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VW Admits Audi Automatic Transmission Software Can Change Test Behavior (cnet.com)
In response to a report via Bild am Sonntag last week, which found a new type of defeat device hidden inside an Audi automatic transmission, Volkswagen finally came around to admitting the findings. "Adaptive shift programs can lead to incorrect and non-reproducible results" in emissions tests, VW told Reuters on Sunday. CNET reports: Software in the AL 551 automatic transmission may detect testing conditions and shift in a way that minimizes emissions, only to act "normally" out on the road. Much like Dieselgate's defeat device, that leads to higher-than-imagined pollution, which could be in excess of legal limits. Audi's AL 551 can be found in both gas and diesel vehicles, including the A6, A8 and Q5. Volkswagen isn't going full mea culpa here, though. The automaker also told Reuters that its adaptive transmission software is meant to change shift points in order to improve on-road performance. Many automatic transmissions these days learn from driver input and tailor shifting to match a driver's style, which leads to a smoother drive. VW Group did not immediately return a request for comment.
The specific EPA load cycle is what is in the test, there IS NO SPECIFICATION for what it does on the road, period.
There is a specification that you not intentionally do something different during the test though.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/86.1809-10
"The manufacturer must show to the satisfaction of the Administrator that the vehicle design does not incorporate strategies that unnecessarily reduce emission control effectiveness exhibited during the Federal Test Procedure or Supplemental Federal Test Procedure (FTP or SFTP) when the vehicle is operated under conditions that may reasonably be expected to be encountered in normal operation and use."
It doesn't count as passing if you cheat.
And it also prohibits the use of "defeat devices" that reduce emission control effectiveness during normal operation and use: "(f) Defeat devices. You may not equip your locomotives with a defeat device. A defeat device is an auxiliary emission control device (AECD) that reduces the effectiveness of emission controls under conditions that the locomotive may reasonably be expected to encounter during normal operation and use."
Actually, the law quite specifically says "no defeat devices" in the EU, and I'd be amazed if the US law didn't have a similar clause that you aren't allow to run the car in a special low emission mode designed purely to game the test.
Or maybe VW's lawyers are so incompetent they didn't think of that and cost it billions of dollars.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC