executive structure be sent to jail.
But that's exactly what would help prevent these kinds of things.
The mindset of senior management is that there is no consequence for their actions. There will only be dollar/euro costs and these will be borne by the company, to be extracted from shareholders and future customers.
I'd advocate for two things. One, the real likelihood of jail time. After that, some kind of law that requires executives to be personally financially liable for these crimes, up to and including auctioning off their personal property to pay the fines, even with some kind of clawback provision that allows the courts to go back 12 or 24 months to reclaim money from other people or institutions to help prevent asset hiding.
Once these people have personal skin in the game, either their liberty or perpetual penury, I think their cost/benefit calculus will change drastically.
I doubt that there is only one guy.
Things like this usually work like this:
During a routine meeting:
Upper Management: Oh, there is a new requirement for the US market. The test procedures have been updated. To be able to sell our cars at the US market, we need to make sure that during a test that will cover this and this and this scenarios A B and C, we must not emit more that amount x of stuff. I don't need to remind you how important that market is for us.
Middle managment: Ok, I'll draft a spec. "When A, B and C, emissions must be below x." I'll pass it to the engineers.
Later at a brainstorming meeting:
Engineer 1: Guys, we need to reach x in situations A, B and C. So, how could we reduce emmissions?
Engineer 2: We could load that set of motor parameters into the engine controller
Engineer 3: But wouldn't that cost us performance/milage/acceleration and/or increase engine noise, driving comfort,
Engineer 2: Yes, but this spec says we only need to do it when A, B and C, so this wouldn't cost us anything in normal operation mode.
Engineer 1: Ok, make it so.
bickerdyke
The story that is emerging makes it seem like it must have been a concious management decision at some point. Apparently the issue is that in order to meet the emissions spec they need to have a system that absorbs some of the exhausted gasses. Periodically this needs to be flushed in order to keep working, around every minute or two. When this happens there is a noticeable loss of performance for a few seconds.
At first they tried to make the firmware intelligent enough to do the flush when the driver wouldn't notice, e.g. during braking. Unfortunately it wasn't good enough in test drives, so they just decided to disable the system completely when not being emissions tested. Then on some models they realized they could even save some money but not fitting it at all.
I think it is unlikely that this was just some engineers finding a solution to problems handed down from on-high. It sounds like they had a solution but management rejected it, and if management didn't ask how they fixed it then that's negligent. Maybe the engineers lied, but I really can't see it happening without some people fairly high up knowing.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Taxes are not theft, they're the cost of civilization.
Our civilization is just fine already, thanks.
Unless the 'cost' you refer to is blackmail to be paid to ensure that a bunch of anarchists^H^H^H^Hactivists don't rise up to disrupt it occasionally.
Have gnu, will travel.
Only VW is doing this? Seems pretty unlikely, and here's why I think that's so: 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
Just because on the whole you think something is needed, doesn't mean it is not what it is.
Wars are state sanctioned killing.
Taxes are state sanctioned theft/extortion.
Police are a state sanctioned gang.
You can twiddle the words a bit, but you do recognize half the truth when you say "they're the cost". Whenever somebody says it is the cost, then you know someone is being hurt. If they weren't it wouldn't be a cost.
As someone who lived in some rather lawless areas.
The police are a better gang than an actual gang.
Taxes are better than a lack of roads, schools, healthcare.
But please, why fight the definition of what is being done to someone. You're arguing that the cost is worth it. Stick with that argument instead of pretending like civilization has no cost and government isn't doing harm to people.
The only argument is that you think it is worth it.
Which I'd agree with. But you can and should recognize that government is force and oppressive. It just happens to be worth it.
As I understood it, that "system" does not absorb or buffer anything, but pipes exhaust fumes back to the engine to burn some of the unwanted stuff. (Can't remember if it is soot or NOx) But that is part of every diesel engine and under control of the motor management.
And in a corporate envirnonment you don't need "lying". Each hierarchy level wants to makes its reports looks good and leaves out just enough of the bad news to make it look a tiny bit better without _actual_ misinformation. Repeat that for each hierachy level and the top brass will never hear anything about any problems.
bickerdyke
Our civilization is doing pretty well, and we pay taxes. Similarly, when I go to the grocery store, I can walk out with food and no hassles, provided I pay for it before leaving the store.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The engine's computer uses stem cells from fetal tissue bought from Planned Parenthood.
when I go to the grocery store,
But if you go to the grocery store in the next town, do you still owe your neighborhood store money? No? Welcome to the majority of the world. Yes? Welcome to the USA.
Have gnu, will travel.
but pipes exhaust fumes back to the engine to burn some of the unwanted stuff.
I haven't followed the VW stuff too closely so I don't know for sure if you're correct on it being this but what you're talking about sounds like an EGR. If that is what they disabled then its purpose isn't to reburn stuff but rather to introduce an inert gas into the combustion chamber, the inert gas effectively decreases the volume of O2 in a combustion cycle and allows the exhaust to come out cooler than it otherwise would this reduces NOx emissions.
Someone posted elsewhere that now would be an ideal time for VW to make sure that _all_ its dirty laundry is aired. (aka "please take these other offences into consideration")
It's fairly clear that all makers have been gaming the system (various ones have been caught: EG, caterpilar/cummins a couple of years back, Ford about a decade ago and VW 40 years ago) to some degree or another and by stepping forward with everything now VW puts the onus on the others to also step forward or face a major ass-kicking if it's found later on that they kept quiet.
That said: NOX control is a very blunt instrument on the "sledgehammer to crack a nut" scale. Unlike CO, NOX emissions are only a problem in limited geographical areas and the tradeoff is higher CO2 emissions/poorer milage and more PM2 fine soot output (even on gasoline engines). Rather than mandating blanket emissions controls to cater to worst case conditions and given that sensing technology is far better now than it was a decade ago (let alone 40 years ago), perhaps cars should be allowed to sniff the air and work out what actual pollution levels are, where they are (maybe even shutting down the IC engine and moving to all-electric mode in extreme situations).
This (of course) can only be allowed if the EPA and other regulators are able to randomly test production samples to ensure they're complying (if you really want to not let the makers know which car's being tested, buy it off a dealer lot, etc) and come down like a Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch on any maker found to be cheating.
It's worth noting that in London UK, vehicles only account for about 1/2 of the NOX emissions within the "north/south circular" ring roads (a decade ago it was 2/3), with the rest being contributed almost entirely by natural gas/oil-fired household heating systems. Those same stationary sources are also big offenders in the particulate emission department. The UK imposed NOX limits on stationary heating/boiler systems in 2003 but it's worth noting that almost all the NOX being emitted is from installations older than that (condensing boilers emit essentially zero and post-2003 non-condensing designs only 10% of unregulated levels.)
Even with that, NOX levels are only "of concern" inside the inner London ring road (this is a zone about 5 miles across) and effectively non-existent outside the North/South Circular routes (this is a zone about 20 miles across).
On really bad days, NOX controls on automobiles are "not enough" and on not-so-bad days, the sub-PM10s emitted by both diesels and ever-more restricted gasoline engines are a much bigger worry - to the point where some of the worst roads are sprayed with "glue" every night to try and make get as much "stuck down" as possible during peak traffic periods.
At some point the authorities are going to have to mandate replacement of old stationary heating sources but most of the people using these old systems either can't afford to replace them or have enough political clout to make life hard.
This is probably the easiest money the US Government has ever made - with the exception of course of stealing 50% of everyone's income right off the top.
the government steals 50% of your income? you know that your mortgage payment is not a tax, right?
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
But I don't want my tax money being used to fix your roads! I don't drive in your neighborhood so I don't care about your roads!
well, that's the ayn rand style free market small government utopia; one guy gets out there and fills the pothole in front of his house himself, then he sits on top of it on a folding chair, holding a shotgun and demanding everybody who drives down the street pay him. and if they don't want to, let them drive elsewhere.
clearly, if everybody did this instead of the nanny state sending its jackbooted thugs to fix all the potholes and get everybody to split the bill, our society would be so much further ahead in productivity and efficiency, and children would learn the value of self reliance instead of becoming lost in a culture of dependence.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
That is irrelevant.
in fact, the company is a product of the german national culture, which is so primitive that they do not have the sense to just buy a solid majority of the legislature in any company they do business in and get laws passed that exempt them from everything under the sun, like we world leader countries do; instead they go with their own national strength, brilliant engineering; which might not be brilliant enough to solve the problem, but will be brilliant enough to cover it up.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.