Volkswagen Is Ordered to Recall Nearly 500k Vehicles Over Emissions Software

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/business/volkswagen-is-ordered-to-recall-nearly-500000-vehicles-over-emissions-software.html

by Amorymeltzer • 11 years ago

353 322 11 years ago

nytimes.com

organsnyder3• 11 years ago

This is actively malicious. There had better be criminal charges filed.

cmurf4• 11 years ago

Harm to the consumer via fraud, and to the environment, yes. But corporations almost never see criminal charges. Fuck the environment for 6 years? Pay this fine. Sell some pot? Fuck you asshole go to jail for 3 years.

bduerst• 11 years ago

Well, for the BP spill at least, people were charged with negligence, but the trial is still under way.

Amorymeltzer• 11 years ago

Agreed. This somewhat mollifying quote gives hope:

"Using a defeat device in cars to evade clean air standards is illegal and a threat to public health," said Cynthia Giles, the E.P.A.’s assistant administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance.

organsnyder3• 11 years ago

Also, this:

California, the E.P.A. and the Justice Department are working together on an investigation of the allegations.

Though I hold similar pessimism to cmurf. If we can't even bring criminal charges against people that destroy the economy, I don't have high hopes for anyone being charged for destroying the environment (given the difference in priority they're normally given).

a3n2• 11 years ago

I would like to see VW prohibited from selling any vehicles in the US for a small number of quarters. That would be real punishment.

All those dealers and salespeople? There are a certain amount of cars that need to be sold. If VW is out of the mix, the demand is still there. The dealers can sell something else. I'm certain that Toyota and Ford can quickly come to some arrangement with those dealers, including any state legal issues.

zymhan• 11 years ago

Do you have even the faintest clue of how car sales work? Or of how regulatory enforcement works? The EPA can't ban VW sales entirely.

zardo8• 11 years ago

I expect at the least they are going to get hit with the maximum administrative fine, 37,500 per vehicle.

McGlockenshire• 11 years ago

That maths out to somewhere in the ballpark of eighteen billion dollars.

In 2012, the EPA issued $252 million in fines, total. Kia & Hyundai were fined $300 million total in 2014.

I don't see them hitting VW with eighteen billion.

e: Eh, that might not be so unreasonable after all. In 2012, VW made about $28 billion in profit on $250 billion of sales.

justincormack5• 11 years ago

Which is $18b, so not insignificant. There may also be action in Europe.

PaulKeeble• 11 years ago

Criminal charges seem like a good plan. But its not sufficient.

Volswagen has over a period of time pumped a lot of this gas into the atmosphere and the fine ought to reflect the actual clean up damage. What is it going to cost to remove it and put the environment back to the way it should have been if they hadn't broken the law. That is what these sorts of fines ought to be based on.

justincormack5• 11 years ago

No fines should be punitive so they dont do it again. It is not about clean up with particulates, it is about their medical effects, which you cant be specific about.

gregwtmtno• 11 years ago

I can't believe such a large company would cheat like that. I think there must be more to this. Maybe a rogue employee?

barkingcat• 11 years ago

More like a Rogue CEO and Board. Decisions of this magnitude going over so many years likely were made by the people at the top.

Recall that VW Chairman Ferdinand Piech resigned earlier this year http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/25/uk-volkswagen-ceo-c...

The board was quoted: "The members of the steering committee came to a consensus that, in the light of the past weeks, the mutual trust necessary for successful cooperation was no longer there"

What likely happened was that the EPA filed suit against VW in April, and in uncovering the evidence needed to support the suit, VW chair Ferdinand knew that he needed to go in order to let VW continue to be a company. Or, Ferdinand could have been the ethical one and blew the whistle.

Either way, let out the stink. Corporations aren't nearly the kind of flawless entities you think they are.

baakss• 11 years ago

Corporations aren't flawless, but it definitely isn't a given that the people at the top have any clue what is going on with their software either. I can think of two instances that I've personally seen very similar to the referenced story where someone in middle to middle-upper management made the call, and only 1-2 devs/analysts had any idea what was done.

If anything that should go to show the lack of sophistication a lot of these projects have. There often is no project manager, no code reviews, and a messy codebase where snippets of very unethical logic can hide for years.

omginternets• 11 years ago

Poe's Law is in full effect, here...

jandrese3• 11 years ago

A large corporation...acting unethically? Say it ain't so! This is why regulations exist in the first place, because you can't trust companies to act ethnically on their own. Their job is to maximize profit, and the invisible hand only works on money.

cozzyd• 11 years ago

because you can't trust companies to act ethnically on their own

Indeed, this doesn't sound very German

seiji2• 11 years ago

I can't believe such a large company would cheat like that.

Companies, at the time when "company" was still being defined, used to do anything to exploit people and kill the environment just so their owners got a return on investment.

Only through the past 100 years of laws, regulations, and cultural refinement have corporations overtly stopped so many abuses of power. Some of the refinement is purely psychological manipulation as well ("Clean Coal!") and companies are still doing awful things to individuals, societies, and the world at large.

Our current generation is blind to many of these abuses because we grew up inside the bubble of "friendly companies." Friendly companies know they have to maintain their image. Friendly companies know they must hide their evil deeds from law/regulation because public relations now matters more than beating people with sticks to increase their productive output (because companies are immortal after all, you can't have the public turning on you).

javert• 11 years ago

You would think that they would be smart enough to only cheat when they won't get caught.

Here, they got caught, so they were being stupid.

You don't expect big, successful companies to be stupid (after all, they spend a ton of money to get the best CEOs they can).

ams61104• 11 years ago

GM knowingly declined to fix the safety problems with their ignition switches. This really killed people, not just violated some arbitrary local emissions number.

PhantomGremlin• 11 years ago

You are so right. GM didn't just kill a few people, they killed over 120 people:

   General Motors agreed to pay $900 million as
   part of a Justice Department investigation
   into its failure to fix a deadly ignition
   switch defect blamed for more than 120 deaths.

That is a shockingly high number. http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/09/17/gm-justi...

krapp• 11 years ago

How would this benefit Volkswagen? The article says the device activates emissions control systems when it detects the car is being tested... so it's not as if they're saving money by emulating a system they're not manufacturing.

arnoooooo• 11 years ago

My guess is it uses some part that would need to be replaced (or replaced more often) if left in full use all the time ?

organsnyder3• 11 years ago

That could be—especially since automakers are required by the EPA to include emissions warranties of 8 years/80,000 miles.

JorgeGT5• 11 years ago

To pass the test with lower emissions. This means lower taxes in some countries, and good PR in every one. Edit: to expand this, consider that in order to reduce emissions like NOx, you often must sacrifice performance, so the customer will complain. When standarised tests were introduced, a crude counter strategy was to trade performance for lower emissions for X amount of minutes (the duration of the test). So customers noticed "hey, my engine works much better after 15 min!" :P

jstanley• 11 years ago

It probably ruins performance -- that's the usual tradeoff with emissions systems.

izacus5• 11 years ago

It's possible that the engine power / automatic transmission shift profile / maximum RPM / etc. is being manipulated to output less emissions at the cost of acceleration, top speed, ride comfort, etc.

The most fuel-efficient / eco ride is rather "boring" by the standards of car enthusiasts and reviewers and I guess the cars wouldn't be configured for that mode by default.

(Just a guess though.)

tracker12• 11 years ago

Or, you just pay more for a car that has those performance characteristics both in taxes/registration fees and in fuel.

That said, cheating like this is really bad on a very large scale, and should probably face fines and maybe criminal charges, unfortunately discovery is likely to fall outside U.S. juristiction so it would be hard to prove enough to bring criminal charges against the appropriate managers and executives.

gnoway• 11 years ago

Don't the emissions systems affect performance? I have a 2012 Golf TDI and really like it, one of the advantages over one of the hybrids is that I get pretty great fuel economy for the kind of driving I do, but it doesn't feel like I'm driving a weed eater.

This really pisses me off. It doesn't surprise me I guess but it never occurred to me that a car manufacturer could get away with something like this for, apparently, 6 model years.

JorgeGT5• 11 years ago

Yes, a common strategy is to inject more EGR (exhaust gas) into the fresh intake air. As EGR is already burned, it is inert, so it negatively affects the combustion, lowering the temperature. With lower combustion temperature you get less NOx... but less power for each amount of fuel, so your efficiency/performance is lower, and also non burned products (CO, C) increase. You then trap those with the Diesel Particulate Filter... it's a very complicated game with very small margins, that's the reason of so much cheating.

munificent• 11 years ago

Reducing emissions usually comes at the expense of worse power or fuel economy.

By only reducing emissions during testing, they can demonstrate better engine power and fuel efficiency while also claiming to meet the emissions requirements.

S_A_P• 11 years ago

The VW/Audi 2.0t EA888 engine is capable of producing 100 more hp with a software update. These turbo/diesel/supercharged engines have a million parameters that they can modify to change driveability. I cant believe that they would do something like that to pass emissions testing though, that seems incredibly foolish. I would imagine that with diesel engines, economy and certain emissions are at odds with each other.

zardo8• 11 years ago

They are, in particular the higher the in cylinder combustion temperature the higher the efficiency, and the higher the NOx production. This caused heavy diesels to get less efficient for a few years when NOx stringencies were tightened. Then they were tightened far enough to require catalytic reduction, and manufactures went back to high efficiency high NOx combustion and removed the NOx downstream.

BashiBazouk• 11 years ago

Help sell cars. I have a TDI sportswagon and this will be the second performance hit. A couple years after purchase there was a recall to reduce the power a bit via software "upgrade". Seems fuel filters were occasionally failing at high acceleration or with people that used high acceleration a lot. The power drop was minor but noticeable. I suspected then and even more after this indecent that VW knew about the problem but wanted max power to help sell cars during the test drives.

JorgeGT5• 11 years ago

I research for the auto industry and this was very well known by the authorities. Fixed test cycles like the New European Driving Cycle https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Ne... were easy to detect, and easy to optimize against. That's why coming regulations introduce more realistic cycles like WLTC https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/WL... and real road tests, where particle emissions will be trapped and compared against the lab test, and only a certain % of deviation will be allowed (last time I looked they didn't decided this % yet).

1ris• 11 years ago

I hope this gets fixed, although I don't believe it. I care about the noise emissions. AFAIK they are measured on a real road, but only up to 50 km/h and in a ridiculous narrow test.

Harley Davidson and other are known to optimise for this test with movable parts in the exhaust pipes so these get much louder when the bikes goes faster than 50 Km/h.

JorgeGT5• 11 years ago

I actually work on aeroacoustics! My specialty is turbomachinery but regarding combustion noise, let me say that it is a very tricky subject... even slight variations on the fuel injection settings and valve openings can have a high impact on noise!

Raphmedia• 11 years ago

Well, as much as a cheat it is, I'm happy that those bikes can go quiet on slow (city) streets but as loud as possible on the highway (increase security and swag).

whistlecrackers• 11 years ago

Good for Volkswagen.

doughj32• 11 years ago

The software was designed to conceal the cars’ emissions of the pollutant nitrogen oxide, which contributes to the creation of ozone and smog.

Is this an error in the article or is creating ozone a bad thing?

aw3c2• 11 years ago

It is! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone#Health_effects

capnrefsmmat• 11 years ago

Ozone is a respiratory irritant when it's at low altitude, so pumping out ozone isn't a great way to help the ozone hole:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone#Ozone_air_pollution

ctrl_freak• 11 years ago

is creating ozone a bad thing?

At the ground level, yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone

"Ozone is a powerful oxidant (far more so than dioxygen) and has many industrial and consumer applications related to oxidation. This same high oxidising potential, however, causes ozone to damage mucous and respiratory tissues in animals, and also tissues in plants, above concentrations of about 100 ppb. This makes ozone a potent respiratory hazard and pollutant near ground level."

jandrese3• 11 years ago

Ozone production at ground level won't reach the upper atmosphere. It is too reactive. So all it's doing is burning people.

dragonwriter2• 11 years ago

Ozone production at ground level won't reach the upper atmosphere. It is too reactive.

And, also, heavier than air.

to3m• 11 years ago

Nitrogen oxide is the new smoking: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/10862975/Emission-t...

(Article is from last year - it's just something I found on google just now - but representative.)

CodeWriter23• 11 years ago

I don't understand how California detected this. The one time I had to take my 2010 Jetta turbo diesel for a smog check, the inspection was ENTIRELY visual. The inspector did not insert a probe into the tailpipe. He did plug the test rig into the OBD-II port under the steering column and turn the key to the accessory position (presumably to electronically capture the VIN), but that's it. I even asked him at the end if it was an entirely visual inspection and he said, puzzled, yes but that's what the computer told him to do.

jcreedon• 11 years ago

I'm not sure about CA specifically, but some states only do full inspections on newer vehicles every other year. e.g. In a particular year the odd year models get the full inspection and the even year models just get a quick inspection and then vice versa in the next year.

beachstartup• 11 years ago

ca doesn't even do smog checks on newer vehicles (i believe 5 years, not sure though).

i haven't done one in over a decade because i lease my cars as a business expense.

also, ca has 'test-only' smog centers which do not perform repairs - if you fail there, you have to get your car tested and repaired somewhere else.

needless to say ca highly incentivizes you to buy new clean cars. it quickly becomes very expensive to fix an old, polluting car under this regime. imagine how fast the bills can pile up if the first or second fix doesn't work. with new econo class cars available for ~$100/month on finance or lease, it doesn't really make sense to keep an old clunker around unless it's a collectible.

Shivetya2• 11 years ago

Georgia doesn't even test diesel cars, others only if over three or four years old.

lhc-• 11 years ago

Wisconsin doesn't test any cars older than 1996, because they would need dynos for it. Much cheaper for them to just only test ODBII cars.

jandrese3• 11 years ago

As I understand it you don't get the full tailpipe test unless your vehicle is too old to support the ODBII parameters they look for.

striking• 11 years ago

OBD-II tracks emissions data as well. http://ctemissions.com/test-procedures/what-is-obd

officialjunk• 11 years ago

i had to do a smog test for my 1 year anniversary of owning a new car. it is a 2015 model from a different manufacturer, acura, in my case, and it was visual inspection only. i asked the guy, because i'm used to having actual measurements performed each time. if a car is new enough then they only do a visual inspection. i don't know the details of how "new enough" is determined, though.

i've seen this also when having fire extinguishers inspected; ones that are only a year or so old are also only visually inspected only.

cpwright• 11 years ago

In NY the first year is safety only; but year 2 and on are emissions + safety (depending on the county you register your car in, some never need emissions). The safety inspection only costs $10; IIRC the emissions + safety is $37.

tracker12• 11 years ago

Newer cars tend to have more relaxed testing requirements... in many places cars don't even require smog checks for the first five years.

efm• 11 years ago

Colorado does drive-by testing, on freeway on ramps, and other locations with high traffic. If your car fails, or hasn't been monitored by that system recently, you get a notice for the more complete inspection.

The drive-by inspection doesn't require the co-operation of the driver or car, so is harder to game by detecting you are being tested.

pico303• 11 years ago

As a TDI owner and Colorado resident, I can tell you that the drive-by testing does not apply to diesel vehicles, nor do you take diesels to the emissions testing centers. You have to take your diesel to a state-licensed diesel mechanic for testing.

blacksmith_tb• 11 years ago

Here in Oregon my '03 TDI gets a quick ODB-II and a visual inspection (i.e. is the Check Engine light off, is the exhaust not full of smoke, etc.). Of course, I'd expect CA to be the most stringent state.

ryandrake4• 11 years ago

California's CARB is the gestapo of car emissions. If anyone has the motivation, expertise, and evil disposition to detect this, it's the state of California. I've never lived in a state like this. Bi-yearly tailpipe sniffs and visual inspections. Even if your car's emissions are cleaner than their ridiculous requirements, they'll still fail your car if it has parts on it that are not stock. I ended up having to sell my car to someone out of state because I'm not going to swap in and out my carefully customized (and clean) intake and exhaust system every two years just so they can shine a flashlight in and see stock parts.

I'm not shocked that California is a part of this.

kuschku3• 11 years ago

More interestingly: Did the German TÜV not detect this? They have even stricter rules.

alexqgb2• 11 years ago

The reason California is so strict is because LA used to be synonymous with lethal levels of smog.

Used to be.

toomuchtodo7• 11 years ago

Very happy to hear CARB is working!

rconti5• 11 years ago

You're not wrong, but tailpipe tests were quite common in many states. In CA, like other states, they're being phased out.

Nevermind the fact that California has no safety inspection, unlike many Eastern states in particular. It's fairly silly to call CA the "gestapo" although they are more aggressive about emissions than anyone else, as you mentioned.

I am a driving and motorcyclist enthusiast, and have modified cars and regularly participate in track days. Somehow I've never had a problem with CA emissions, nor have most of my like-minded friends. It's just not that bad, and it does a lot of good.

Evolved4• 11 years ago

California has a new emissions check system for vehicles 2000 and newer. No tail pipe probe or dyno regardless of the vehicle. Just visual inspection and plug in the OBDII reader. The OBDII reader checks the sensors for proper functioning and checks the ECU to make sure it hasn't been tampered with. Smog tech only really has to do the visual chek. Diesel trucks also get a snap test (step on the accelerator quickly and diesel smoke must dissipate within several seconds).

Vehicles 1999 and older still get the tail pipe probe and dyno portion as well as the OBDII (if they have OBDII).

[0] http://www.bar.ca.gov/Consumer/New_Smog_Check_Test.html

[1] http://www.smogtips.com/new-smog-law-ab-2289.cfm

marincounty• 11 years ago

Yea, they do get the tailpipe emmissions test. Most shops use just one reference book for the visual inspections.

The shop owner usually, almost always, buys the $100.00 Motor Emissions manual.

The cheap shop owner should buy OnDemand5(Mitchell Manual Smog Emission) subscription/publication. They don't because they are cheap, and CARB only requires one reference manual for customers, and technicians.

The problem is Motor Publications is filled with errors that send thousands of customers home with failed Smog Checks.

I have found so many errors in Motor publications, it's comical. I have numerous emails, where I am literally arguing with, I believe, a secretary, over errors in their manuals. I have one email when the person I'm communicating with doesn't know the difference between Naturally Aspirated(Carburated) v.s. Fuel Injection. It's beyond frustrating, and I hope they get sued!

If you live in California, and your car doesn't pass the visual smog check, it's probally not you--it's errors in Motor Publications?

I have found errors on older Toyotas, and Volvos. Just the two autos I happen to own? What are the odds of that? They failed my vechicles, until I went to a shop that had Mitchell manuals, and I presented the Techs with a Printout of the Correct Emmission information.

(Motor Emission manuals--If you are listening; please clean up your books? It's beyond frustrating to fail a smog test because of your sloppy research! I will show the world my frustrating emails--if necessary?)

(CARB--if you are listening, require every shop to have access to two (2) separate Emmission manuals from different entities?)

And no--1988 Toyota trucks, 2wd, naturally aspirated(Carburator) do Not require a MIL light.

I literally tore apart the dash looking for the missing light. There was no light. There was no plug for a light. I literally thought I was going crazy. I was so frustrated, I forget to set the emergency brake and the truck rolled out of the garage. I'm lucky I wasen't on a hill and no one got hurt. I did need to buy a $200 bumper though. I'm still thinking about taking the shop to small claims court, but don't think it's worth the effort?

So, if you live in California, and fail Smog--ask questions. Don't just bring it to another Smog testing station praying it will magically Pass.

jwcooper• 11 years ago

California didn't originally detect this. According to the letter from the EPA [1], it was a team at West Virginia University doing a study that discovered that TDI's in normal usage were found to have significantly higher emissions. California's CARB then dug into it to confirm their results and work with the EPA to figure out what was happening.

[1] http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/cert/documents/vw-nov-caa-09-18-15....

amadeusw• 11 years ago

They even made commercials to prove how clean the cars are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNS2nvkjARk I own a TDI VW and fell into believing that the ride is indeed clean. Now it looks like their software hacks are even more refined than the combustion tech.

LesZedCB• 11 years ago

Well, at least we've finally found out where the "Partial" in PZEV comes from.

thrownaway24248• 11 years ago

Of course this is a major part of their marketing. If the EPA makes them reflash my ECU and as a result my fuel consumption goes up noticeably I'm going to expect them to buy the car back. They sold them on false claims.

This also pretty much guarantees that I will never buy another VW.

pc862• 11 years ago

If the EPA makes them reflash my ECU and as a result my fuel consumption goes up noticeably I'm going to expect them to buy the car back.

Good luck with that.

dayjah• 11 years ago

When I last bought a VW (2008) I was concerned due to a clunking noise after first starting it up and driving a few miles; I called the VW service dept and they explained that there was a compressor which captured exhaust fumes and released them at a lower rate for the first few miles of each journey -- to help them meet EPA emissions standards. I was assured there was nothing to worry about.

While this is a different case, it struck me then that the emissions guidelines were being gamed by manufacturers. We're regularly reminded that barriers will be circumvented; what is the correct approach here? Like performance enhancing drugs in sports, too stiff of a fine and manufacturers are encouraged to find more subtle ways to beat the system, unenforced you leave a polluting industry to destroy our environment..

kaffeemitsahne• 11 years ago

Just like sports, even stiffer fine and ruined reputation on being caught cheating.

nitrogen• 11 years ago

Just like sports, even stiffer fine and ruined reputation on being caught cheating.

Just like sports, companies will still cheat. When punishment doesn't work, the answer is rarely more punishment.

izacus5• 11 years ago

How about a temporarily sales ban? Not a fine, just telling them "No new VW are going to be accepted into traffic for the next 12 months."

Cruel, but I bet it's effective.

spydum2• 11 years ago

Perhaps the noise was poorly explained. What they describe is likely the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaust_gas_recirculation ). This isn't a system to game emissions, it's an active component in real emissions reduction.

Still I get your point: manufacturers are clearly going to optimize based on the measured metrics. How do we know those metrics are meaningful in the overall system.

s1lver• 11 years ago

ERG is just a pipe from the exhaust to the intake with a valve. Compressing and carefully releasing would be much more complicated and very much a not normal way of lowering exhaust temperature to reduce emissions.

CurtHagenlocher• 11 years ago

There is a more charitable interpretation.

When engines are colder, they burn less efficiently and produce "worse" emissions. A system that treats the warmup period differently than the steady-state of running a hot engine is potentially quite reasonable.

izacus5• 11 years ago

If you output those same emissions at a different time you haven't really done a lot for environment (except if they're cycled through catalyc converter or DPF filter which are usually less effective on cold start) - you're just gaming the system to get better eco ratings.

Havoc• 11 years ago

the emissions guidelines were being gamed by manufacturers

Not necessarily gamed - the measuring just needs to factor it in. e.g. (Rather anecdotal) I know there are cars programmed to capture emissions in a filter & then automatically clear that when the car reaches high speeds (freeway). Makes sense in a way...you'd rather have the car expelling the crap on the freeway than city center. That mechanism is apparently a big problem here - I live in a place where the cars never reach freeway speed so they keep clogging (so I'm told).

ibarrajo2• 11 years ago

I believe you mean the EVAP system where excess gasoline vapor is condensed in a charcoal canister, this canister is purged generally in a freeway with a high engine vacuum going on. the highest vacuum is achieved when you engine brake

brobinson3• 11 years ago

Some models of the Yamaha R1 have an intentional flat spot in their fuel maps which happens to be right at the spot where testing happens, too.

In a similar vein, the Aprilia RSV4 kind of cheats at noise testing: in neutral, there is a baffle which flips down to dampen the exhaust note a bit. :)

vesrah• 11 years ago

Almost all supersport bikes coming into the US utilize both of these strategies. :)

I own a Ducati 999 that was lemonlawed because it would stall at stop lights. Super common and happened because of how lean the bikes had to run to pass US emissions.

Evolved4• 11 years ago

Just because they used various tools to attempt to meet EPA standards doesn't mean any or all of those tools are illegal. What you're describing sounds like either a smog pump and/or a charcoal canister. Both are legal and widely used means of controlling emissions.

The emissions guidelines, in your case, likely weren't being "gamed" so much as the manufacturers were just coming up with innovative and cheap ways of reducing emissions. Start/stop features on some newer cars are a way of doing this but this doesn't sound like someone "gaming" the system. If you're not very automotive savvy then you may have misunderstood what the technician was explaining or the logic/purpose behind the system.

What VW did though is completely different with regards to the software although not necessarily illegal until we have all the facts. Based on what the article says, it sounds like they developed a special "emissions mode" which went outside the normal operating parameters with the ultimate goal of reducing the emissions. That in and of itself is not illegal since it passed emissions that way. The illegal part probably comes from when it switch back into normal mode where it never would have passed emissions that way.

We can assume for one reason or another that the "emissions mode" is unsustainable for regular driving (for one reason or another) which is why it was only used when absolutely necessary to pass emissions.

developer1• 11 years ago

Huh? They disable "emissions mode" during all driving either because a) it was bad for sales - perhaps one is unable to reach race car speeds in < 10 seconds; or b) they purposely chose not to build a compliant emissions reduction system and covered it up by specifically making the cars pass only during examination.

There is no apology to be made for them. Manufacturers are required to build sustainable systems, it's not optional. Unless the initial facts turn out to be wrong, this is clearly inexcusable.

Sanddancer• 11 years ago

That sounds more like a Diesel Particulate Filter and regenerator ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter#Rege... ), which is pretty much the opposite of gaming. To keep the black clouds of soot that have sullied the name of diesel from forming, most modern diesels are designed to capture the soot until the engine gets warm enough to burn off the soot, at which point said soot is passed back through the engine and incinerated. Or, there's some mix of heater and catalyst to burn off the soot in the regenerator itself. You're basically holding onto the waste until you can efficiently deal with it in an environmentally clean manner.

United857• 11 years ago

The tech industry has been guilty of this in the past as well. Example: Nvidia and AMD drivers detected if you were running certain benchmarks or games, and would cheat by downgrading various rendering settings that had minimal effect visually.

Often this was a simple check to get the process's executable name; simply renaming the .exe would get you significantly different perf results.

MBCook• 11 years ago

Yeah that was how I first learned about this with ATI cheating on Quake III in 2001, as discovered by HardOCP. Here's a link to an article about it (original article doesn't seem to be around anymore):

http://techreport.com/review/3089/how-ati-drivers-optimize-q...

kbrosnan• 11 years ago

Wayback has it http://web.archive.org/web/20020223144052/http://www.hardocp... along with a link to a German site that points out some of the quality loss in the ATI driver. http://alt.3dcenter.org/artikel/2001/10-24_a.php

bri3d• 11 years ago

PhysX's "CPU-only" codepath was intentionally built at a lower optimization level than their "with NVidia GPU" codepath for a while, leading to disproportionately lower performance than simply the lack of GPU kernels would create:

http://semiaccurate.com/2010/07/07/nvidia-purposefully-hobbl...

justincormack5• 11 years ago

In this case defeat devices are specifically outlawed though, and VW have admitted creating them, so they are actually going to get punished, may put some people off.

balls187• 11 years ago

MSFT was accused of gaming javascript benchmarks with IE9.

e28eta• 11 years ago

Mobile device manufacturers were doing it 2 years ago: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7384/state-of-cheating-in-andr...

denzil_correa• 11 years ago

Does HN not detect duplicates? I submitted the same article 3 minutes before OP.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10239985

There's also another submission 15 minutes after OP's submission too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10240106

doughj32• 11 years ago

The URLs are slightly different, this post uses: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/business/volkswagen-is-ord...

Your submission uses: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/business/volkswagen-is-ord...

metasean• 11 years ago

It does to a point.

The OP's link after .html: ?_r=0

Your link after .html: ?module=Notification&version=BreakingNews&region=FixedTop&action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=50913528&pgtype=Homepage

The 3rd link after .html: ?referrer=

In this case, while the links may lead to the same article, they are NOT the SAME link.

edited: to make url differences more visible

bigdubs• 11 years ago

The urls are different for the one you submitted and OPs. Generally if you can remove extra query string params in the submission it helps the filter / deduper work better.

chmaynard• 11 years ago

As I understand it, the new policy at HN is to allow duplicate posts to make sure enough readers see the article. I used to check for duplicates before posting, but now I don't bother.

flippyhead• 11 years ago

I don't quite understand how the car can known it's getting an emissions test. I thought you just pulled up and revved the engine. Or do they plug the computer in nowadays?

seiji2• 11 years ago

Yeah, plug in OBD-II reader, get result back.

Some emissions places also do the tube-up-tailpipe check, but the car could adjust exhaust output if it has an active OBD-II connection.

toyg• 11 years ago

Tests have fixed usage patterns. You detect those while total mileage is low, and you assume it's a test. After X thousand miles, you stop detecting. Job done.

notwhereyouare• 11 years ago

eh, not really. In atlanta, it was once a year, around your birthday. Where I am, outside savannah, it's never. So my car would have no idea if it's being tested or not

elihu• 11 years ago

Where I live, they just plug a thing into the OBD-II port and go with whatever the car tells them. (I drive a '96 Honda Civic.) They don't test the exhaust directly.

superuser23• 11 years ago

In Wisconsin you drive to a specific testing facility and, when it's your turn, onto a testbed with rollers under the wheels. They spin endlessly without the car going anywhere until the test is over, when the rollers are locked so the car can drive off of them. During the test they attach a hose to the exhaust.

Engine revs in drive with no corresponding accelerometer output or change in GPS position should be a pretty solid indicator of "I'm in an emissions testing facility right now." Doubly so if there's an OBD-II reader attached.

izacus5• 11 years ago

Uhm, the emissions test you do every year (I guess in some US states is the same as in EU where you have to measure that yearly?) is different than emissions test that's done on each new model of car before allowing them to be sold and then entered into official specifications.

Remember there are restrictions like EURO5 etc. that impose higher taxes, city environmental taxes and even outright ban cars from being sold on the basis of these specifications.

rconti5• 11 years ago

First of all, that's not how it works. Secondly, being in neutral and revving the engine seems like a pretty obvious red flag for "hey, maybe I'm being tested for emissions" in the scenario you mention.

ju-st3• 11 years ago

The technical debt of petrol engines is becoming apparent.

BorgHunter2• 11 years ago

The technical debt of petrol engines is not relevant to this article:

The allegations cover roughly 482,000 diesel passenger cars sold in the United States since 2009.

ju-st3• 11 years ago

Sorry, I'm not a native speaker. I thought the word "petrol" includes diesel, too!

devicenull3• 11 years ago

I'm wondering how this is going to be implemented.. it doesn't seem like a thing that's really fixable here.

joshrotenberg5• 11 years ago

Total speculation based solely on experience as a consumer (and I own a 2013 VW Golf TDI, so it affects me), but my guess is that the fix would be updated software to apply the stricter emissions controls all the time, presumably at the expense of engine performance.

EDIT: And reducing fuel economy, which is a huge selling point of the TDI in the first place. No idea "by how much" though, and typically TDI numbers are understated, so its possible that a reduction in economy will still be in line with their claims.

devicenull3• 11 years ago

Yea, I have a 2015 Jetta which is why I was curious. I wonder if this explains why my car sounds really weird for the first few minutes of running.

thrownaway24248• 11 years ago

This is interesting. VW has already been performing a nationwide ECU reflash on all MkIV TDI cars this year. Was that part of this action, or was it the cause of this action?

tlb2• 11 years ago

This was a longstanding practice to make diesel engines more efficient while passing the official emissions test. There was a similar enforcement against Caterpillar and other truck makers in 1998:

http://www2.epa.gov/enforcement/caterpillar-inc-diesel-engin...

And against Ford in 1998:

http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-06/documents...

along with a clear ruling that defeat devices were illegal.

bpodgursky• 11 years ago

What actually incentivizes a customer to take their car to a shop to get this fixed though? It's not causing harm to individual car owners, and it's not like they can get collections agencies to sieze them.

Seems like they're going to have trouble getting compliance here...

joshrotenberg5• 11 years ago

I've got a 2013 Golf TDI and was thinking about this as well. If it isn't a safety related recall, I'm not sure how you get people to comply aside from some other action related to, say, their next years registration (i.e. if your VIN doesn't have this fix applied, you can't reregister your car). Not sure if that's a thing, though.

I'd personally plan to take my car in "real soon now" to get the fix.

mjt0229• 11 years ago

I have a 2014 Jetta TDI, and the thing I'm wondering is what the cost of the fix will be - not to me in dollars, since it would be covered by the recall - but rather, will this affect my fuel economy or performance in some other way? I'm just trying to figure out why they don't have the cars running in this lower-emissions mode all the time.

dougb• 11 years ago

I wonder how you car will drive after the "fix." I suspect you won't be very happy with it.

thrownaway24248• 11 years ago

In California CARB can order all of these cars to be inspected and if they aren't, the DMV won't renew the registrations.

joshrotenberg5• 11 years ago

OK, didn't know if that was something that was done or not (see my response below).

I'm in CA, just had to renew my registration and get my car smogged a couple months ago (its a 2013). It passed, of course.

zardo8• 11 years ago

Epa can potentially require VW offer an incentive to owners.

Alex39173• 11 years ago

Instead of fining the manufacturer, just fine everyone who owns one. If every VW owner was forced to pay 20k or so, the problem would fix itself.

cordite• 11 years ago

I'm not sure if you are satirical.

How would fining the end users solve the problem?

Alex39173• 11 years ago

Because no one will ever buy a VW again, and so other carmakers will take note.

dragonwriter2• 11 years ago

Well, sure, if auto purchasers were at risk of massive fines if they received a vehicle where the manufacturer had done something that the average user wouldn't have the skill to detect, no one subject to the government imposing such fines would ever buy a car again, which would solve the problem quite completely.

OTOH, destroying the entire auto industry in the subject jurisdiction might not be considered an optimal means of resolving the problem. (And, indeed, might be so suboptimal to the population as to have catastrophic political consequences for the government imposing it.)

Alex39173• 11 years ago

destroying the entire auto industry in the subject jurisdiction might not be considered an optimal means of resolving the problem.

I don't see how passing the costs along to future car purchasers is better than extracting the costs from the people who were actually harming others.

anonu• 11 years ago

This reminds me of gaming hardware benchmarks.

cmurf4• 11 years ago

2009-2015, I'm surprised it's only 1/2 million vehicles.

smchang• 11 years ago

It's only the diesel models, which are still only a small fraction of the cars being sold today.

Hermel• 11 years ago

If these controllers were open source, drivers could decide on their engine settings themselves. That could be an interestimg strategy for VW as it would move responsibility to the drivers.

GFK_of_xmaspast2• 11 years ago

It's my understanding that there's plenty of aftermarket opportunities available for this kind of tuning.

selimthegrim• 11 years ago

VW denies you warranty repairs if you do this tuning if the damage can be traced to ECU modifications. Class action lawsuit in 3...2...1...

swang3• 11 years ago

I love the look/feel/drive of a VW, but I will never again own one.

My parents bought a 2002 VW which I mostly drove and the maintenance costs were through the roof. There have been at least 3-4 recall notices, one time while parked on an incline, it rained and flooded the back of the car with water. When I went to VW, they said that I had to manually clean out some drainage underneath the car. How the hell am I going to do that?

Then the coolant leaks, engine belts, cracked radiator. You name it I probably had to get it fixed.

Never again.

hn9780470248775• 11 years ago

IIRC, 2002 was around a local minimum in VW reliability.

thrownaway24248• 11 years ago

On the newer ones the high pressure fuel pump disintegrates and poops metal bits into the engine, requiring the engine to be replaced. That's why VW recently extended the warranty against the HPFP to, if I recall correctly, 100k miles.

Here's the 400-page-long forum thread on that defect: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=308323

durin422• 11 years ago

Note that the pump in question has been redesigned multiple times by Bosch. Hardware bugs are a thing, even in cars.

izacus5• 11 years ago

Interesting, since here in EU the VAG group cars (Seat, Škoda, VW, Audi) are widely perceived as the most reliable and there's a huge amount of people buying nothing else.

meatysnapper• 11 years ago

Perhaps it's where they are built. I assume most US-bound VWs are from Mexico or US proper due to NAFTA and auto-import regulations.

superuser23• 11 years ago

This was true for much of the 2000s, but the new platform used from ~2009 onwards (the one implicated here) has been perfectly fine. The 2009-2016 Golfs get consistent Very Good/Good reliability ratings from Consumer Reports.

They're still not Honda, but they're now better than average.

TsiCClawOfLight• 11 years ago

VW have a much better reputation than Honda in Europe.

nradov• 11 years ago

Individual anecdotes don't mean much. You can find objective data on car reliability on TrueDelta and Long-Term Quality Index. Those aren't true random samples but still pretty useful.

http://www.truedelta.com/car-reliability

http://tradeinqualityindex.com/reports/Volkswagen.html

swang3• 11 years ago

_My_ story is anecdotal but early 2000 VWs are known for being really shitty. this have this history. I heard they have gotten "better" but a bit too late for me to care about.

aidenn0• 11 years ago

I drive a mazda, and my car definitely runs rich (visible buildup on tailpipe, the exhaust smells like gasoline when the engine is cold), but it just passed its first emissions test (at 6 years old) showing no detectable gasoline. I wonder if there's some gaming going on there too.

grecy2• 11 years ago

From the factory all vehicles run rich - it helps immensely with longevity as the extra fuel cools and lubricates the engine.

lutorm4• 11 years ago

Vehicles run rich when cold and at full throttle. No engine would pass emissions checks if they didn't run stoichiometric mixture during idle and low-throttle operation.

zardo8• 11 years ago

That was an accurate statement like 40 years ago.

cmurf4• 11 years ago

I wonder if the primary control code should be open source. That's without respect to right to modify or reuse the code, just whether it should be mandatory that it be published. And it'd exclude things like user space apps and UI/UX stuff. But any of the code that controls or affects steering, acceleration, ignition, braking, and lighting, really seems like it's not OK to just consider it a black box, subject to DMCA, copyright, and trade secrets laws and thus risky (or flat out illegal) to reverse engineer and understand how it works. And right now a significant part of an automobile is a black box, and you do not fully own it.

It was supposed to be that patenting required you to fully disclose all the details of an invention. The idea was to not only make clear what you had a monopoly for, but so that others could learn from your invention and make something different that was better.

yason• 11 years ago

If it's just published you can't be sure it's the same code that runs in the car. You should be able to compile the code and inject your locally compiled firmware to the ECU if you want to verify that the car engine is doing what it's supposed to be doing.

_yosefk• 11 years ago

If you can do it, chances are an attacker can, too. I prefer hardware that won't load unsigned software in such places.

anigbrowl• 11 years ago

Perhaps we need an approach whereby abuse of patented or otherwise protected technology should be punished in part by termination of the monopoly protection, and its immediate free availability to competitors. I imagine it would create some serious economic hurt for VW if these allegations are proven to be true and their ECS were made public domain - far more than a fine, or at least any fine that's likely to be politically acceptable.

johnny99• 11 years ago

Given the low cost and ubiquity of sensors nowadays, you'd think it would be feasible to require car makers to test emissions in real time, in the real world.

ibarrajo2• 11 years ago

We already have that, It's called OBDII.

Besides error codes, OBDII has 8 emissions monitors. In California all cars after 2001 are checked by means of a visual and these 8 readiness monitors: catalyst, heated catalyst, EVAP, SAI, O2, O2 Heater, EGR/VVT, AC

Source: I work on my two Audis

sokoloff5• 11 years ago

If you need to, you can beat most O2 monitors with a 555, most O2 heater monitors with a $0.45 resistor (or an O2 heater from a neutered O2 sensor), an EGR sensor monitor with a diode and couple resistors. Many catalyst monitors are just downstream O2 sensors that detect cycling (another 555 will defeat).

OBD2 monitoring, without fairly careful visual inspection, isn't a full solution. It's used because it's cheap, easy, and close to good enough, but enthusiasts are easily able to defeat it, for "off road use only", of course...

brc8• 11 years ago

I think he means to have the car collect it's own data on emissions, which can then be collected.

It's a far better idea than to just sample a few cars in a limited test.

oppositelock2• 11 years ago

The NYT is being disingenuous in presenting this as VW detecting the EPA test cycle and doing something to cheat. I think they've confused open loop and closed loop engine operation.

VW's 4-cylinder engines which failed the EPA tests are all turbo engines. Turbo engines run hotter than naturally aspirated engines and so, they produce more NOx, since it's one of the high temperature byproducts. In fact, EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) systems inject exhaust into the intake to lower combustion temperatures and NOx output. All engines do this, turbo or not.

Whatever NOx makes it out of the engine can be catalyzed in the catalytic converter if there is enough O2 for the catalyst. All the engine's intake air and temperature sensors, and pre-cat and post-cat O2 sensors exist to balance the gases coming into the catalytic converter to optimize the catalytic reaction.

When the engine is using all of these sensors to fine tune the amount of air, fuel and EGR to maximize catalyst efficiency, it's running in something called "closed loop" mode. The sensors and inputs work in a closed loop to balance the system. This is what happens when you're cruising on the highway or driving around at relatively fixed throttle.

Give the car a lot of gas, and something else happens. All of a sudden, a LOT more air enters the engine. The sensors can't change reading fast enough (mass air flow sensor, for example) or their readings are now out of the sensor's useful sensitivity band (for O2). The engine code knows that sensor capabilities have been exceeded, and it goes into "open loop" mode. In this mode, rather than using sensor readings, the engine reverts to pre-programmed maps, usually indexed by RPM, throttle position, engine load, and boost level. These maps are designed for relatively clean combustion and engine safety, but they will not generate optimal catalyst input gases, and so, the catalyst efficiency drops off tremendously. Furthermore, performance cars will often burn rich (too much gas for amount of air) in order to prevent engine destroying pre-detonation.

Most of the EPA test cycle will happen in closed loop mode. Most high throttle acceleration or "fun" driving will happen in open loop mode. There's the source of the discrepancy between EPA test cycle and real world driving. VW got caught, but every car does this, as we don't have wide-band, high-rate sensors yet at a price point even close to where it would need to be for consumer cars.

(Next time you see someone racing off from a stop light, in pretty much any car, watch the exhaust pipe, you'll see dark smoke. I guarantee you they're running rich in open loop mode).

tlb2• 11 years ago

The cars in this recall are all diesel.

tzs• 11 years ago

The NYT is being disingenuous in presenting this as VW detecting the EPA test cycle and doing something to cheat. I think they've confused open loop and closed loop engine operation.

The NYT is not at all confused. The cars in question have software in the ECM specifically meant to detect testing. The software looks at various inputs, including steering wheel position, speed, duration of operation, and barometric pressure. The values it looks for precisely track the parameters of the federal test procedure use for EPA certification.

When the software detected this, it switched to a mode that VW actually called "dyno calibration". At all other times, it used a mode VW called "road calibration".

Source: http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/cert/documents/vw-nov-caa-09-18-15....

commandar2• 11 years ago

So the VW ECUs essentially have a separate map for when they detect the EPA testing.

rakingleaves• 11 years ago

Wow. From the source:

"VW continued to assert to CARB and the EPA that the increased emissions from these vehicles could be attributed to various technical issues and unexpected in-use conditions. VW issued a voluntary recall in December 2014 to address the issue. CARB, in coordination with the EPA, conducted follow up testing of these vehicles [...] to confirm the efficacy of the recall. When the testing showed only a limited benefit to the recall, CARB broadened the testing to pinpoint the exact technical nature of the vehicles' poor performance"

I remember spending half a day at the dealership to deal with this recall, which was required to get my CA registration renewed. Can't believe it was just a BS update that didn't really fix anything. Shocking and extremely disappointing behavior from VW

oppositelock2• 11 years ago

Wow, jumped the gun on giving VW the benefit of the doubt before reading the actual complaint. Thanks for the link.

nissehulth• 11 years ago

While this seems to be made on purpose, my gut feeling is that car makers shouldn't do software...

joosters• 11 years ago

Who should write the software then? People who don't know anything about cars?

lmm• 11 years ago

People who know software, sitting in the same room as people who know cars.

I fear a big company would find it impossible, but that's how you get good software.

daniel-levin• 11 years ago

Many of the comments in this thread follow a similar pattern. They are all essentially derivatives of Goodhart's law. [0]

> Once a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

It's quite useful to have a name - a label - for this sort of behaviour. In this case, the means by which VW optimised for this metric was crafty computer software! A metric is only as good as the cost of the unintended consequences that come with imposing it on people, in particular large corporations.

I am not surprised that this is done by many corporations as mentioned elsewhere in the comments (ATI/Nvidia etc). This is because regulations and benchmarks that can be gamed, such as engine efficiency, will be gamed because the incentives of corporations work out that way:

(I hope this isn't perceived as an anti-corporate rant because it's not. Just a way of framing facts).

For regulations imposed on large corporations in general (think EPA admissions standards):

1) Regulations are mandated by a government to effect some purpose (stop destroying Earth)

2) Executives - the people running the corporations - are bound by legal responsibility - their fiduciary duty [1] - to create value for their shareholders (selling lots of cars, and profitably).

3) Regulations can obstruct the activities of a corporation by making them do things they don't want to (making efficient cars is hard and costly and affects the bottom line - its cheaper to manufacture a car with less platinum [2] in it)

4) Companies are incentivized to minimize the time and money spent on adhering to regulations

5) Once a regulation is standardised and codified, it becomes possible to follow the letter of it, while ignoring the spirit of it. All a corporation has to do is meet the metrics in the specification to abide by the regulation - in other words - game the system.

Given these incentives, we have seen that corporations prefer to abide by regulations in the maximally efficient way: gaming them. Thus reducing a well-meaning government initiative to gamesmanship.

Kudos to the EPA for calling VW out on this. This kind of incident reinforces (in me at least) the idea that environmental legislation is an extraordinarily difficult thing to get right.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fiduciary_duty

[2] Catalytic convertors

zardo8• 11 years ago

This kind of incident reinforces (in me at least) the idea that environmental legislation is an extraordinarily difficult thing to get right.

And the more detailed you make the regulation to prevent gaming, the harder it is for new competitors to enter the industry. Also good god having read and interpet their frequently self contradicting regs is a nightmare. Hell, Tesla got hit with an EPA penalty early on because they didn't certify the roadster's non-existant emissions.

maxmax• 11 years ago

In this case, VW didn't game the regulation. They gamed the test conditions. They deliberately violated the regulation. Violations should be expected on occasion. Violators should expect to be punished when caught.

brc8• 11 years ago

To me the tests have to be real measurements rather than a proxy.

Having a special test makes the test easy to pass.

If the test was instead to have sampled data from x,000 cars, gathered at service intervals fit within certain bands, then that would require actually engineering most cars to return within the set range across a wide range of use types.

Smaller niche manufacturers could just pass a simpler test to encourage market entrants. 200 slightly worse cars is nothing against 200,000 intentionally bad cars.

The regulations need to target what is trying to be achieved rather than simplified proxies.

TootsMagoon• 11 years ago

Is this an example of software becoming a hindrance or more beneficial to the industry?

eisa01• 11 years ago

Anyone know if this "defeat device" would be a violation of the various Euro* regulations in Europe? It's been widely reported [1] that diesel cars emit more NOx than the specification allows, but so far no consequences. More than 50% of all cars sold in the EU are diesel fueled, and many countries are breaching the EU air quality limits. This causes an estimated 400,000 premature deaths each year [2]

[1] http://www.theicct.org/news/press-release-new-icct-study-sho... [2] http://www.euractiv.com/sections/health-consumers/eu-sends-b...

justincormack5• 11 years ago

Apparently made illegal at least by 2007 regualtions (maybe adopted later, not expert in EU law)

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:320...

ChuckMcM• 11 years ago

I guess this is the automaker equivalent to a CPU detecting its running benchmark code.

draw_down• 11 years ago

If the ultimate and only resolution to this is that VW has to pay a fine, or other outgoing monies due to the recalls, in an amount that is not significant to the operation of their business, nobody should be surprised that this happened, nor question whether it can happen again.

neves• 11 years ago

Funny coincidence, reading the article we see that the american gov just punishes foreign companies.

tyrust• 11 years ago

What is coinciding with what?

ams61104• 11 years ago

I'm keeping my old Mercedes diesels with no computers at all.

twothamendment• 11 years ago

Oh, you have a Unimog too?

CamperBob24• 11 years ago

That's OK, I probably use more clean air than I need anyway.

acd• 11 years ago

There is also quite some lies "optimism" in the EU regarding stated mpg L/100km from the manufacturer and real world measured mpg.

Is it the same software that the car companies use during EU drive cycle tests vs real world production cars? If you were a cheating manufacturer you would tune your car lean for the tests and more sporty with slightly higher consumption for the real world production run.

usrusr• 11 years ago

Sure, the real challenge must lie in quickly recognizing the different test setups for consumption vs pollution, because they certainly "require" very different engine parameters. I would not be surprised if (or rather: I'd be surprised if not) consulting industry experts managed to sneak some easily detectable patterns into the initial part of the standardized "test scripts". It's not like these kinds of optimizations are in any way brand exclusive, or it was impossible to know of them before these news (the only way to not know about them, assuming a moderate interest in all thing car related, was deliberately turning a blind eye for the sake of believing in progress)

switch007• 11 years ago

It's hard to believe anyone still fooled by VW's claim of 94.2 MPG (1.6 TDI BlueMotion Golf, manual, extra urban). There's been a lot of press about stated fuel figures not matching real world consumption (and it's even mention/stated briefly in adverts now I think)

In my own experience with that model, driving about 500 miles, 50-55 is a valid expectation

kevin_thibedeau• 11 years ago

That's okay. They just need to grow the wheelbase a bit and reclassify all their cars as "light trucks". Problem solved.

jonknee3• 11 years ago

I have an Audi TDI, but luckily not one of the affected models. I would be furious, especially if post-update performance was noticeably different. If so they are going to be up to their eye balls in class action suits demanding buybacks and the like (not unprecedented, Dodge just did a buyback).

blondie9x• 11 years ago

DDOS VW shall we?

spdmn• 11 years ago

Seems very UnGerman to patch over a flaw instead of rooting out the problem from the ground level and engineering a solution. I'm just saying deceitfully patching over the problem seems uncharacteristic of the cultural norm/stereotype that I know.

smsm42• 11 years ago

How anybody at VW would think it's a good idea? Sure, it's a clever trick, but when they get caught - and it's assured they will - they'd probably get it pretty hard. I mean, Toyota got hit for $1.2 bln for problems that were mostly imaginary[1], how much this would cost?

[1] http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/justice-departme...

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