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US Finds New Secret Software In VW Audi Engines, Says Report (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: It looks like Volkswagen's diesel scandal could keep rolling as reports claim that the automaker has three hidden software programs in its 3.0-liter engines. Concerns about the German car manufacturers' 2.0-liter engines could soon reach a conclusion, but the discovery of the hidden software has thrown the future of 3.0-liter diesels into uncertainty. That secret software in Volkswagen's 3.0-liter diesels can turn off the vehicles' emissions controls, Reuters reports, citing the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag. The emissions control system allegedly shuts off after 22 minutes, when most emissions tests take about 20. If this software does exist, it likely resides in all 3.0-liter diesels that Volkswagen sells in the U.S.. This includes the Audi Q7, Volkswagen Touareg and Porsche Cayenne SUVs. Approximately 85,000 of these cars are roaming around the US, and they're already under scrutiny for some software that VW "forgot" to tell regulators about.
Why should they be treated any differently? Perhaps you missed this, from the GP: "...multiplying by the miles driven based on the odometer between this and the previous E-check..." So, even if that classic is polluting 10x the new car, if it's driven 1/100 the miles, the bill will be 1/10 as much. Seems fair.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The software started off innocently enough. Audi developed it in 1999. They were trying to figure out a way to reduce the diesel clatter when you've started the engine cold. The solution they came up with was to make the fuel mixture richer to increase lubrication. But that caused emissions to spike. They figured since this was being doing only during warmup after the engine was cold started, and wasn't how the engine would normally run, it was OK to disable the emissions controls for that period. An exception being if a emissions test was being run - then they'd leave the emissions controls running normally to better reflect how the engine runs outside of this warmup phase.
Gradually over time, they began relying on it more and more. With the 2.0 liter diesel engine, they didn't want to pay Mercedes to license the urea injection system. So they began used the software instead. (On the 3.0 liter engines which have urea injection, it appears to have been used as a crutch so they could get away with putting in a smaller, cheaper catalytic converter and not have to use as much urea.)
Vehical emissions account for less than 1% of all air pollution sources.
Not true. Passenger cars and light trucks account for about 10% of the global carbon footprint. And unlike you, I have sources to prove it.
https://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/5301_Globalwarmingontheroad_0.pdf
To get idea of the scope of the misconception, a single supertanker pumps more air pollution into the atmosphere in a single day than all the cars in the world, VW diesels included.
You're the one with the misconceptions here. As per the above source, shipping only accounts for 2,2% of global CO2 emissions. Besides, you're the one with the misconceptions here - your idea came out of a Guardian article that focused on sulfur oxide emissions to the exclusion of everything else. This is ridiculously misleading, because cars emit next to no SOx.
I'm not defending VW, but pointing out that this VW bullshit is a distraction
And yet you're making factually inaccurate claims in order to trivialize VW's role in willfully deceiving regulators and their own customers around the world.
Debian have a reproducible builds project for that reason.