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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.
Except those idiots are not really having much impact either. Its the rest of the people driving around much larger vehicles than they need all the time that matter. Lets just shit can CAFE standards entirely and start taxing people individually on their actual impact.
by-annual E-check - done on the dino at the tail pipe
1) measure fuel consumed over the test miles driven (to determine current fuel economy)
2) measure the PPM of interesting emissions in exhaust NOx, CO2, CO, others?
3) calculate the approximated amount of these gases emitted by using the current measured fuel economy, measured PPM of each type of gas and multiplying by the miles driven based on the odometer between this and the previous E-check.
4) apply tax rates for each gas emission type - bill the vehicle owner!
Do NOT fail anyone for a check engine light, high emissions etc, just notify them and let them pay the taxes. They will get it fixed before the next check or they will heavily again! This will incentivize individuals to actually maintain their vehicles, choose the most efficient vehicle that meets their needs because driving everywhere in their Suburban will cost more than driving a Sonic per mile in taxes. Yet by not actually limiting emissions people who actually *need* big stuff can still get it/operate it. The market will demand manufactures sell vehicles that don't result in high tax bills.
Do not make exceptions for classics etc, every vehicle gets tested every vehicle gets taxed.
Could individuals cheat by flashing their EFI control modules etc before they have their test and then putting it back after, well yes but they can do that kinda stuff in places that do checks now anyway. The smallish number of individuals that cheat won't amount to much.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I do systems engineering work. The worst I've ever been asked to do is hack together a completely unrealistic demo environment or two, basically to give our developers time to fix something they're showing to a customer. I feel bad when customers get sold something that barely functions in the real world because of it. I can't imagine what the actual engineers who got asked to implement this "workaround" were thinking at the time. Germany has one of the best engineering cultures on the planet, so I can't imagine they felt too good about this. I can only guess their jobs were threatened -- in the US it would be something like "If you can't work 90 hour weeks, I can certainly find an H-1B who can..." Unfortunately, in any culture, having no income and a family to support is a pretty good incentive to just do what the boss says.
It'll be interesting to see what happens -- having to recall/buy back basically all of your modern diesel cars is not a cheap proposition. I work with German companies all the time for my job, and I can't imagine they don't have meticulous records of email cataloged down to the millisecond showing who put this in motion. Again, part of the culture. It will certainly be an interesting case study for MBAs, if they actually studied stuff like this in business school. (I would assume the MBAs would be doing this case study to find ways to not get caught.)
As long as you can build it youself, and the checksums match what's in the ECU, then this issue doesn't exist
Hmm, you must be new here. Please see Ken Thompson's 'Reflections on Trusting Trust' ( https://dl.acm.org/citation.cf... ) and come back once you're properly enlightened.
That's not inevitable. This shouldn't be the case for well-designed builds.
When you build GCC from source (at least in a Gentoo stage-1), you build your new GCC with whatever you have lying around, then build GCC again with the GCC you just built, then finally build GCC again with *that* GCC. The last two binaries should be identical, or something's badly wrong. The first & second might differ since building GCC with some other compiler (even a different version of GCC) yields different output than the current GCC would, but the second two builds (both built by the same GCC) must be identical.
Not that any of that helps against an actively malicious compiler or toolchain of course...
That depends on the cost-per-emissions, but it would certainly leave poor people with older cars paying more than new car owners. This is why many laws have exemptions for older vehicles.
And on that note, the idea rewards wasteful people who change their car every few years, as a massive fraction of the car's lifetime environmental impact is in the production of the car....again a good reason to give older cars a break - that cost is already sunk and driving the car longer increases the interval to the next car being produced.
You may recognize these environmental incentives as being very bad for a laissez-faire capitalist economy because it discourages people from buying more junk for no good reason. This is true, as long as the environment is an externality, capitalism is an environmental suicide pact.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You assume too much. You assume that modern consumer vehical emissions matter. They do not, at least not to our quality of air. Vehical emissions account for less than 1% of all air pollution sources. Save your indignance for cement factories, glass factories, international shipping, and the air pollution sources that account for 99% of air pollution. 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.
I'm not defending VW, but pointing out that this VW bullshit is a distraction. When the damn holding back the river starts to fail, you don't start repairing the pinpricks before the gaping holes.
Thiis VW scandle has nothing to do with air pollution, but everything to do with a deception that if it had not been discovered, it would make absolutely no measurable difference to quality of clean air.
To you and the AC above, you'd hope they'd be identical, and at the level of the functionality I do believe they are identical, but at the checksum level they rarely will be. This is because often times a build time will be inserted into the software package as a build identifier. It won't affect the functionality but it'll cause checksums to fail. I ran into this when debugging what turned out to be a hardware bug and having two builds that should have been identical but behaved differently paired with some terrible luck in timing of this bug. One would work, the other wouldn't and when diffing them I found them to be mostly identical, but containing some minor differences. Of course in my case they did function identically despite the differences as they were dealing with timestamps and Murphy was just messing with me on when the hardware bug was showing itself.
Just because you can't think of a reason doesn't mean they don't exist.
Here's a list of people you forgot:
Farmers
Landscapers
People who regularly trailer cars or heavy equipment for whatever reason
People with non-European sized campers - see below
People with large boats - see below
When it comes to boats and campers, you are not taking wind resistance in to consideration. Many campers in the US are much taller than the tow vehicle causing massive amounts of wind resistance. This is a consideration along with weight. Same with any large boat. If it's sticking way above the roof of the towing vehicle, it probably shouldn't be towed by your sub-compact or little crossover.
Any trailer with brakes should be pulled by a full-size truck or SUV, especially if it's towed on a regular basis. Your little car may say it has a certain towing capacity, but that is assuming optimal conditions and new parts. If you are towing on a regular basis, you *will* put more strain on the drive train, suspension, and brakes than someone who doesn't. Most cars, minivans, and hatchbacks these days seem to be built as cheaply as possible so the extra wear and tear does make a difference. Vehicles that are purpose-built for this kind of work are generally heavy-duty enough to handle it.
It makes little to no financial sense, and is wasteful, to own a dedicated towing vehicle if towing is something you do even a handful to times a year. Most families can't afford more than 2 vehicles, so if towing is something needed and both adults are working, the tow vehicle needs to double as a commuter.
The only heavy haulage work involves moving concrete, sand, or building supplies, and if that's your gig then you need a light commercial vehicle.
At least in the US, full-size trucks are the light commercial vehicle of choice and are often driven to job sites by their owners. You can't really expect a construction worker--think of an independent contractor who for sure isn't making tons of money--to own a separate work vehicle.
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
If only there was a way to stop all sales of VW products until they passed regulatory levels. I mean, $15 billion MAY hurt, but something like losing ALL sales until you have 100% compliance would really be a kick in the nuts.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!