VW cheat emissions test with "defeat device"

[Edis]

PM2.5 is the big thing, because there are additional physiological effects at this particle size, eg penetration of arterial and brain tissue
medical science imo has the impression that vehicles are the major source

this week the UK had another heavyweight report claiming 44000 (early) deaths annually plus iirc 11000 from indoor air pollution
99000 annually in the EU from indoor pollution alone
indoor pollution from eg gas-cooker NOx, air fresheners and cleaning products, wood stoves etc
another scientist disagreed, saying only smoking and Radon produce indoor pollution deaths

but city air pollution is lower than it has been for 1000 years
what would NOx phobes make of 1960s chemistry classes, we 13 year olds pouring concentrated 'red fuming' Nitric acid in the open ?

There is much hype about PM2.5, but the health effects of PM2.5 relative to PM10 are still unclear. According to the EEA the transport sector are accountable for 13% of total primary PM10 emissions and 15% of primary PM2.5. This number does however exclude non-exhaust emissions, emissions which are estimated to be equal to 50% of the transport sectors PM10 emissions and 22% of its PM2.5 emissions. This number is however expected to increase as exhaust PM emissions decrease.

[djos]

Intersting article on Ars today:

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/03/jap ... hi-nissan/

According to the Wall Street Journal, Toyota’s Hiace van and the Land Cruiser Prado sport-utility vehicle, as well as Nissan’s X-Trail SUV and Mitsubishi’s Delica D:5 all emitted between four and 10 times the amount of nitrogen oxide (NOx) that is allowed in Japan's real-world driving tests.

but what is much more interesting is this:

Japanese regulators told the WSJ that tests of Mazda’s CX-5 and its Demio (internationally known as the Mazda2) resulted in lab and real-world tests that were almost exactly the same.

So apparently it is possible for an OEM to make a properly compliant Diesel engine! Funny how Mazda was one of the last OEM's on the planet to start putting tractor motors into their cars and yet apparently they are the only OEM who can make a tractor motor compliant under real world conditions!

[strad]

The Federal Trade Commission added to Volkswagen AG ’s legal woes with the filing of a complaint on Tuesday claiming the auto maker’s advertising falsely touted its diesel vehicles as environmentally friendly.

The FTC said in October that it was investigating Volkswagen’s advertising practices, weeks after the company admitted it installed some 600,000 U.S. vehicles with software meant to trick emissions tests.

The false-advertising complaint was filed in federal court in San Francisco, where civil litigation against Volkswagen has been consolidated. As part of the consolidated litigation, the FTC would be allowed to be part of any global settlement Volkswagen reaches in that court. The FTC does not have the authority to impose fines.

[strad]

I find it interesting that people have completely dropped the VW thing especially since they just agreed to buy back millions of cars.
And no one has mentioned Mitsubishi and the ludicrous mileage numbers.

[bill shoe]

Yea, other companies have also been recently caught severely cheatin' on their fuel economy figures. The EPA politely negotiates with them and then announces a settlement. The cheating companies certainly never pay compensation to all the competitors they've screwed over by cheatin'. The fines probably represent a reasonably price to pay for the gain in market share. Car regulation is like most rules-based situations: If you don't have the means and the heart to enforce the rules, then everyone is probably better off without the rules. The EPA had no fangs in this, they were simply trying to round up all the cheaters so they could gently gum them into submission.

Mercedes continues to plod into the morass after their chairman originally trumpeted how the VW scandal would never happen at MB due to their different cultures. The MB issue is that their emissions simply turn off when the ambient temperature is moderately cool, 50F to be precise. This is obviously a defeat device unless MB fully disclosed it on all their annual conformity applications to the EPA. I don't think the EPA could have approved a conformity application like that. MB has chosen to be veeery quiet and low key about this so far, and that PR strategy has been successful. Will be interesting to watch going forward. Will EPA go fangs or gums?

[bill shoe]

Just more evidence showing that Diesel engines are completely unsuited to wide spread use in regular passenger vehicles!

Old quote, but I don't buy it. Diesel works fine if you accept the need for a small DEF tank and a reasonable size aftertreatment system. This isn't free, but it's approximately free compared to making electric cars that have sort-of reasonable range and can kind-of be recharged quickly. It's crazy that the refusal to do diesel fundamentals correctly will likely end up pushing us to much less practical solutions!

[Tommy Cookers]

this thread is about NOx aftertreatment
'diesel' CI producing NOx due to the high peak temperature
but diesel fuel also gives exhaust that's high in particulates and there's a battle in European cities over this - irony or what !!

'spark-assisted diesels' were researched in the past (CI running on eg bioethanol)
imo spark-assisted may now also mean other assistance to ignition of nominally homogeneous lean charge
recent research on 'ADs' is ending both NOx and particulate problems via boosted lean running CI on 'semi-gasoline' (ie low Cetane No) fuels
and dominating efficiency formula F1 - (this F1 is no accident, is it ?)

is the writing on the wall re. the demise of diesel-fuelled cars etc ?

[strad]

as an aside, THEY say particulates are not what causes the cancer but rather gases you cannot see.

[Tommy Cookers]

and now it seems that Mitsubishi has been fiddling its economy test figures since 1991

[SiLo]

Such an inevitability about all this. It seems it would be sensible to make a list of manufacturers that haven't been caught up in it as it would be smaller!