Wait, you mean everyone cheats? I'm shocked I tell you, shocked!
When the VW story first broke and I learned you could readily control the trade-off between performance and emissions using software in the engine controller of a diesel engine, I knew that everyone would do that. They would rationalize it in what ever way they could "Oh the stomping on the accelerator indicates an emergency so we go with maximum performance rather than emission compliance, it's to save lives don't cha know?"
> Oh the stomping on the accelerator indicates an emergency so we go with maximum performance rather than emission compliance
FWIW, that's common on gas engines so there is some precedent. It's called power enrichment and can be adjusted in GM computers. When it kicks in depends on the car/truck it's installed in. But it uses a combination of manifold pressure and throttle position and rpm to decide whether or not to command extra fuel. You can see the params HP Tuners uses to configure the PE circuit here: https://www.hptuners.com/help/vcm_editor_parameters_gm_eng_f...
This replicates the functioning of a carburettor equipped with a mechanical accelerator pump. It squirts some extra fuel into the manifold when the throttle pedal is depressed, the quantity determined by the force applied to the pedal.
The problem with "everyone cheats" is that we don't have proof of that. We're seeing proof that multiple companies have cheated so far... hopefully the punishments are equivalent.
Once you have the necessary portable emissions testing equipment, how much work is it to test a vehicle?
I've been wondering why the researchers at WVU who found the VW cheating have not gone on to test a larger set of vehicles to see who else is cheating.
Do we know the researchers haven't tested other vehicles? If VW were cheating to a greater degree than other manufacturers, that might explain why they were the first to be caught.
Yes, they weren't doing this on their own initiative, they had a contract to test 4 specific vehicles of which 3 were VW TDIs, I think. They didn't initially think they'd found cheating, and it took a year or two for CARB to get interested and things to develop.
they are all cheating and the punishments won't be equivalent (I assume you mean to the amount of damages and money they made during the cheating period on the cheating vehicles)
But you're right, we don't have proof right now. I think the logical proof, that other companies are selling similar vehicles at similar price points that are "passing" the emissions testing is proof but obviously not of the legal variety.
What I find ironic is the Diesel emission cheating has allowed NOx pollution to skyrocket in Europe which causes terrible localized air pollution but lowers their CO2 emissions (vs using Gasoline engines) and lowers their crude oil import needs. So companies that promote Diesel Engines can claim to be lowering CO2 emissions at the cost of very polluting NOx emissions.
This is the key for understanding how those involved in implementation could do it without feeling terribly guilty: instead of "shit, my boss is ordering me to poison the air" they could look at it in the much more cheerful way of "yay, together we can get our planet-saving CO2 reduction features past those annoying regulations that make it so hard for us". If there are two ways to tell a story, people invariably choose the one that puts them in a better light. Inner discourse is no exception.
... and I learned you could readily control the trade-off between performance and emissions using software in the engine controller...
That is THE tradeoff everyone contends with. The regulations on emissions and fuel economy are directly at odds with each other. The things you do to get more efficient often result in incomplete combustion - strange as that sounds.
That definitely sounds wrong - if you're leaving unburnt fuel in your exhaust, that is wasted fuel, you could burn it further and get more energy out of it - they seem exactly in line with eachother as goals. Do you have any source for that statement?
It's not that there is unburnt fuel in your exhaust - unburnt fuel, while a pollutant, is not the problem.
The issue is that higher temperature combustion, while more efficient, produces much more NOx. So you get more energy per unit fuel at higher temperatures, but you also get more pollutants. Lower temperatures (less oxygen) result in "cleaner" combustion (essentially, more CO2 and N2, less NO and NO2), but produce much less energy per unit fuel.
This is only true in some regions. The creation of Ozone in the troposphere is dependent on availability of NOx, and availablity of hydrocarbons. In the southeast US, forests produce large amounts of volatile hydrocarbons, so the system is NOx-limited. In California's Central Valley, excess NOx from nitrogen fertilizers makes ozone production hydrocarbon-limited (and also basic rain from the NH3). So from a pollution management standpoint, either could be important, but usually only one.
Unless you build lighter, more aerodynamic, smaller cars with batteries, then you get both less emissions and greater fuel economy. Cheating is easier though.
And when you make the car lighter and smaller, you worsen passenger safety, and possibly increase costs (depending on what you're using to make the car lighter).
An independent review of the impact of California's CARB emissions regulations found that if you totally ignored the health and climate change benefits, the regulations were still a net benefit just because they encouraged lighter cars, which lead to less death and injury on the roads.
Possibly you're thinking, but if my car was bigger than everyone elses, then I'd kill them, instead of them killing me. But unfortunately, everyone else is thinking the same thing. A classic case for regulation leading to improved outcomes for everyone.
As someone else pointed out, it's not "incomplete combustion" it's production of NOx which is a pollutant. Running really lean also results in a bit of incomplete combustion though.
I think that's the point though, to give power when you need power, and fuel efficiency when you don't. So everyone does do it, because its a good thing. I think you're making a mistake about what crime they're accused of.
The tradeoff between efficiency and power is ok, but what they did is have software that detected when an emission test was being run and created a fake engine profile that only made fuel efficient tradeoffs, and when the emission test stopped the engine went back to the regular tradeoffs.
That was their crime. They hid what settings they were really picking and specifically wrote software to defeat an emissions test.
> That was their crime. They hid what settings they
> were really picking and specifically wrote software
> to defeat an emissions test.
I actually agree with you on this. That said, I've heard people defend VW and presumably would GM as well with "The law says you must have this level of emissions when your car is tested. And that is exactly what they did, they made sure the car followed the law and emitted what was required of it to emit during the test." It completely side steps the intention of course, and I would certainly not sanction it as an excuse, but it nicely illustrates how sophistry and regulation are an odd match.
> but it nicely illustrates how sophistry and regulation are an odd match
Except for the tiny detail that the law explicitly forbids using special emission control modes during stationary test bench usage. At least in the VW case, it was not a relaxed interpretation of the rules.
Well, on the one hand you have emission restrictions and on the other hand you have MPG restrictions. Then you have consumers that want to buy SUVs, so there is no way you are going to meet your quota of zero-emission-vehicles.
I'm not taking the blame out of carmakers, but it is very easy to end up with regulations that when taken together are not feasible.
Imaginary example: you need a capital/asset ratio of at least 20% (which means capital/liab. of at least that, by definition). But you also require at least 30% of the liabilities to be long-term debt. Another regulation says that 50% of loans must be financed with deposits, and so on. The end effect is that there is little margin for these banks to decide on their liabilities. At the extreme, if we impose unfeasible restrictions, they might just end up skirting some of the rules.
> ... it is very easy to end up with regulations that
> when taken together are not feasible.
I had a discussion with a member of the "Bay Area Air Quality Management Board" (not a fan) about this very issue. I asked, "How do you know whether or not what you're trying to achieve is possible?" Their answer was "Well if it isn't possible someone will tell us."
It is a classic prisoner's dilemma problem. If everyone is honest, you make cars that are good for the environment but lack the performance, if one can "defect" while looking like they haven't (aka they cheat) they take all the money.
> if one can "defect" while looking like they haven't (aka they cheat) they take all the money.
And yet they get caught (and always will) and lose the long game.
Sayonara, VW.....
Big corporations used to have bean-counters that calculated the cost of getting caught and they cheated only when the risk vs. damages had a cost upside.
Corporations now just don't appear to give a flying fuck about what lands in the lap of the next CEO. They'll get their golden parachute, right?
If you can't produce a SUV that meets all regulations, then you can't produce a SUV. Nobody forces car makers to offer SUVs. Maybe the intention of those regulations is that not everybody needs to ride in 3+ ton vehicles to get to work.
This is already happening. Right now the most popular SUVs are in the "crossover" category, which have much better fuel economy. It appears most American drivers want:
1. Elevated driving platform.
2. Room for extra passengers and cargo.
I agree that the vast majority of pickups (utes) sold in the U.S. are much larger than necessary for their usage and in comparison with pickups sold outside of North America.
That may have been true in the 1970s, but light truck and passenger vehicle emission regulations have been identical for a long time. Looser fuel economy standards for light trucks certainly causes manufacturers to push them harder though.
I'm not saying that's not true but in my case, it was the need for an 8 passenger vehicle that was not a minivan. It was either a SUV or a commercial commuter van.
All the minivans I looked at had the auto slide doors. I have 4 friends and myself who have experienced catastrophic failures of the auto sliding door mechanism on their minivans. I've always bought used cars and have experienced my share of problems and quirks. Not being able to get in or out (well, my kids not being able to get in or out) without a series of arcane jiggles has been one of the most frustrating.
After that it was only vehicles with hinged doors and 8 passengers so...SUV or commuter van.
edit: also I live in a northern state in the middle of nowhere. 4 wheel drive and high clearance were not insignificant factors for us.
Yup. It doesn't even require excessive malfeasance. Once you are in the zone of just slightly gaming the system at the edges and then you make the jump to deciding to build that gaming the system into the software you're screwed. Because the problem is that once you start down that path it is actually shockingly easy to create wildly divergent performance and emissions characteristics. Such is the power of software control of an engine. And then you are faced with the problem of what to do next, do you pull it back or do you go for broke to maximize quarterly profits while assuming regulatory agencies won't find out? You can guess which option our current business environment has preferentially selected for.
Have variable performance and emissions is not the problem. The EPA testing should (does?) test multiple types of usage and use an amalgamation of the results for an overall score.
The problem isn't that they are changing how they perform depending on circumstance, it's that they've defined a circumstance specifically for "we're being tested" and change how it functions based on that, which means the test no longer has any bearing on reality. That's the difference between a good feature and a defeat device.
Disclaimer: I work for GM. I do not work on anything related to diesel engines. I will not be commenting further on this story; what follows is just for context and is not intended to explain or justify anything about these accusations.
The EPA (and other regulators) allow engines to emit more NOx and Particulate under certain circumstances to protect the engine.
Each set of parameters where an engine will do this is called an auxiliary emissions control device [AECD], even where it is just programming, not a separate physical device.
For instance, FCA recently got in trouble for not disclosing all of their AECDs [0] - the AECDs may not have been illegal, but FCA neglected to inform the EPA of all of them.
As noted elsewhere in comments, very very few (if any) vehicle achieve the same emissions or efficiency in the real world as in a test lab.
The disparity between test and real world is not necessarily illegal.
In April, Mercedes Benz told[1] its investors it might get in EPA trouble for an "undisclosed auxiliary emissions-control device" as well.
2017 Shipments of Mercedes Benz Sprinters were actually prevented from being delivered to dealers for a while. The last I'd heard, 6-cylinder models were released, but 4-cylinder models were still being held by the EPA.
While I'm sure at some level the EPA enjoys punishing German auto makers, hopefully the same accusations being leveled towards US car makers will encourage them to adopt a more fair and reasonable stance, assuming these are not actually "defeat devices".
Hagens Berman’s automotive legal team has dedicated substantial resources to uncovering cheating devices used by automakers. The firm has become a trailblazer in this highly specialized realm, outpacing federal and state agencies in unmasking fraud in emissions reporting.
This is hilarious - this is the firm that made tons of money off the VW case, now they are going after the money and cutting out the middleman (EPA)
If Volkswagen couldn't figure out how to meet US emission standards for diesel without cheating, I find it likely other manufacturers (who have less diesel expertise) would have an even harder time.
VW expects to pay $7.3B for 11 million cheating cars, so less than $700 per vehicle. GM will probably get about the same deal. Considering the profit margin on these vehicles in particular (big trucks), cheating was probably a good call financially.
If Volkswagen couldn't figure out how to meet US emission standards for diesel without cheating
VW could meet the emissions standards, and went through the actual testing and passed. It had such an effect on either fuel economy or long term reliability however that they cheat on the road.
However it's notable that the only VW vehicles that fail are the ones that don't use diesel exhaust fluid (DEF). This is something that you refill periodically and it's sprayed into the exhaust to reduce a lot of the harmful exhaust. That system costs a couple of thousand dollars, so they eliminated it and claimed that they found a way around it.
The GM trucks, in contrast, have the DEF systems, just like all of the Mercedes and higher end VW diesel cars do.
Too many commentators are taking the word of a legal firm that got some easy prey and now hopes there's blood in the water.
According to what I have learned from a talk the analysing of the VW code [1] the VW cheating consisted of dispensing less AdBlue (VW proprietary DEF) than necessary when no test was detected. That's very much at odds with what you say. I'm not claiming what you say is wrong, I'm just curious how those findings fit in with what you said.
VW has since announced a EA288 engine that deprecates the old one, and the new engine uses DEF.
But sure, there is suspicion that a lot of other makers cheat to degrees. Use less DEF and it's more convenient and less costly for your users. Use the EGR less and improve fuel economy and reduce possible maintenance issues. Etc. That was not the primary problem, though.
As I understands it, the US restricts how often cars can require DEF top-ups so strictly that it's impossible to meet both the emissions requirements and the top-up interval requirements with a reasonably sized tank.
Our truck has a DEF tank that's smaller than the fuel tank, and requires refilling about a tenth as often as the fuel tank does. A nearby truck stop has a DEF dispenser, so it's no more difficult to fill than the fuel tank.
Of course this truck probably emits more NOx than an emissions-compliant diesel car would, but it also burns about twice as much fuel. The real problem with DEF in passenger cars is those "luxury" manufacturers that require a special tool to fill the DEF tank, as if DEF were some rare or dangerous substance.
My pickup (Ram 2500) gets about 1200Mpg of DEF. When I am towing our large RV trailer, it drops to 800Mpg. I drove the RV from WI to OR on about $10 of DEF. I don't understand why some people think it's a big deal.....
I thought most of the engines that were cheating were the non Urea engines. Most other companies thought it would be impossible to build a diesel engine that meets the pollution restrictions without including the DEF based anti pollution system.
$700 per vehicle doesn't come close. Anecdata: buyback option on my 2011 jetta sportwagen tdi netted me a check north of $8000 -- after they paid off my loan balance. Maybe the $700 per car is the penalty per se, but the scandal cost a lot more than that!
And for GM, the linked video already shows Opel installed defeat devices, which is a daughter brand. So it's just natural that the same "technology" shows up in other GM cars.
> couldn't figure out how to meet US emission standards for diesel without cheating
Isn't it less that they couldn't figure out how to meet the standard, but rather that they did not like the consequences? Evidently the cars in question could operate in a lower-emission mode.
This would actually be unfair, since VW does not have to pay a cent in the EU (the prosecutor being an employee of the state of Niedersachsen, which is also a major stockholder in VW and on the advisory board, apparently does not help).
If anyone thought VW was the only one they aren't a student of history. Lance Armstrong wasn't the only biker to live stronger. This stuff is systematic.
When I played Marco Polo as a kid, I would cheat. When I was “it”, I’d yell out “Marco!” like you’re supposed to, but I also opened my eyes underwater a little bit to see where the other kids were.
One day a friend brought over special goggles. They were covered in black vinyl to block your vision completely. That day we all found out that every one of us cheated the same way. When playing with the new goggles, suddenly it was: “this game sucks” and: “let’s do something else”.
It was eye-opening (sorry).
Cheating on emissions tests strikes me the same way. “All the other car companies seem to be meeting their targets, how can we keep up?”
Well, it turns out that to be as good as the other players, you have to cheat just like they do.
> Well, it turns out that to be as good as the other players, you have to cheat just like they do
If you mean doing the same kind of cheating that your competitors are doing then this implies knowledge of the method so you don't need to cheat. You can level the playing field by instead publicizing the fact that your competitors are cheating. You don't even need to name names. Just lobby governments to implement tests that will uncover it. Get tests done on your competitors vehicles by independent laboratories, ponder in public the question that reverse engineering the engine management code might be worthwhile.
> If you mean doing the same kind of cheating that your competitors are doing then this implies knowledge of the method
On the contrary. When I was cheating at Marco Polo, I thought I was the only one. That I wasn't as good as the other players who were playing honestly, so I cheated to make up for the deficiency.
Your point still stands, though. These aren't kids in a pool. They're engineers who should be testing the competition's product, and discovering the defeat devices.
I always wondered why companies don't try to catch each other cheating. If would seem that if Ford wanted to, they could easily figure out VW was cheating, and go to the press and government with that info.
Interestingly, this is what happens in the pharmaceutical world. The FDA has a "bad ad" program where you can report pharmaceutical advertising that falls outside regulations. Who is responsible for the majority of reports? Competing company's sales reps who see competitor materials when they visit doctor's offices.
“New cars are so much cleaner than your old car" is a cross-brand claim that is important for the whole industry. Any damage to that claim would increase replacement cycles.
The best case scenario for telling on competitors would be a larger fraction of a smaller market, worse outcomes would involve a similar or smaller fraction of an even smaller market (after symmetric response accusations hitting your own brand). You don't sell Marlboros by pointing out that smoking Lucky Strike might cause cancer.
The day Ford execs testified in favor of bailing out both GM and Chrysler, it was clear that they have little interest in beating their supposed competitors.
This is truly despicable. Shame on any company who attempts to skirt the laws that were instilled by the people who allow the company to operate within their borders in the first place. Truly shameful and sad.
That means that GM is no better than Volkswagen. It doesn't mean that they're good, though. What they did is still just as wrong, no matter how many other companies did it too.
For a while now, I've been beating the drum on HN that if you keep raising regulations on the car companies faster than they can develop technology for, we will eventually reach the point where it will be economically impossible to build a car.
This story suggests a possibility I hadn't considered yet, which is that it may already be economically impossible to build a car that complies with the law.
At this point, while you are welcome to castigate the automakers for cheating, one must also consider that the authors of the regulation may bear some responsibility here too.
And I do mean both bear some responsibility; the cheating of the car companies has prevented the feedback from getting to the regulators that they've created an impossible situation. But they may still have created an impossible solution, and it may mean that people just going "Well just comply with the regulations then!" are proposing a non-solution to the problem without realizing it.
It is also worth pointing out that three years ago the idea that regulations were already impossible to comply with would have been met with hoots of derision, and probably someone is going to reply to me to dismiss it even now. We're asking auto companies here to forfeit billions of dollars, but the regulators themselves have no risk if they are creating an impossible situation.
Just because someone wrote a regulation somewhere doesn't mean it's good, or possible, or economical.
> ... it may already be economically impossible to build a car that complies with the law.
I have no hard data, but my suspicion is that it is not economically impossible in any absolute sense. That is, it is possible to create cars that meet the standard, that can be sold to consumers at a price that allows them to be built. They may have lower power than customers desire, but what else are they going to do? Walk?
What is probably not possible is to do that when they have to compete against cars that only pretend to meet the standard. The cars that only pretend will cost less, or have more performance. If the buyer compares a car that meets the regulation and one that only pretends to, the one that only pretends to is a more desirable car, and will get the sale.
> Just because someone wrote a regulation somewhere doesn't mean it's good, or possible, or economical.
Yup. That's true of regulations on more than just cars, too.
What if the goal is to regulate diesel out of existence unless it can be much better pollution-wise?
What if the car companies could make a much cleaner diesel engine, but it just wasn't cost efficient?
What if this kind of regulation is the stick to go with the various green regulation carrots (tax credits on fuel efficient vehicles, subsidies for renewables, etc...)?
What if making lawmakers responsible for legislating something out of business has unintended effects? Consider that in some places tobacco companies are suing governments over labeling, imagine the lawsuits if a car company could sue when they didn't like emission laws.
I agree it is easy to look at this with a sympathetic eye to automakers, but I think we cannot condone cheating when other alternatives exists. It may well be impossible to build a clean enough diesel engine. If so we should drop diesel and figure out something with another energy store
In a parallel post, I just agreed with you. But jerf's position may be closer to correct than you suspect, because fuel economy is also part of the regulations. Well, you can meet both if you make the car lighter. But collision resistance is also part of the regulations. And so on...
Did the patched cars also meet mileage standards? How close to the limit were they? (Or are there no mileage standards for diesels?)
1. Again, theoretically there will be a limit where these will converge for diesel and petrol vehicles. At that point, I predict that EVs, hybrids, and fuel cell vehicles will offset the overall requirements.
2. Collision resistance has improved as weight has decreased.
3. Did they meet mileage standards? Maybe. Probably. 46mpg (the resultant fuel economy after the patch) appears to be outstanding even for diesel vehicles. Mileage is imposed on individual models by year targets and also manufacturer-wide. That is why cars in general are sold with much lower margins: to help manufacturers offset the poor fuel economy and emissions of larger vehicles.
> For a while now, I've been beating the drum on HN that if you keep raising regulations on the car companies faster than they can develop technology for, we will eventually reach the point where it will be economically impossible to build a car.
We can only dream that we will eventually reach the point where cars cost enough to offset their cost to society.
Reducing the marginal cost of driving in terms of cash (fuel) and time (self-driving) may have second and third order effects which are deeply problematic. I like EV's, but we're foolish to think that making driving effectively free won't have downsides.
EVs also don't make driving "effectively free." We don't really have a good handle on the long-term maintenance costs associated with EVs but even the electricity itself (at residential power rates) is about 1/3 to 1/2 of gasoline costs in the US. A substantial savings but not free.
Jokes aside, there is no "offical" source for my claim. But the fact that they use a linux based system yet have no place to download it is all the evidence you need really. You can find a number of people detailing their (unsucessful) GPL requests in forum posts etc. by searching for "tesla gpl" or "tesla gpl violation"
Do you include manufacturing environmental costs of their batteries and the environmental costs of the energy they consume that is produced by someone else?
Lets put it in perspective. A lawn mower (Chain Saw, Weed Wacker, Small Engine Device) creates more pollution in 1 hour of use than one of these vehicles creates in 8 hours of driving. Even motor cycles will emit more pollution during use. Can you imagine how much extra pollution is creating daily just because of tire under inflation? or oil changes that are too frequent and not necessary?
Just think of all the equipment out there that doesn't have any pollution controls and these vehicles could be considered green in comparison.
Lets see what the outcome is....
PSA: The best thing you can do for the environment is keep your vehicle in good running condition as long as you can (10-15 years).
> PSA: The best thing you can do for the environment is keep your vehicle in good running condition as long as you can (10-15 years).
I think the best thing drivers can do for the environment and society's health is to stop driving and start cycling, walking and using public transport.
The real test will be whether or not General Motors is treated with the same level of scrutiny (regulatory, legal, public etc.) and penalized as heavily as Volkswagen was. I am alluding to the fact that General Motors being regarded as an American company, and Volkswagen being a foreign one. I am pessimistic: I will be somewhat saddened, but not at all surprised if General Motors gets less harsh treatment. People will no doubt argue that these are trucks and not cars, so there are less of them, so the damage done was less, so the penalty should also be less. However, no one will likely admit the fact that the same sort of cost/benefit analysis and moral repercussions were involved in both events beyond the accusers.
I apologize if the above comes across as a rant or a whine. I can at most ask the legislator in my constituency to investigate, but that is yet another game of numbers.
I predicted it would not be only VW. This kind of cheat would either take a lot of custom code in the ECU, or the ECU supplier has parameters that can be readily tweaked for strategies that would circumvent tests. There's probably an "app note" that says "You should never do this, but..."
The fact the tests are so reliably circumvented is a failure of regulation. It's evident that until recently regulators were not testing the tests to see if they are predictive of real world performance.
I seriously have to wonder why "drivers don't want to fill DEF tanks too often" is given as a reason by automakers to skimp on DEF injection. DEF costs, what, $15 for 2.5 gallons, which lasts a couple of thousand miles, and can be filled either at a fuel station or at home, no dealership required. If dealership visit is required, well, since when are automakers concerned about dealerships making too much money from servicing their cars?
Probably just more mental overhead people don't want to deal with. No one wants to remember to do more stuff.
If you're comparing 2 trucks, one with a DEF system and one without, chances are as an average consumer, you're going to take the one without because it's cheaper to run and less effort for you.
Heck, the other day I was looking at some electronics on a very large Chinese shopping site and ran across a device that can emulate DEF systems in 8 different manufacturers vehicles with no actual DEF consumption occurring for ~$15. People are lazy, cheap and just don't give a shit.
I was on the verge of buying at VW when this happened to them. I will never buy a VW now. Pretty soon I'll have to stick to bikes if companies are allowed to get away with anything. Surprised that they haven't arrested everyone involved, considering that the people from VW fled the country.
Just remember that VW is a bit like Nestle; you also have to stay away from Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Škoda, Ducati, MAN and Scania (not that the last two matters to you unless you're buying a bus).
I wouldn't have bought a VW before the scandal, either. Everyone I know who has owned one has had tons of problems with them. They spend a lot of time at the dealer for warranty service.
Owners of most other brands don't have to put up with that kind of stuff. Even my friends with pre-bailout low-end GM and Ford cars haven't had as many problems.
Smart. Take advantage of the deflationary environment auto is going to experience (auto sales have peaked, EVs coming to market, etc).
Also, consider a used vehicle. Used vehicle prices are being pushed down due to lots of vehicles coming off lease and subprime auto credit deteriorating simultaneously.
You do realize every other auto manufacturer is doing the exact same thing? VW has one of the biggest R&D divisions in the industry. If they couldn't do it, nobody else could either.
> You do realize every other auto manufacturer is doing the exact same thing?
What makes you think that?
> VW has one of the biggest R&D divisions in the industry. If they couldn't do it, nobody else could either.
Do what? Make performant cars? Their gasoline (petrol) cars weren't implicated in this scandal. After the patch, the cars were still performing relatively well, losing about a second in the 0-60 time, and losing about 4mpg.
What I want to know is: why did they need to lose any performance or fuel economy at all?
Am I missing something? My understanding is that this was all because they couldn't meet emissions targets without using a certain amount of DEF. They calculated that to do that, the customer would have to refill the DEF tank "too soon" (meaning sooner than every regular service interval at the dealership, which is at least 10,000 miles).
So the simple fix is, in my mind: make the car use a lot more DEF so that it can generate the power and economy advertised, but the DEF tank will have to be refilled far more frequently (perhaps every 1000 miles, guessing). The driver will have to do it themselves obviously. And add some software code so that the car refuses to operate if the tank goes empty. If drivers can figure out that they need to put fuel (gas or diesel) in their car to make it go, and that it's going to die on the side of the road if they run that tank out, then they can do the same with a 2nd tank of fluid too.
My understanding (again, someone please correct me if I'm wrong or missing something) is that NOx emissions are mostly eliminated by injecting DEF (urea) into the exhaust stream, and also that NOx emissions are the big issue with dieselgate. And again, from what I read, the whole reason they didn't want to do it right was that consumers would have to refill the DEF tank too frequently, and that automakers thought people are too stupid for that and would run it dry, so they wanted it so that the dealership would refill it for them at their regular service interval, which is 10-20k miles. So as I said before, the fix should be easy, inject a lot more DEF, enough to actually eliminate the NOx per the standards, and just force consumers to refill the DEF far more frequently.
The way they are now, I'm not sure. High NOx emissions I'm guessing, plus a warning light on the dashboard. But my proposal is to make the car stop operating if the tank is empty, just like it stops operating if your fuel tank is empty, and just make sure the dashboard light (or better yet some alphanumeric display or infotainment system display) gives ample warning to the driver that they need to refill it. I see Blue DEF sold in gas stations all the time, so it's not like it's hard to acquire.
And again, I'm not even sure I'm that well informed, I could very well be mistaken and over-simplifying things. If that's the case, I hope someone will correct me, but so far no one's said anything, but that's why I put that disclaimer in there several times.
This is how heavy truck diesels with DEF work, at least. Warning light at 10% full, flashing warning light at nearly empty, and if the tank runs completely empty, the vehicle is limited to 5mph until it's refilled.
It's not clear that they couldn't do it. The three possibilities are:
1) They couldn't do it.
2) Their margins would be thinner.
3) Their competitors are cheating, and emissions controls reduce performance,
so everyone would buy the cheating competitor.
Also, everyone has dirt on everyone else.
No, you have no proof that everyone else is doing the same thing. Read the article: this is about diesel engines. Many automakers do not make diesel engines at all. Even if it's physically impossible for anyone to meet the diesel emissions laws without cheating, that still means many automakers don't have to cheat because they don't sell diesel-powered vehicles.
You also forgot “sorry for the ..., but ...”, “I’m getting sick of ...”, “oft-repeated”, “we can do better”, and “and I forgot one ...”.
Language is built out of little phrases which come to be associated with an understood meaning and tone, and are treated atomically (sometimes the individual words within the phrases go out of currency and are never used alone). We all use these little atoms as shortcuts all the time, because inventing a completely new phrase to represent every thought would be less efficient. Sometimes the phrases were originally technical terms (for instance, many come from sailing or driving carriages or manual farm labor or ancient styles of combat ...) which have been stripped of their original context; other times they come from literature, like the “shocked, shocked” example, or hundreds of examples from Shakespeare plays.
An internet accurately describes Google's AMP program for what it is -- a barely-disguised attempt to shove more of the internet into itself, the better to track the living shit out of every human being on earth. Hackernews has attempted to avoid this program by using it heavily. Half the comments are Hackernews insisting that it is not only impossible to compete with Google in any way but also insane to try. Some Googles show up to assure everyone that this is for the greater good, and if you'd all just stop talking and get in line the whole process will be nearly painless. A few Hackernews suggest that AMP's feature set can be replicated with a "stop shoving every fucking possible line of javascript into every single pageload" approach, but they are quickly chloroformed and edited out of past Christmas photos.
How is this anything but genius? Next thing you tell me you do not approve of yosefk's excellent C++ FQA?
As there is literally no way for an HN comment to actually infect you, when you say "I'm getting sick of ..." you must be describing an emotional distress. Can you explain where that emotional tension is coming from?
When the VW story first broke and I learned you could readily control the trade-off between performance and emissions using software in the engine controller of a diesel engine, I knew that everyone would do that. They would rationalize it in what ever way they could "Oh the stomping on the accelerator indicates an emergency so we go with maximum performance rather than emission compliance, it's to save lives don't cha know?"