VW cheat emissions test with "defeat device"

[turbof1]

I very much disagree with that. If we follow that logic we'll go very deep into moral hazard terms.

"It's not our fault that we purposely made the brakes way too fragile in order to save money, and that somebody died because of it! The rules should have been more stringent."

"It's not our responsibility that somebody suffocated in their car due exhaust gasses being routed back into the car. Not a single country forbids this."

I also don't get why people are so eager to tell that the test does not represent real life conditions. A car spits out emission in function of the rpm of the engine. That's applicable on both a test bench as on the open road. VW made purposely a defeat device. The moment you use that, you crossed any line of "following the letter of the rules, not the spirit" and go right onto illegal-practice grounds.

VW is not the victim, and EPA is not the fraud. Let's be honest about that please. Even if we assume EPA left a gaping weakness in the test to be abused, it's still that: abuse. Now we don't even know to what extent VW had to go to exploit the weakness. It took academic research to find both the weakness and exploit, so I'm not going for just plugging in the cable on the ECU as a fix. It's possible that VW wired in a secondary hidden ecu, with sensors returning false data to the primary ecu.

[Jolle]

This should make the tests far more stringent and take into account the real world driving.

It's not the fault of VW. It's the fault of the people who create the rules.

I agree with you that fuel usage and emission tests should be more real world. The tests so far would be in the wrong if, without the engine management going into a special emission test program, would be exceptional different in the real world vs the lab. It is the fact that VW created a ECU that would put itself in a special mode that you won't ever use everywhere else. Cheating a test is cheating a test, how difficult the cheating is done doesn't matter. The only reason they will change the test because it's harder to cheat on them.

There is a big chance that the lab test is close to real life, when it's taken with a car without the cheating ECU's.

[strad]

I wonder what all those cats that were busy berating others for not jumping on the VW diesel bandwagon have to say now?

[mrluke]

Its politics.

How long have car manufacturers been lying about the weight of the cars, their top speed, their BHP, their 0-60, their MPG?

Does adding NOx to that list really make much difference?

I'm not saying that VW are a poor victim, simply that there is a bigger reason for VW being shown up.

It might just be that the USA are using the world stage to protect their own manufacturing / industry - they have plenty of form in this respect.

[Jolle]

Its politics.

How long have car manufacturers been lying about the weight of the cars, their top speed, their BHP, their 0-60, their MPG?

Does adding NOx to that list really make much difference?

I'm not saying that VW are a poor victim, simply that there is a bigger reason for VW being shown up.

It might just be that the USA are using the world stage to protect their own manufacturing / industry - they have plenty of form in this respect.

Cheating (a bit) when talking about HP or top speed (what for instance Mercedes and BMW do NOT do), is peanuts compared to a structural cheating of government tests that are in place to calculate the rate of tax and the emission group. Also, without results, or without the real results, no VW diesels have their road certificate. They might, legally, not even be road legal at the moment and therefore, if your insurance are real basterds, uninsured.

[FoxHound]

I'd be very surprised if other automakers were not up to the same tricks. I'm hearing that the EPA were tipped off by a German ironically.
John German to be precise.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... rs-reeling

But, this is where my tin foil hat becomes useful.
There was the abortive attempt by Porsche to takeover VW(2009). Wolfgang Porsche orchestrated that but was outmaneuvered at the last by Ferdinand Piech. Porsche was not exactly enamored by this.
A merger ensued, but not a merger of equals and one where Porsche was defacto the tenth VW group brand.

Since that time there has been plenty of political shenanigans going on between the Piech and Porsche families.
Martin Winterkorn a former staunch ally to Piech, found himself the victim of attempted coup's. Led by, Piech!

But this all came to a head when back in April 2015, Ferdinand Piech was unceremoniously dumped by VW. Due to a failed coup d'etat no less. Winterkorn and Wolfgang Prorsche emerge victorious and the old man Piech, is led away into obscurity.

Only, now we have the biggest crisis in VW's history and one that could see some Jewels sold, or sporting(read powering Red Bull) targets canned. Winterkorn and a few of Porsche's close allies are all up for the chop too I'm reading.

And the one person that gets the most out of this, other than the EPA and their 18 billion of course, is Herr Ferdinand Piech. He gets his own back on his former protege in Winterkorn, he defeats his nemesis Porsche, and VW can their future F1 project before a piston is drawn or virtualised...or whatever. Piech detested F1 lest we forget.

So with my tin foil hat still messing my ---, is it too far a stretch of the imagination for Piech to be involved here?

I reckon if any management knew, Piech would've known too.

[Sixbarboost]

I very much disagree with that. If we follow that logic we'll go very deep into moral hazard terms.

"It's not our fault that we purposely made the brakes way too fragile in order to save money, and that somebody died because of it! The rules should have been more stringent."

"It's not our responsibility that somebody suffocated in their car due exhaust gasses being routed back into the car. Not a single country forbids this."
...

With all due respect, I find that an outrageous prallell, what VW has done has nothing to do with killing any individual.

Moreover, to believe Mercedes and BMW has not used the same trick is naive bordering to stupidity, ANY engineer would do it.

[turbof1]

I very much disagree with that. If we follow that logic we'll go very deep into moral hazard terms.

"It's not our fault that we purposely made the brakes way too fragile in order to save money, and that somebody died because of it! The rules should have been more stringent."

"It's not our responsibility that somebody suffocated in their car due exhaust gasses being routed back into the car. Not a single country forbids this."
...

With all due respect, I find that an outrageous prallell, what VW has done has nothing to do with killing any individual.

Moreover, to believe Mercedes and BMW has not used the same trick is naive bordering to stupidity, ANY engineer would do it.

Outrageous? Well, it would indeed be outrageous if companies would purposely design parts so cheaply it become life-endangering. But as shocking as I might have come across: if we start putting the blame for cheating outright blindly at organisations that try to put standards on safety, health and quality, and keep companies away from their responsibilities, then that is what you will end up with. Moral Hazard is very real, and unless you force companies to take responsibility for their actions, it will always spiral further and further down.

Note that I agree that the EPA now has to act and sharpen their tests and procedures in order to prevent this from happening ever again.

I'm not judging or even blaming BMW, Mercedes and other companies for using defeat devices. The real stupidity would be to judge before found guilty. The EPA is by all means and purposes now warned and will runs checks across all brands and manufacturers. This will however take time, so please before trying to put a sticker on the other manufacturers: let's wait that one out.

I do dislike the way you are putting engineers down. Engineers in general have moral values and, in general, refrain from these acts. A defeat device begins at monetary objectives, so at managerial level. I can imagine this being forced down on the engineering/programming team.

[djos]

Ha ha.

Now that they've completely destroyed teh market for diesels in the US they can expect investigations in the EU for similar actions, but here they have teh German government to help them.

Hilarious, diesels suck!

They make sense in big vehicles like trucks and full size 4WD's but take all the fun out of driving regular cars!

Ps not to mention the fallacy that they are more green than petrol. I'd rather live near a nuclear plant than a major freight highway.

[Jolle]

Ha ha.

Now that they've completely destroyed teh market for diesels in the US they can expect investigations in the EU for similar actions, but here they have teh German government to help them.

Hilarious, diesels suck!

They make sense in big vehicles like trucks and full size 4WD's but take all the fun out of driving regular cars!

I disagree! I drove (for work) a 2009 Mercedes C350 CDI for two years. The amount of torque was addictive and the turbo lag was just sheer fun. Most diesels in saloons are competing against small petrol cars, which aren't sporty as well. 250HP and 600nm is always fun!

[mrluke]

I'd be very surprised if other automakers were not up to the same tricks. I'm hearing that the EPA were tipped off by a German ironically.
John German to be precise.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... rs-reeling

But, this is where my tin foil hat becomes useful.....

I reckon if any management knew, Piech would've known too.

I cannot wait for some decent biographies to come out so we can find out all the details of the VW vs Porsche saga.

[djos]

Ha ha.

Now that they've completely destroyed teh market for diesels in the US they can expect investigations in the EU for similar actions, but here they have teh German government to help them.

Hilarious, diesels suck!

They make sense in big vehicles like trucks and full size 4WD's but take all the fun out of driving regular cars!

I disagree! I drove (for work) a 2009 Mercedes C350 CDI for two years. The amount of torque was addictive and the turbo lag was just sheer fun. Most diesels in saloons are competing against small petrol cars, which aren't sporty as well. 250HP and 600nm is always fun!

I'd rather a quality turbo petrol car any day!

[Just_a_fan]

I think people are confusing breaking the rules with "not following the spirit of the rules".

Red Bull never actually cheated. The behaviour of the wing flex was not depending on whether a test was going on or not. If in real life the same conditions as the flex test was present, the wing would behave exactly the same as on a test bench. The wing would flex much more beyond the testing parameters, but that's not breaking the rules.

VW on the other hand outright cheated: the volume of emission is dependent on whether or not the test was going on. In real life the emissions would be much higher even when similar conditions from the test were present. That's downright fraud when you hide that the car cannot pass the test under its parameters. It would not have been fraud if the emissions were higher OUTSIDE the parameters of the test.

Again, breaking the rules and not following the intention of the rules are 2 seperate things. Other car manufacturers apply the very same thing what red bull did (assuming those are not running a defeat device, which I wouldn't be surprised to see): they make sure they succeed things like crash tests, but in reality the cars are often much less safe due a real life crash is always different from a standarized crash test.

I disagree. Red Bull built a wing that passed the test but flexed excessively on track. VW apparently built an engine that passed the test and polluted excessively on the road. It is exactly the same. Either both cheated or neither did.

My view is that VW did nothing wrong. The engine passes the test. Just like hybrids get much better results on the tests because they're allowed to start with a full battery and end with an empty one.

The issue is that the tests are supposed to allow customers to make a choice and thus market forces will make manufacturers clean up their vehicles. It's classic free market thinking and it got a classic free market result. The outcome now is that the US government will use it to protect US manufacturers from imports from Europe. That's what the real issue is here.

I'm in the US on holiday at the moment and the number of German cars on the roads surprised me. Lots of US 4x4s, of course, but lots of German cars too.

Oh, and US 4x4x trucks are a great example of the US government applying odd logic. They're domestic vehicles in most cases but classed as commercial so don't need to meet all of the rules, as I understand it. Now that's cheating!

The only winners out of this fiasco will be lawyers...

[bill shoe]

I disagree. Red Bull built a wing that passed the test but flexed excessively on track. VW apparently built an engine that passed the test and polluted excessively on the road. It is exactly the same. Either both cheated or neither did.

I like this argument. It does not say who is right or wrong, it simply says that you have to be consistent. Anyone want to make a case that one is cheating and the other is not?

[FW17]

If a car has a sports mode, what happens to emission then? Is it still under control or out of permitted limit?