VW diesel cars fallout

[Tommy Cookers]

this week UK citizens have seen on taxpayer-subsidised Channel 4 TV an expose of ......

the UK Adblue system emulator industry - pirate devices now installed on many trucks to disable their anti-NOx devices
to save the expense of Adblue liquid (which is basically urine)
and now Ecuflashing that hacks the truck's software to disable the systems that detect and prevent NOx-illegal use
UK trucks using UK-taxed fuel are of course undercut by non-UK EU trucks using low-taxed fuel

and revealing that the imminent NOx-level legal city traffic zones ......
intend surveillance-camera recognition of pre-Euro 6 trucks to implement a system of incentive fines but ....
the system cannot discriminate between about 100000 (legal) 2013-14 Euro 5 trucks and 2013-14 Euro 6 trucks

and showing diesel advocate ex-Chief Scientific Adviser Sir David King saying 'diesel-makers have blood on their hands'

road diesels were a government scheme - a tax-exempt fuel stranglehold to dilute the power of rail transport and rail unions

EDIT - Jaguar Land Rover announce layoff (non-renewal of contracts) for 1000 temporary workers
90% of JLR UK sales are diesels - spring sales fallen 37% 'due to current Govt anti-diesel stance & increased licence fee'
'diesel buyers abandoned by national Govt leaving diesel policy to local city governments'

[CBeck113]

But what's the alternative to trying to police the policies? Ignore it and let Darwinism reign? That is a bit too much risk in my opinion.

[sosic2121]

But what's the alternative to trying to police the policies? Ignore it and let Darwinism reign? That is a bit too much risk in my opinion.

Do you really believe euro-norms have something to do with health care?

[CBeck113]

But what's the alternative to trying to police the policies? Ignore it and let Darwinism reign? That is a bit too much risk in my opinion.

Do you really believe euro-norms have something to do with health care?

Emission limits do, yes, their enforcement sadly does not.

[johnny comelately]

from -https://www.greencarreports.com/news/11 ... on-scandal
In the 1990s, the research center had uncovered the use of "defeat device" software by six manufacturers of heavy-duty diesel engines used in commercial trucks.
Those makers—Caterpillar, Cummins, Detroit Diesel, Mack Trucks, Navistar International, Renault, and Volvo Truck—collectively spent roughly $1 billion to settle the case, including an $83.4 million civil penalty.

[J.A.W.]

I see the VW/Audi ex-CEO has now been personally indicted - in a US Federal Court..

[djones]

To be honest, I still don't understand what all the fuss is about and why owners have wanted their money back.

As far as I understand the situation, the engine maps for the ad-blue were actually just so it uses less of it and customers don't have to keep filling it up. Volkswagen were essentially doing the customers a favour and were trying to help them out.

[henry]

To be honest, I still don't understand what all the fuss is about and why owners have wanted their money back.

As far as I understand the situation, the engine maps for the ad-blue were actually just so it uses less of it and customers don't have to keep filling it up. Volkswagen were essentially doing the customers a favour and were trying to help them out.

That is a misunderstanding.

The whole point of this is that VW didn’t want to use ad-blue to meet the regs, so they found a way to meet the regulations without it. As we know the way they found involved cheating the tests. I have an affected vehicle.

[djones]

But the tank and pump etc is all there. This is purely a mapping thing.

It was literally no problem for Volkswagen for them to use more ad-blue. It just meant customers has the extra cost and hassle of filling that up.

They change the map to use more.... does this cost Volkswagen a single penny more? Nope..... just the customer.

[Jolle]

What i've read, is that it's mostly cars without the Ad-Blue system, for cost savings. Plus they could use relative old diesel tech and pass it off as high-tech.

[djones]

Ah ok - I understood it as it was ONLY cars with ad-blue systems. If it is ones without, then that is a different story and I agree that was bad and not helping the customer.

[Tommy Cookers]

afaik
smaller-engine cars were the worst offenders because they have platinum catalysts only - so don't use urea (Adblu)
larger engine cars would need too much platinum (if platinum-only catalyst) so have rhodium catalyst - so do use urea

someone wrote a good post on this but I can't find it

[Thunder18]

German sales have plummeted and Bosch the maker of a lot of the diesel technology is claiming it has a way back for the fuel!!

There's also a Netflix documentary "Dirty Money" which shows the scale of how far these nutters went to try to prove the cleanliness of the technology.... they, VW, used an outsourced company which basically gassed chimpanzees to death!

[bill shoe]

The original VW scandal involved cars that did not use any Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF = non-branded term for the fluid). It was subsequently discovered that many diesel cars with DEF systems also cheated emissions tests, the purpose was to make filling the DEF tank a rarity that would be done by the dealer at regular service intervals rather than being a normal thing that would be done at regular fuel fill-ups.

Cheater cars with DEF systems could be reflashed to become entirely legitimate. This will cause their DEF usage to become several times as large as previous, which again just means you add DEF when you add fuel as opposed to once in a while at the dealer service intervals. VW and other car companies have aggressively resisted this type of "get-legit" reflashing because large changes in DEF usage would essentially concede the original cheating. That exposes execs to criminal charges and exposes the company to recalls and consumer lawsuits.

The defeat device on the original VW cars (without DEF systems) used sensors to determine if the car was being tested on an emissions chassis dyno, so a very direct and blunt cheat. The typical cheat algorithm for cars with a DEF system is more subtle-- it involves enabling DEF during conditions that are consistent with the emissions chassis-dyno test, and disabling DEF during conditions that are not consistent with the emissions chassis-dyno test. An example is that the chassis-dyno test involves a strict air-temp range that's a medium room-temp kind of thing. So cheater systems disabled the DEF in moderately cool temps (50F/10C and cooler) to "protect" the DEF system. Add in a few more similar "protection" algorithms and you have pretty well eliminated DEF usage outside the exact conditions of a chassis-dyno emissions test.

Typical DEF consumption for a legit diesel engine is maybe 1-5% of diesel usage. If your diesel car uses way less than that then you know it's cheating, it's just a question of how.

[djones]

Nice explanation.

On the cars without DEF, what were they doing? Reducing power during test conditions, or something?