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Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

reuters.com

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Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#151

Post by danielweber »

OopsCriticality wrote: post #130
joezydeco wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you're not familiar with what happened when a 3rd party (Michael Barr) was allowed to FINALLY look inside Toyota's engine code and determine the cause of the "Unintended Acceleration" problem: " Barr checked the [Toyota] source code against MISRA’s 2004 edition and found 81,514 violations. " http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintende...

The model year 2005 Camry in question from the trial would have been made available in 2004, and the electronic throttle control system was designed prior to 2004 (IIRC, the ETC design was carried forward from the previous model). How does it makes sense to apply MISRA-C:2004 in this case, especially when the Toyota ETC in question was admittedly not designed under MISRA-C:2004 nor prior MISRA-C revisions? It is inac…

Barr always struck me as something of a charlatan trying to bamboozle a jury.

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#152

Post by thebrettd »

tastynacho wrote: post #140

Related side question. A few months before this leaked out I bought a brand new Golf TDI(diesel) and I'm in California where it sounds like my car is technically now illegal? I have no idea what I should be doing at this point. I've been significantly overpaying on the note but not sure I should now. Does anyone have an idea what this means for the owners of the vehicles in question?

Your car is still legal to drive. edit: Source is the apology letter I got from VW a couple days ago.

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#154

Post by walshemj »

theli0nheart wrote: post #19
somebodyother wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, it implies a couple of engineers could slip through arbitrary code to be executed under selective conditions. That's terrifying.

And, supposing this is true, would you actually be surprised by this? This is a car company, not a CI and code-review obsessed software company in Silicon Valley.

And a German one and from experience dealing with German companies software isn't regarded I the same light as what they would consider "proper engineering"

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#155

Post by wilsynet »

Havoc wrote: post #148
kimdouglasmason wrote: post #104

Nope, definitely systemic within the company. The engine is a system that must meet certain requirements. The standard way of meeting those requirements is to have a urea injection system. That's what the competitors in the US do; it's also what Subaru, for example, don't do, and they don't sell into the US market. In order to pull off this little 2-person hack that Horn alleges, those couple of software engineers wo…

You're making an awful lot of assumptions there. >those couple of software engineers would have to have a major say over the entire engine design. I call bullshit. The two people they're mainly talking about are head of R&D group and engine development. Yeah I'd imagine they have major say over engine design.

The two heads who lead the R&D and engine development are not software engineers. But they would certainly require software engineers to help them carry out the deception. I highly doubt that only 2 people are involved.

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#158

Post by andor »

rconti wrote: post #115
kimdouglasmason wrote: post #104

Nope, definitely systemic within the company. The engine is a system that must meet certain requirements. The standard way of meeting those requirements is to have a urea injection system. That's what the competitors in the US do; it's also what Subaru, for example, don't do, and they don't sell into the US market. In order to pull off this little 2-person hack that Horn alleges, those couple of software engineers wo…

Actually, the Passat has urea injection and is implicated as well -- though it didn't exceed emissions by as much as cars without aftertreatment. And the "couple of engineers" was in reference to the head of engineering and another guy. It wasn't implicating rogue low-level engineers. http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-real-cause-of-the...

The current scandal is only about the "EA189" engine family with NOx traps for exhaust treatment. The new "EA288" engine family with urea injection was designed from scratch, and, I hope, doesn't need cheating software.

Edit: the EA288 is/was -- at least in Europe -- also sold with NOx trap, but VW still claims it's free from cheating software.

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#159

Post by dahart »

Havoc wrote: post #148
kimdouglasmason wrote: post #104

Nope, definitely systemic within the company. The engine is a system that must meet certain requirements. The standard way of meeting those requirements is to have a urea injection system. That's what the competitors in the US do; it's also what Subaru, for example, don't do, and they don't sell into the US market. In order to pull off this little 2-person hack that Horn alleges, those couple of software engineers wo…

You're making an awful lot of assumptions there. >those couple of software engineers would have to have a major say over the entire engine design. I call bullshit. The two people they're mainly talking about are head of R&D group and engine development. Yeah I'd imagine they have major say over engine design.

Having a lot of say in design, and keeping secret an intentional violation of government regulations from your entire international company are two pretty different things.

I'm making assumptions, and I believe this story is pure, unadulterated bullshit from top to bottom.

Is it likely that the heads of R&D and engine development at VW are hands-on and writing code themselves? No, its extremely unlikely. Having worked in several large companies, there are 0 people at that level of management that perform hands-on work.

It is likely that those particular positions benefit and are motivated to cheat on regulations for the benefit of the company? No, the bottom line of the company is affected, and it is far more likely that business people are applying pressure.

Is it likely that they could make those changes in a company that size, without anyone noticing? No, not really. Software in a large organization leaves trails everywhere and requires explanation, they had to interface with other systems, and people had to interface with theirs.

Is it likely that the same narrative structure that our government attempted to use to excuse torture, is something VW is also trying? "Oh, we had no idea, it was one deranged guy who did this." Yes, it is highly likely that prominent executives are scrambling to get out of the way, and highly likely that the company is trying to come up with a story that makes it look less corrupt than it is.

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#160

Post by wilsynet »

greggman wrote: post #82

This pass the buck attitude really pisses me off. You're the head of the company, department, whatever, it's your gawd damn responsibility if your subordinates do something wrong. If you hired bad people it's still your responsibility. If you hired people that hired people it's still your responsibility. I don't care if you knew or not. You set the tone, you set the impossible deadlines or requirements. You fostered…

Well he didn't pass the buck; he resigned.
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