Via The GWPF:
The European car industry was shaken on Monday as Volkswagen’s share price fell almost 20 per cent over its admission that it cheated on US emissions tests, triggering calls for a broader inquiry into the sector. More than €13bn was wiped off VW’s market capitalisation, spurring a wider fall in carmakers’ shares, after Martin Winterkorn, the group’s chief executive, apologised and ordered an external investigation into the affair. he news prompted a fall in carmakers’ shares with Daimler, BMW, Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroën each being sold off amid investor concerns over the potential scale of the cost to VW and the broader industry. VW faces billions of dollars in fines and warranty costs, possible criminal charges for executives and class-action lawsuits from US drivers. –Andy Sharman and Jeevan Vasagar, Financial Times, 22 September 2015
The federal government paid out as much as $51 million in green car subsidies for Volkswagen diesel vehicles based on falsified pollution test results, according to a Times analysis of the federal incentives. Such green car incentives have also gone to buyers of hybrid, electric and hydrogen fuel cell cars. But the EPA does not track aggregate figures for incentives paid out to buyers of specific models or brands. –Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times, 22 September 2015
Carmakers bombard consumers with marketing about how “clean” and “eco” their products are, but incidents like VW’s software cheating are a reminder that the auto industry has no abiding love for the green ideals it’s peddling. Volkswagen will pay dearly for its transgression, but you can be sure there are many more companies out there—both inside and out of the auto industry—that are taking advantage of the average consumer’s enjoyment of feeling environmentally friendly, without actually delivering the benefits promised. —The American Interest, 22 September 2015
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Germany is already reeling under the pressure of hundreds of thousands of ‘refugees’ mainly young males and now this. VW may go bankrupt! Certainly, this is a criminal matter. I have owned VWs in the past several times. Sad end to what was once an interesting corporation.
Completely unrelated to the VW issue and demographically a claim too silly for words.
Not completely unrelated. Merkel is happy to divert attention from her disastrous free illegal immigration policy.
In my opinion the entire Auto Industry needs a re-evaluation of ALL statistics. EPA estimates in particular always seem to be Way Off. MPG estimates should be based on real world driving and should require 3 Actuals rather than estimates.
For example, My ’98 Dodge Durango has EPA estimates of 11 MPG City and 16 MPG Hwy. I have an onboard computer that displays the actual mileage at any given moment. Driving down City Streets @ur momisugly 35MPH it says I am getting 13 to 15 MPG after reaching cruising speed. Hwy says 16 to 18 MPG. The system also has a total average for a specified period. My car never reads over 9 MPG total average after 3 tanks of gas usage, presumably from Stops and Starts while driving.
They should place 5 gallons in the tank and drive around the city until it runs out of gas (3 times then average) Same for Hwy…5 gallons until runs out of gas 3 times then average. Then run 3 tanks of gas of combined city/Hwy driving and average the total actual driving mileage.
These should be displayed rather than bloated EPA estimates.
VW go bankrupt because of this? ROFLMAO! Their TDI sales in the U.S. are a small fraction of their business.
The problem is with the EPA, not VW. The new NOx standards are far too oppressive for small vehicles. It’s somehow okay to drive around in a 10 MPG Durango but certainly we’re doomed if a 42 MPG TDI has 40% higher NOx emissions than it tested?
http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/420f08025.pdf
Go ahead and look at page 4. Assuming that all of the light duty diesel vehicles are 40% higher on NOx than tested (unlikely), that’s still only 0.2 g/hr higher NOx emissions than the light duty gasoline vehicles. And they still have 50% of the volatile organic carbon, 42% total hydrocarbons, and 10% carbon monoxide.
Fortunately, I don’t use it that much. I only burn around 100 gallons of Gasoline in it per year but I need the enclosed hauling room…And it has been paid off for the last 9 years
I’m not saying there is anything wrong with driving a Durango or other large vehicles if you need them. I’m just pointing out the EPA’s ludicrous reasoning.
No offence taken 😉
I never understood why the EPA forces selective catalytic reduction (SCR) onto the diesel automakers to reduce NOx (which eventually oxidizes to NO2 and combines with VOC + sunlight to cause so-called ground level, photochemical smog). Smog is considered an irritant to those afflicted by asthma and was believed to cause a brown haze, which in the case of Denver, was really eliminated as all the alleyways were paved and the sand spread on roadway ice in winter was either swept back up within 48 hours or eliminated through the wholesale adoption of mag chloride.
SCR is fine for a steady-running combustion source but it cannot accommodate the fluctuations of a vehicle engine. For the chemistry see Wikipedia:
The DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) is a 32.5% solution of Urea (NH2)2CO. When the urea solution is injected into the hot exhaust gas stream the water evaporates. The urea thermally decomposes to form ammonia and isocyanic acid:
(NH2)2CO → NH3 + HNCO
The isocyanic acid hydrolyses to carbon dioxide and ammonia:
HNCO + H2O → CO2 + NH3
The overall reduction of NOx by urea is:
2(NH2)2CO + 4NO + O2 → 4N2 + 4H2O + 2CO2
As you can see, 2 CO2 are created for every 4 NO molecules so you get a substitution of a criteria pollutant for an “endangerment” pollutant. But, the problem is below 150C NO readily oxidizes to NO2 and thus the DEF reaction fails, especially when all that water vaporizes and winter’s cooling effects on the exhaust pipes. Also, under stop and go driving the NOx concentration and temperature of the exhaust varies so much that there is a lot of NH3 slippage past the catalyst, which is readily apparent whenever you are behind one of these cars when they accelerate (ALWAYS).
NH3 has an odor threshold of 5 ppm, a 30 min PEL of 25 ppm and a15 min limit of 35 ppm. It is an irritant to the eyes and mucous membranes, triggering the very responses in asthmatics that were supposed to be reduced by using the SCR to lower PC smog in the first place. While the NH3 is great as fertilizer (as is CO2), it readily forms salts, which add to fine particulate (PM10) loading, an even worse asthma trigger.
Because the combustion control technology has radically improved since the 80s NOx is only about half the ambient EPA standard today in many cities despite doubling the number of vehicles (thus the Feds want to lower the limits further to ensure their continued employment). Over this time the incidence of asthma has actually increased so, logically it must be “caused” by some other mechanism, no matter what the American Lung Association says.
A perfect example of junk science “driving” an even worse solution. The conspiratorialist in me thinks the Feds are going after diesels because the liberal fascist administration see diesels as a threat to our mandatory adoption of electric cars due to their high efficiency and phenomenal gas mileage, as the entire rest of the World realized long ago).
Very good, and insightful, comment. Thanks Pete.
Immigrants to Germany (according to BBC): 75% males, 10% children, 15% females.
I’d say that the statement “mainly young males” is correct and accurate. Or do you have a better way of describing 75%?
OT but I simply have to object to your putting refugees in quotes. The situation that these people are fleeing from is truly awful.
Mike J
Some of them are true refugees.
They need, deserve, and must be given help; ideally, they will return to wherever home is, in due course – when it is safe.
Period.
However, – as noted – there seem to be a somewhat higher percentage of young fit men in the mix, which – allowing for the greater propensity of young fit men to take a challenge – suggests some are actually economic migrants. They are perhaps from countries that are unpleasant, but not – like Syria – embroiled in a desperate civil war with ISIL – or whatever you want to call those barbarians – and their own Government happily killing at will [barrel bombs, anyone?].
Merely not liking the Tories doesn’t make Corbyn, automatically, a refugee if he wants to go to – say – Sudan.
Auto
Assumes facts not necessarily in evidence. The fact that conditions may be stressful in certain countries doesn’t mean that THESE refugees are fleeing those conditions. Most appear to be “economic” refugees. Now Europe has it’s own “Mexican” problem.
Same scam as the wind turbines. Pay an arm & a leg in subsidies, and increased energy costs, for no benefit whatsoever. A scam is the nicest word for it. The perpetrators should all be held accountable!
Not sure why the term racketeering came to mind so readily…
Wait a minute! Bigger story here! The EPA and other “government” agencies have been crowing on recent years about how US Carbon emissions have been falling due to Obamas tough new regulations for the auto industries, right? And in those reports, they claim to be able to tell somehow that CO2 in the atmosphere has stabilized/stopped rising etc and they often claim its due to this new fleet of green tech cars and other engines, right?
BUT, if this newly discovered fraud is real and widespread, then the recent carbon emissions should still be increasing!! AND that makes the “haitus” in temperature increases even MORE profound, right?
Either they are not REALLY measuring CO2 ppm in the atmosphere (are likely estimating it based upon fraudulent testing software output) and thus they have NO accurate idea of how much CO2 there really is, or they are measuring it, it IS slowing down, and they are falsely correlating it with faked green technology outputs.
This is huge Anthony…or could be. It’s much bigger than just the swindle going on at VW.
Playings games back at the game players. Calvinball anyone.
What’s that? Comrade Corbyn intends to flee to Sudan? (Future historians will write “The idea started during cheerful banter in the chatroom of the legendary WUWT blog. Years later, from his dusty tent in the Sahara, Corbyn would ponder: ‘How did I get here?’ “.)
And from 1957chev…
Yes, another in a long line of examples of where a rich flow of government money has enabled and encouraged corruption. It does not surprise me that car companies are now joining the list of people and organizations that want a big swig off the US taxpayer teet without even attempting to earn it. Same as climate scientists. That’s why this blog site exists. This happens every time the US government starts throwing social engineering money around – same as post-secondary education, healthcare (just google medicare fraud), green energy (solyndra, et al), and more.
You have to have a mental disease to believe that giving the US government more of our money will make things better. There is a name for this disease. It’s called liberalism.
Vorsprung der technic-trick anyone?
too funny!
SO that is the true definition of Fahrvergnügen
Aren’t the cars in question the one’s deemed “good-to-go” by the Green Police?
(sorting through the trash) “Battery! Battery! Let’s go!”
“Put the rind down, sir, that’s a composting violation . . .”
closing with the tagline “Truth in Engineering”?
Dunno about anybody else, but among average Americans of my acquaintance, the response was generally along the lines of: “Nice hack. Fuck the D.M.V. and all those ‘viro sons of bitches in the government.”
+1
As an American, those were my thoughts. They’re getting fined for supplying America w/excellent miles-per-gallon rating/durable-engine vehicles.
A Cummins diesel is a hot item in OZ. A simple programmer puts an extra 175 HP at the rear axle. Tough to find here but can be had. The EPA is having a hissyfit trying to keep the programmer kit out of the country.
Yes, but if they were getting green subsidies by trickery, they are defrauding the government.
If the government happened to buy any of these particular vehicles, VW may be liable for large fines under the False Claims Act.
James…ever since I can remember hacks have been finding ways around regulators and regulators are in a constant quivering state of rage about it. In California years ago you had to have your vehicle “smog inspected” don’t know if you still do (probably: haven’t ever seen a regulation yet that doesn’t get more onerous with time) and everybody I knew at least knew somebody that could get any car the certificate no matter what!
I can see states with emissions requirements coming with new regulations requiring owners of VWs to certify that they have had their software upgraded before permitting them to get their emissions certifications.
It’s going to be quite a headache for owners as well.
“Yes, but if they were getting green subsidies by trickery, they are defrauding the government.”
Any government that gives green subsidies deserves to be tricked.
KTM at 9:01 am – Yes, but if they were getting green subsidies by trickery, they are defrauding the government.
Chump change versus Tesla Auto.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/21/the-tesla-battery-swap-is-the-hoax-of-the-year/
The fundamental reason this blog exists is to tell the world about the fraud Tesla is committing. This has resulted in tens of millions dollars’ worth of fraudulent carbon credits being received by the company, and if nothing is done the tally will get into the hundreds of millions. This blog exists not to tell people about EV incentives, but about the illegal incentives a particular EV company is getting.
Is the amount of ‘Green’ you get from you fraud technique how Green you company is rated?
A big part of the problem, as I understand it, is US emissions standards for diesels are based on a g/bhp·hr basis rather than a per mile basis like gasoline vehicles; thus a vehicle like the 330 MPG (0.71L/100 km) APTERA Diesel-Electric Hybrid, could never pass emissions, yet a diesel semi-tractor only getting 6-7 MPG passes.
I see a large future market in chip clones of the “performance and mpg over smog goo” current chips for drop in replacement of the EPA mandated “fix” chips…
My kid had a performance chip for his old BMW and swap took about 2 minutes…
Wonder if Car Chip Hacker as a programming specialty has legs…
If it were PM or CO2 or something else nonsensical, then I would feel the same Beng, but we are talking diesels that emit up to 40 times the allowable NOx emissions. We aren’t talking 10% over the emission limit or some other result of improper optimization, but huge increases.
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Ground level ozone is a real environmental and health problem. Furthermore, nonsense like this undermines years of work that we have done to reduce emissions. I don’t want the thousands I spent putting low NOx burners on my boilers wasted because a dozen yuppies bought diesel bugs.
http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/420f08025.pdf
Even at 40% higher NOx emissions that’s still barely higher than the gasoline vehicles, about the same as gasoline trucks, and about 900% less than large trucks. There is smog in cities because of the overall vehicle fleet, trains, lawn mowers and other small engines. The light duty diesel fleet makes up a very small percentage of the total NOx emissions but improves overall fleet fuel efficiency.
But driving behind an older diesel is certainly Ob-NOx-ious
RWturner “Even at 40% higher NOx emissions that’s still barely higher than the gasoline vehicles,”
Ben of Houston If it were PM or CO2 or something else nonsensical, then I would feel the same Beng, but we are talking diesels that emit up to 40 times the allowable NOx emissions. We aren’t talking 10% over the emission limit or some other result of improper optimization, but huge increases.
40 times and 40% or not the same, who is correct? Not being critical, just not sure.
michael
According to Fox, “40 Times the legal limit”
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2015/09/22/volkswagen-says-11-million-its-cars-are-equipped-with-emissions-test-beating/
The old diesels are obnoxious because they have no particulate filters on them. That’s not the issue anymore.
I’ve double checked and the claim is indeed 10-40 times but I can’t find the root of that claim. Just a bunch of reports on that number but no one showing where the numbers come from. 40X the tier 2 bin 5 EPA regulations would put the emissions of NOx up to 2 g/mi driven. I’m skeptical of that. Those are levels that light duty diesels were easily reaching using just EGR. It sounds likely that most of the cars are emitting close to 0.5 g/mi, ten times the ridiculously low 0.05 g/mi which apparently are only achievable using urea injection. Despite all this, we still have this:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/sitch_fig1.JPG
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/07/27/ground-level-ozone-trends-facts-vs-fantasy/
Suppose I owned one of those perky Jettas. What if I prefer to keep it so kludged? Can the EPA or DMV force me to honor the recall? How could they track which cars have been “corrected”?
+1
It seems to me that the ECU (Engine Control Unit) was doing its job. It is supposed to optimize performance and emissions for its current environment. Climbing Pikes Peak is a special environment. So is the EPA lab.
My boss’ response was more along the lines of “…Wow, that is ballsy as ****.”
Inquiring minds want to know how many other auto manufacturers have done this?
The author says there are many others out there committing the same or similar offences but does not name anybody or offer any kind of evidence.
How about this: The Sierra Club secretly took at least $25 MILLION from the Nat’l Gas industry to mount a war against coal. Would you suggest that such action isn’t ” taking advantage of the average consumer’s enjoyment of feeling environmentally friendly, without actually delivering the benefits promised”?
This isn’t quite the same as skirting gov’t regs, but so what? The entire Green anti- CO2 agenda is one huge fraud.
It’s a pity that you didn’t visit the link the author provided. There’s at least one more example given.
The author does not indicate any specific link related to the claim that many other companies are doing it. And of course “many others” is a lot more than 1.
So what, Chris?
Is it your contention that since the author didn’t specifically link to further examples, that there aren’t any other companies out there playing fast and loose with gov’t Green regs?
Here is a list of potential offenders for manufactured EPA data
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automobile_manufacturers
But Bryan –
They may not make diesels . . . .
~Morgan, for example.
If they do make diesels – and sell them in the US – then there may be a case for examining their inputs and outputs.
Auto
I used to work for a large American company making 4-14Litre diesel engines.
The emissions were tested on site using an industry standard 13 point test. The engines were run at various load/speed points from idle, up to 100% torque and back to idle, then up again and back to idle.
The emissions at these particular points were tested and used to calculate an overall result.
The electronic controls (software) were written knowing what the test points would be, and they would use values specifically for those points to give least emissions.
I suppose the rest of the Industry did it, so we were just being “competitive”.
The key point here is that low CO2 targets and low emissions targets compete with each other in diesel engines. To get lower CO2, you run lean – which results in more pollution.
The drive to minimize CO2 directly leads to increased harmful ground level pollutants – this is the key message. And it is part of a common theme.
Adding wind to a power system results in more cold starts of coal plants – which increases real pollution. In the midwest, adding wind has made the operation of existing nuclear plants uneconomic. If/when the nuclear plants are retired, CO2 and real pollution will increase.
Adding CO2 capture to a coal or gas plant reduces efficiency – which results in more fuel consumption and more emissions of real pollutants.
TANSTAAFL. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell something.
Also contracted to the industry as a programmer, and confirm. Controls were written to the test, and the only thing green was the resulting sales dollars. Fuel mileage was similarly divorced from reality. Is there any consumer who doesn’t assume this? Only the government was fooled. So arbitrary rules and huge subsidies created a crime, and a company that will be subject to a huge shakedown and possible destruction. Wouldn’t all have been better off if the government had stayed out of it altogether, letting the car mags test, prices discriminate, and consumers decide. Look at the cars, from the Volt to the “Smart”, that are the result of government policy rather than consumer wishes. Ought to wear the badge, “Dystopian Motors” .
There’s a question. Were your “least emissions”, 10% less than the normal running point or some greater number? According to the EPA report, these diesels were emitting 10 to 40 times more NOx during road operation than in testing.
During stack tests, industry is required to set our control devices to their worst possible settings in order to maximize emissions, and prove that even in that scenario we meet our limits. It’s frustrating the huge double standard between stationary and mobile sources.
In New Mexico, the emissions test consisted entirely of hooking the test rig up to the computer and downloading. If the computer did report that there was a problem, then you passed the test.
If the computer was rigged so that it never reported a problem, even when there was …
correction: If the computer did not report a problem, then you passed.
What your describing I would call tweeking so the sweet-spots are in the correct places, VW actually detected through software when the vehicle was being tested and ran totally different engine parameters.
Lets extend the inquiry into the field of wind and solar power.
Regulators fake data.
Surface temperature record government employees fake data.
The Media publishes easily checked fake data.
The President speaks lies to the general public regarding fake data.
Peer reviewed publications regularly fake data.
It is no surprise that manufactures also use fake data.
The main thing is private money flows to support all of the above.
In our artificially sweetened, partially hydrogenated, bolt-on boobied, tattooed and body-pierced world of liars and cheats, it is plainly evident that to be natural and/or truthful is fast become the hallmark of the rubes and dupes, and a mark of shame.
Look around you, and if you do not know who the sucker is…it is you!
Tis truly a sad world we live in. At least this doesn’t directly kill people. Think about the faked data for drugs to get approval.
Dr. Marcia Angell, the editor of New England Journal of Medicine for 20 years, wrote the following:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” (NY Review of Books, January 15, 2009)
“Completely fake” is the new gold standard for success.
>>At least this doesn’t directly kill people.
Sure about that?
If you take $50 billion out of the economy, to power Green pipe-dreams, that is money that could have built hospitals, clinics, flood prevention schemes, city by-passes, pensions, poor-relief, real job creation, community housing etc: etc:
How many people die in the US, because the infrastructure and social systems are not as good as they could be?
R
Well there is a smart idea. Seriously, that is a really good idea and this “scandal” can carry it forward.
Yes, let’s do that….Oh yeah- CO2 insiders are above the law.
Never mind.
No mention of how VW did the Green Police Superbowl commercial back in February of 2010?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/07/the-superbowl-green-police-commercial/
Thanks for that! Cheap Trick hails from these parts (northern Illinois), and the “Green Police” ad was great satire! Too bad it came back around to bite VW in the ass!
The videos are no longer working there. Here is the Green police one on Youtube. Scary stuff…..
No harm here, VW is just doing the same thing with their “data” as the EPA is with their’s. Why is this any different than the worthless, biased, studies that the EPA produces proving that lowering ozone from 65 ppb to 60 ppb by claiming it will save millions of lives per year? And all of the other EPA regulation changes that are written only to Kill Coal.
It is quite likely we are all looking at this from the wrong end. It is obvious that if the technology existed for a diesel car to meet the emissions standards as legislated one of the first to have it would be VW. VW is the first to get caught out, and by a non official testing company, but I don’t think they will be the last.
It may well be that EPA knew this and turned a blind eye to non compliance or gimmickry as long as CO2 was controlled. It may prove to be that the regulations are just aspirational in the hopes that the technology would reveal itself in time thus giving the public the impression that something was being done while allowing vehicles with purported low CO2 to enter the national fleets around the world. It is 11 million cars now apparently.
As it is just in time for Paris I call Exhaustgate. The overreach of legislation and the absolute destruction of VW may bring about the realisation that you cannot just decree “Green technology”.
The software produced better emissions results when emissions were being tested, and better performance when the cars were actually being driven, I believe. The challenge for VW was that regulations set standards for emissions, but they also set standards for performance–mpg–which might have been in conflict. And, of course, there were also requirements set by customers. OK, given much better engineering VW might have been able to satisfy both sets of requirements without the software, but I wonder whether any company has been able to do it. If not, then maybe all the companies are cheating on their diesel engine designs.
That’s what I reckon James. It’s a farce and the EPA are complicit.
Or they simply could have sold Diesels in Europe only but not in the U.S. This is what Ford, GM and other manufacturers did (GM reintroduced Diesel engines to the U.S. only recently).
[the absolute destruction of VW]
then there is this to consider:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/why-the-us-is-attackiing-volkswagen/
Couldn’t call that claim baseless but it’s getting there.
Direct link to VW in Russia by Gleb Stolyarov of Reuters.
The ‘power and money principle’ is in play here and people are pissed off about it and are going after VW as a result.
Regards
Climate Heretic
I had a nagging feeling that there was another agenda at work here, in the same way that some Japanese manufacturers seem to get targetted about faults, whereas US manufacturers don’t for the same eye watering costs.
German and Jap cars are *very* popular in the US, right ?…
What causes most damage N0x or CO2? the EPA concentrate on one and let the other slide…until an independent test shows the truth.
Back in the day the ‘California emissions’ kit on an MGB was simple. An air pump that simply pumped air into the exhaust this lowering the ratio of emissions to air.
The emissions were unchanged of course, but US regulations dared not look at total; emissions, because that would have banned every single V8 on the market..
NOx emissions from very lean burn engines – especially diesels – are an issue. But it would be nice if a pragmatic view on them could be taken. After all NOx is the start of an excellent fertiliser.
The good news is they at least did a good job of “recycling/repurposing” cat food and tuna cans! 🙂
I had an air pump similar to that on my ’74 Fiat 128SL. I don’t think the pump’s action was as simplistic as you state – I believe it provided extra oxygen so that excess hydrocarbons in the exhaust (this thing had a CARBURETOR!) would be burned away.
But it was noisy and power-hungry so I took it off anyway.
Leo, the kit can’t operate as you say. There’s a law against that, one of the oldest ones on the books. It’s called “Artificial Circumvention of the rules”, and it’s one of those compliance points that can get you arrested if you try it, as it’s considered fraudulent reporting and perjury.
This is also why all stationary source concentration requirements require you to adjust the results to a certain concentration of oxygen, to elminate the effect of dilution.
seems more like the US government shaking down VW as they recently did to GM
Sure it will be a shakedown, but VW had it coming; after all, everyone knows that the American legal system is a racket. They won’t get off as cheaply as GM either. Toss in a couple of class action suits from disgruntled owners and the Association of Americans Acutely Afflicted by Asthma And Awful Air (AAAAAAAA – o.k., I just made that up), and VW will be lucky if they escape with their corporate life.
the entire emissions control system is a sick joke. the European cars don’t even have those costly and power robbing devices. yet they still get very good fuel economy (Jetta has 140 or 150 hp and still great fuel economy which would be better without the controls)
and yes the system is installed as mine runs like crap when it is in the regeneration mode ….dumping raw fuel into the exhaust to burn particulate which is not the problem that california claims it is and the reason for north american cars to have these devices.
Bah.
“If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin'” is an old NASCAR expression.
(Some) washing machine manufacturers have been outed for preparing special machines for the inspectors of power and water ratings.Then back to ‘business as usual’ when the inspectors leave.
Corporates rule-OK!
“Volkswagen will pay dearly for its transgression” ?
Your mean “Volkswagen will pay dearly for getting caught”, don’t you? After all, you can’t show me anywhere in the legislation or accompanying regulations that it is illegal for the engine to change modes depending on the outside environment, can you?
Volkswagen just needs to pay for better lawyers than California has.
Yes, some payments in the official hand slap and a lot more to campaign coffers.
Yes, putting non-representative samples in an emissions test not only invalidates the test, but it is falsification of documentation. Knowingly doing this is a criminal offense on par with fraud. There are some fairly heft fines and even arrests that can be made based on this.
Can you point to the law that says they can’t do that?
Or does the law no longer actually matter?
Ummm, it’s falsification of documentation.
At the very least, it’s a violation of this blanket Federal requirement, the “Artificial Circumvention” rule.
§ 61.19 Circumvention.
No owner or operator shall build, erect, install, or use any article machine, equipment, process, or method, the use of which conceals an emission which would otherwise constitute a violation of an applicable standard. Such concealment includes, but is not limited to, the use of gaseous dilutants to achieve compliance with a visible emissions standard, and the piecemeal carrying out of an operation to avoid coverage by a standard that applies only to operations larger than a specified size.
I suspect that each VW TDI will have a software “update” installed any time they come in for service, and all future cars will be able to have software updates pushed down to them, just like an OS update for your smartphone. I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually cars will download emissions parameters based on GPS location.
yes they passed the test didn’t they, so they comply with the regulations.
The fault is not with VW but with the testing regime.
VW used a bit of gamesmanship to ensure that its vehicles passed the tests. But this is the real world. The effect of targets is to make people meet targets. Not at all the same thing as achieving the thing that targets are meant to represent!
If you want to test something, test it – don’t test a proxy for it. Test real emissions under real road conditions. Then VW would have no need to resort to such tactics.
The fault is also with governments who, in their desire to reduce emissions of plant food into the air, promoted the lower CO2 emitting Diesel vehicles instead of the cleaner petrol vehicles. In the UK the first effect of this was to see Diesel prices fall below petrol prices for the first time in many years. The law of supply and demand kicked in as people replaced their Diesel cars with petrol ones.
This is a good point. I wonder if it would hold up in court.
“Gamesmanship?” Really? It’s outright fraud.
@ur momisugly Michael Jankowski September 22, 2015 at 9:53 am
Not at all. It is what you see when you set acceptance tests for any product or service from engineering to school exams. The effort is to pass the tests not to be more useful in the real world. So the EPA (or whatever tester) could take production engines and bench test them and get the results needed for the bench tests on emissions, the car industry journalists could road test off of the forecourt vehicles and get the performance results they wanted for road tests. The software for the engine management system was designed to pass the test metrics and was successful.
I think that anyone trying to sue Volkswagen may find it rather difficult as the letter of the law for the tests was probably followed with careful precision. The test designers failed in that they did not realize that car engines could be intelligent enough to realize they were being bench tested rather than driven on the road.
It is the test designers that have failed.
Years ago I read about a company that had developed a rig that used a laser to measure emissions of vehicles as they passed by.
The company proposed replacing emissions stations and putting these on freeway onramps along with a camera to capture license plates.
365 days a year, log those cars that were actually polluting, and send them a fix-it ticket.
That’s already here, but in reverse. This past year, I received a letter from the BMV – since I had passed one of these stations several times in the past 3 months (I saw them on the freeway on-ramp), and was in compliance, I did not need to do the emissions test for my plate renewal. I’m not too thrilled about being ‘tracked’ but at least it saved me some time.
>>The effect of targets is to make people meet targets.
And targets can result in many types of unintended consequences. In Staffordshire, UK, it was estimated that hospital targets killed 1,200 people. Just in one part of one county. Just make sure you have private medical insurance, when you visit…..
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/5008935/NHS-targets-may-have-led-to-1200-deaths-in-Mid-Staffordshire.html
I believe similar scandals might unfold in the air-conditioning industry, where the US government is demanding ever higher ‘seasonal energy efficiency ratings’ (SEER).
The A/C industry have been continually improving the energy efficiency over the past few decades, such that any further gains tend to be made in the software that controls the physical engine. The actual hardware has been mostly optimized to the limit of profitability. So current optimizations are usually done via software, adjusting duty cycles etc. to shave off the residual inefficiencies, while also keeping a keen eye on the price-performance ratio.
It would be very easy to make the software report efficiency gains that don’t really exist.
Just saying.
Are we talking emissions of pollutants or emissions of plant food?
And the difference is…?
Just so I’m clear – you can’t tell the difference between nitrous oxides, sulphur dioxide, particulates, deadly carbon monoxide — and carbon dioxide, the essential gas for all photosynthetic life forms and all life forms that consume them for their own energy and body mass. Do I have that right? While I await your reply I’ll enjoy a nice fizzy drink.
I believe that the serious concern with diesel engines is particulates — which plausibly could be something you don’t want a lot of being inhaled by pedestrians when there are a lot of diesel engine cars sitting in one of mankind’s more or less perpetual urban traffic jams. It’s not clear that this issue has anything much to do with particulates.
Who gives a shit other than the odious EPA? Consumers get a car with some poke instead of some Eco barge and basically nobody loses.
Shame VW didn’t tackle it by being honest and calling enough on these increasingly draconian emissions targets which add cash to the purchase and maintenance of cars for little benefit
It made me laugh (yet again) at the ingenious ways real people find to work around bureaucratic BS. We humans are a creative lot when we try.
We had a similarly entertaining experience in the UK a few years ago, when the Gov declared that when patients arrived at a hospital, they would be guaranteed to be seen by a doctor or nurse within ten minutes (or whatever the figure was). Fast forward a year. You go into the hospital, and a junior nurse (the “greeter”) greets you with a smile and directs you to the waiting room. Yes, you still have to wait in there for hours, just like last year, but you have been seen by a nurse within the target time, so target met …
If you show up at an ER and are not bleeding on their floor, you had better be unconscious.
I am a veteran of ER’s the country over, having discovered every single way to get injured ever invented…so far.
Truly, they take those, who would be upsetting to the crowd, first.
>>Yes, you still have to wait in there for hours, just
>>like last year, but you have been seen by a nurse
>>within the target time, so target met …
Yup. I had a similar experience.
The new hospital target was that all operations had to be done within two weeks. So what they did, is to ban all appointments outside two weeks. So they could not give you an appointment, because the appointment book was full, and they would give you a call when a booking might be possible. So you waited three months for the operation, but the appointment book never went beyond two weeks.
Targets ticked, and the fraud was maintained….
In reality, what Tony Blair did, is to legitimise and promote dishonesty across all departments. And so now dishonesty has invaded every aspect of governmental and commercial life. Everyone knew that each and every bureaucratic target was a complete fabrication, but everyone went along with the fabrications.
And don’t get me onto the modern fabricated education exam frauds…..
R
The bigger scandal is how the EPA allowed this, and probably other, cheaters to prosper for half a decade.
The EPA is supposed to validate each car”s emissisons.
Notable success at draconian punishment does not disprove basic incompetence.
I can think of 51 MILLION reasons that not only VW, but how many other car manufacturers are doing the same identical thing? As long as there is this thingy called “Subsidies” being paid BY GOVERNMENT, everyone is going to do all they can to get their “fair share” of them. End the subsidies and you end most of the reasons behind the cheating.
What VW did is particularly interesting: it wasn’t a case of some fortuitous setup that was allowed to go through, but a specifically programmed change in engine behavior when an OBDII (or EOBD in Europe) query is run. I’m no expert, but I’d guess it would be one or all of Mode 1, mode 5, or mode 7, most likely Mode 1. Mode 1 is where you continually access onboard monitoring, with mode 5/mode 7 being additional checks for trouble shooting.
Trivial indeed to change the engine controls to a more test friendly output since the same unit which feeds the OBDII/EOBD is the one which controls the engine (the ECM). For that matter, I wouldn’t be shocked if there weren’t “MPG” modes set for cars used in mpg evaluations – that combined with hypermiling drivers can squeeze a lot of extra mpg during tests.
Precisely. The ECM output allowed the EPA to turn a blind eye and keep cars on the road.
Are you sure that is what they did? The note from EPA says that the “switch” (their words) was based on detecting driving conditions (steering wheel position, accelerator position and time, plus some others). I have yet to find anything specific on this, nor any detail on what the changes were which were applied to reduce the NOx.
The only explanation I can find is that the low NOx was produced by injecting liquid urea into the exhaust gas before the catalytic converter (technology referred to – strangely – as blue-diesel). One report mentioned a UK study from 2014 accusing the industry of only injecting the urea when the car was accelerating. I could see that the need to keep re-filling the urea tank would be a reason for a car maker to program such an intermittent injection and making sure that it was working constantly during an emissions test, but it does smack of poor judgement from the car manufacturer.
Back-in-the-day, they put some sort of meter at the tailpipe to measure actual emissions. Last time I lived somewhere with a test (2010), they hooked up a computer to the car’s computer and accepted those results as gospel.
I’m reading elsewhere that the change was primarily a shift in how much outside air was pumped into the exhaust, but the trigger is basically what is outlined above.
For one thing, emissions testing doesn’t always use the “rollers”, so just examining wheel position (lack of) change, etc isn’t sufficient. I just had a smog testing for my car – and all that was done was to run the engine with the OBDII plugged in. The CAN bus connects all the data together though, so ultimately adding the extra refinement of pedal/steering wheel change measurement is simply a further refinement to the base principle.
VW cars don’t use urea, BTW, unlike apparently all their competitors.
Now we know why.
From what I’m understanding is the reason for the “Cheat” is to improve performance at the expense of nitrogen oxides emissions, so I suspect they are altering boast pressures and injector timing among other things; nitrogen oxides increase with temperature, as does efficiency.
The VW adverts I’ve been seeing have gone to great lengths to stress TDIs got “Non-Diesel” performance and acceleration, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the fed trade commission get involved for deceptive advertising as well.
@Paul Jackson
Indeed. Ironically, the reason for the ECM gaming is that the settings which yield higher mpg also yield higher NOx. Thus the ECM to set the engine for optimal NOx output during testing and a different setting to optimize gas mileage in everyday use.
I’m not 100% sure, but I’m pretty damn sure.
For one thing, if all that was checked was steering wheel, etc – then this would get triggered in all sorts of situations including when you’re sitting in the car, idling with the air conditioner on, waiting for your kid/wife/friend to finally come out.
The first filter needs to be that testing is going on – and the OBDII/EOBD queries is how testing is done these days. The rollers only are used for cars before 1995 in the US which don’t have OBDII systems, and before 2000 in Europe for EOBD. A good hint is that the system also checks the status of the monitoring equipment – the last smog check I went through, the monitoring data was all fine but my first check failed because, as it turned out, the computer which regulates the O2 sensor was misfiring.
As someone who has done some entrepreneurial investigation into OBDII – there are increasingly more and more secondary services based on OBDII access. I have a $12 bluetooth + OBDII device which allows me to read OBDII data directly on my cell phone, and there are commercial devices which allow you to install an LCD plus OBDII which then permits customized dashboard displays. This doesn’t even take into consideration the reality that you can patch the ECM firmware like a wireless router, modem or other hardware device these days to change performance to your liking.
The issue here is, the Potemkin Village Global Warming junk has to come to an end.
If VW had to do this then it’s a fair bet that to produce an engine that does good MPG with power and ultra low emissions is an un obtainable goal and therefore should be recognised as such.
More to the point is perhaps the “dodgy” data on emissions and particulates that the “greens” have produced. I live a very rural part of the UK with low vehicle numbers and yet we are told that we have high emissions ( it’s the fertiliser )
Oh, it is fertilizer all right…pure horsesh!t.
That’s wrong….horsesh!t has a use !!! The EPA , not so much !!!!
VW, EPA. We are witnessing the beginning of real damage imposed by the team on basically everybody. Emissions by humans have no effect on anything except may help plants grow better. Basically if people in developed countries are so stupid as to allow this to continue they are going to exterminate themselves LOL
Let the campaign donations to the U.S. election fly. Here it comes. That also means they are paying for at least one convention, complete with fake columns on the stage production. Some hefty donations to the Clinton Foundation are also in order.
” Watts ” the big deal ??? All they did was ” ADJUST ” the data , you know , just like the EPA, NASA, NOAA etc….The list is very long !!!
Yep! And for once this time the evidence really is ‘locked in’ for the future. Those guys n girls will be absolutely sh*****g it.