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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

#201

Post by kuschku »

lighthawk wrote: post #162
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…

> those couple of software engineers would have to have a major say over the entire engine design. I call bullshit. I agree. Developers wouldn't take that amount of corporate risk on for such a hack without having significant backing from management. Even if they were completely on their own, which is impossible for me to believe, at some point another developer would have noticed and said something. Developers are s…

The "individuals" VW is claiming are responsible are 10 managers and 3 top engineers, which include the head of R&D, the head of engine design and the head of Audi.

The definition of "individual" might be different between what VW claims and what you read, though.

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

#202

Post by kuschku »

jessaustin wrote: post #124
dayjah wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably a little reactionary, but can we just stop for a second and admire the difference in American CEO's versus his European counterpart? The latter resigns immediately as a way of accepting he is ultimately responsible, the former points fingers. This is a blatant example of why the tide of opinion is turning against those with the most wealth.

The cars were designed in Germany, weren't they? (If not, excuse my shock to find we've been subjected to misleading advertising .) I doubt the engineers reported to the USA guy.

Well, not really.

The cars sold in the US have nothing in common with the European models but the name and engine.

The US models have different sizes, different engine selections, are fully assembled in the US, etc.

Some example images:

Interior: http://www.myturbodiesel.com/images/b7/tdi/2012-vw-passat-eu...

Exterior: http://www.myturbodiesel.com/images/b7/tdi/euro-passat-diffe...

Seats: http://www.myturbodiesel.com/images/b7/tdi/interior-differen...

And in this 2011 discussion there are already discussions about how VW is able to handle NOx without AdBlue in the US variation of the car: http://www.myturbodiesel.com/threads/differences-between-201...

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

#203

Post by dogma1138 »

Dav3xor wrote: post #99
dogma1138 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you don't know the motor industry very much as it has very strict coding standards like ISO 26262, the code has to be audited internally and by certified 3rd parties with every release to meet the development cycle requirements of the standards. http://www.ldra.com/en/software-quality-test-tools/group/by-... The industry also has specific coding standard for every language that is used in embedded systems like M…

I've worked at a couple different companies that made safety critical software, and I have to agree with joezedeco. Dav3xor's Law -- Code Quality is Inversely Proportional to Risk.

And 2 of my friends worked for BetterPlace (RIP) and it took years for Nissan to accept the code which had to be rewritten to comply and certified by an external 3rd party. And that code wasn't even "mission critical" in terms of road safety.

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

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

#204

Post by XJOKOLAT »

kuschku wrote: post #190
dahart wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 worke…

The thing is, you are currently defending the prominent executives. We’re talking about the heads of R&D and the head of engine development – both more business people than engineer. Additionally, 2 CEOs have resigned over this (in just 6 months!) And it’s known that the first of these CEOs tried to focus on engines without Urea injection – which did get 280mpg, though – because he personally was invested into their…

R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y ... find out what it means to me, take care, TCB ... ... sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me ...

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

#205

Post by kuschku »

XJOKOLAT wrote: post #204
kuschku wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, you are currently defending the prominent executives. We’re talking about the heads of R&D and the head of engine development – both more business people than engineer. Additionally, 2 CEOs have resigned over this (in just 6 months!) And it’s known that the first of these CEOs tried to focus on engines without Urea injection – which did get 280mpg, though – because he personally was invested into their…

R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y ... find out what it means to me, take care, TCB ... ... sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me ...

That’s why the CEO originally responsible even resigned before it became public. And why the second CEO resigned: because, despite not believing he himself did it, taking the responsibility for it.

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

#206

Post by dogma1138 »

Laaw wrote: post #199
dogma1138 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does any one really thinks that true? http://www.ldra.com/en/software-quality-test-tools/group/by-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_Industry_Software_Reliab... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MISRA_C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_26262

None of those are what I described, though.

> Doesn't it blow your mind that there are no "standards of engineering" or whatever for software?

ISO, IEC, etc.

> There's no licensure body for software engineers who build software running your car, and therefore no accountability on a personal level.

MISRA, SCSC, etc.

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

#207

Post by billforsternz »

sheepmullet wrote: post #174
randcraw wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like NASA, auto companies like VW produce a TON of documentation on all phases of design and engineering. This is especially true when it comes to regulation-sensitive processes like emissions testing. As someone who has worked in a comparably highly regulated industry (pharma) I can state with full confidence that Mr Horn is a lying bastard.

> Like NASA, auto companies like VW produce a TON of documentation on all phases of design and engineering. This is especially true when it comes to regulation-sensitive processes like emissions testing. Bingo! A lot of HN is acting like "it could slip through the processes we have at work so I can see how it could happen here" without realising that the processes, documentation, and independent review requirements a…

Yes and no. Remember the Toyota firmware fracas and the bizarre coding practices (100s of global variables anyone?) that were eventually revealed. Adding heavyweight process doesn't necessarily solve more problems than it creates.

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

#208

Post by arcticbull »

kuschku wrote: post #191
andor wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, completely different families. EA189 was a Pumpe-Düse system able to get up to 280mpg in production vehicles, at the cost of high NOx emissions. EA288 is a standard common-rail engine with AdBlue.

The 189 may be either Pumpe-Düse or Direct Injection. AFAIK all the post-2009 models implicated are common-rail direct injection.

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

#210

Post by kabdib »

maxerickson wrote: post #66
kabdib wrote: post #59

"This was a couple of software engineers who put this in for whatever reason" This was a system. A complex one. No way it was done by a couple of guys at 2AM, or whatever. This has to have been inter-group collusion, and management is in CYA mode and shoving individuals under the bus. VW has gone from being a cravenly stupid company that is going to be fined billions of dollars, to a place where I suggest it is in ev…

Say the detection for the emissions testing is something like a flag in the software that says the car is on a dyno, or some other factors that the ECU has legitimate reasons to keep track of. In that case, the defeat system is just a quick if else predicated on those state variables and swapping between a set of engine parameters that is emissions test safe and another set that provides better performance. I don't m…

Okay, imagine you're working on the hardware of the engine. Pistons, bolts, lubrication. One Friday afternoon you leave work depressed because the emissions suck, they've sucked for months, and they won't get better without a major redesign.

On Monday morning, the emissions tests are suddenly passing.

"Ha, just one of those things," you say, "I thought we had emissions problems, but I guess we don't after all. Let's ship the engine and have a party!"

There is no way that this happened.

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