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How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

theguardian.com

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Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#81

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

wil421 wrote: post #12
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #8

I work in this industry, so I've been following it from the start. I've run test cells and written software to analyze the results from the emissions cycles that the government uses to validate the emissions compliance. I have worked around and for a very large diesel engine manufacturer who I am convinced does not cheat on this test. You'll understand why, below. I recently leveled-up my career, and I now work with…

How can VW create an engine, cheat, and sell it to Chrysler? Then Chrysler has to put a urea tank to meet emissions. How did some brilliant engineer writing the spec or the third parties not notice?

An SCR (and EGR, and DOC, et. al.) is a "given" in this equation. There's no hope of passing emissions without it. Even on gas engines, you still need a catalytic converter to pass.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#82

Post by 3o4xkp »

adrianN wrote: post #32
Yaggo wrote: post #15

European here. My next car will be electric, likely a Tesla. The dieselgate is the reason why I'm not even considering Volkswagen's upcoming 'ID' family of electric cars. I've similar feeling about the whole traditional auto industry.

Unfortunately you seem to be in the minority. People are still happily buying VW.

I don't care about whether things are "ecologically sound" or not.

I know the earth is important and blah blah, but I have bigger fish to fry every day. I'm sure most people feel like that.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#83

Post by Dumblydorr »

justasimpleman wrote: post #37
Yaggo wrote: post #15

European here. My next car will be electric, likely a Tesla. The dieselgate is the reason why I'm not even considering Volkswagen's upcoming 'ID' family of electric cars. I've similar feeling about the whole traditional auto industry.

My next car will be "no car at all". Even electric cars have huge externalities that you do not pay for, but your children, namely, the disposal of the batteries, pollution created by the manufacturing, costly extraction of rare earths etc. Instead we should heavily invest in high-speed trains.

I love investment in trains but in the USA, small improvements to investment wouldn't be close to enough. We need EVs because the political will is simply not there for any infrastructure spending. Its either EVs or more emissions, sad state of affairs.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#84

Post by xedeon »

close04 wrote: post #68
xedeon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, they state it in the fineprint so to speak. Self-Driving is not even released yet, prove me wrong otherwise. What you're attempting to quote are forward looking statements. Maybe you need to read the document you linked, slowly this time.

I don't have to prove anything, I know they're not flat out lying [0], they're just misleading. Many drivers (ask the dead) are/were under the impression that the car can drive itself. And Tesla doesn't do much to make this distinction clear. [0] Except for the "we'll have it next year" bit. That's just to get a little more cashflow, pretty sure not even Musk expects to have FSD ready "next year" unless it's a perpet…

> I don’t have to prove anything

You can’t just make bold claims and not back them up... Makes you look imprudent.

> Many drivers (ask the dead) are/were under the impression that the car can drive itself.

Everytime you engage Autosteer. You get a warning that says “Always keep your hands on the steering wheel” and “Be prepared to take over at any time”.

More importantly, each driver assistance update also explicitly state the capabilities and you HAVE to toggle them on. No where in the car UX or manual even suggests that it can “drive itself”.

I think it’s you have the wrong impression. Unless you’re speaking anecdotally, which is I highly doubt.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#85

Post by xkcd-sucks »

fulafel wrote: post #50
lb1lf wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-speed trains are wonderful where the population density is sufficiently high, but in more sparsely populated parts, the car (and, for longer distances, the plane) is likely the only viable solution for decades to come. With that as a starting point, the cars and planes might as well be electric. (Or hydrogen powered!)

I think this reasoning pins down the wrong variables of the equation. You can pick your housing and location based on not owning a car (among other criteria). And it scales too. And for decision-makers it's responsible to nudge your citizenship to this direction.

> And for decision-makers it's responsible to nudge your citizenship to this direction

Is the flip side of this "People who want to live in solitude are not qualified to make decisions"?

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#86

Post by eebynight »

jokoon wrote: post #34

I live in france, and I often spot cars that have a grey/blue smokes. Many other cars also have this awful smell. Here, every 2 years, cars must legally be examined in a "controle technique", like an exam which controls several aspects of a vehicle. I wonder if those fumes are legal, and I really wonder if people can manage to cheat at that exam, because I think I'm noticing an epidemic of those fumes. How can I real…

I have an older diesel VW. It is extremely common for people to run tunes that disable the check engine light that is produced when you delete the exhaust gas recirculation valve (EGR), urea pump and diesel particulate filter (DPF).

For things like the EGR, blocking it off is simply installing a bracket or two and closing off some vacuum lines. I can imagine people would simply reinstall this and swap the tune to pass and then immediately remove it after.

In the US, for emissions, all you have to do is not run any check engine lights when at the test center which is easy to do in the software tune.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#87

Post by specialist »

topspin wrote: post #46
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #8

I work in this industry, so I've been following it from the start. I've run test cells and written software to analyze the results from the emissions cycles that the government uses to validate the emissions compliance. I have worked around and for a very large diesel engine manufacturer who I am convinced does not cheat on this test. You'll understand why, below. I recently leveled-up my career, and I now work with…

"Excuse me, but what more did the author expect the government to do?" It is not some outrageous expectation that the $8,000,000,000+/year, 14,000+ employee EPA and/or DOT independently verify the real world emissions performance of passenger cars and other vehicles. The cars were so grossly out of compliance that anyone with a ordinary field emissions testing machine could have caught it. If, as is very likely the c…

We need better models of governance.

One party arrangements (self-policing) ain't working.

Two party arrangements (regulation) is hit or miss.

Maybe add a third chair to each negotiation. Just like the US Constitution has three branches of government. What would that look like?

Maybe incentivize competitors to narc on each other. What would it have taken for Mazda (for example) to blow the whistle?

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#88

Post by fulafel »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #85
fulafel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this reasoning pins down the wrong variables of the equation. You can pick your housing and location based on not owning a car (among other criteria). And it scales too. And for decision-makers it's responsible to nudge your citizenship to this direction.

> And for decision-makers it's responsible to nudge your citizenship to this direction Is the flip side of this "People who want to live in solitude are not qualified to make decisions"?

You can live in solitude quite ecologically without a car too of course. Nudge =! force

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#89

Post by hndamien »

blattimwind wrote: post #69
akanet wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do a bad thing" is a pretty major understatement of the degree of criminality we're talking about here. Over-representing the capabilities of Autopilot is a totally different thing that embedding a defeat device to defraud every national regulatory agency.

If you excluded every manufacturer that did this at some point, you're pretty much only left with Tesla and probably some other smaller new EV companies.

This speaks volumes.

Re: How the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions

#90

Post by jordanbeiber »

Yaggo wrote: post #15

European here. My next car will be electric, likely a Tesla. The dieselgate is the reason why I'm not even considering Volkswagen's upcoming 'ID' family of electric cars. I've similar feeling about the whole traditional auto industry.

I drove a VW passat (bio/ngt gas hybrid) for years.

This stuff pissed me of so much that together with the Exxon stuff I will never own a VW or a fossil ICE car ever again.

I went for the Leaf as I can fit a double buggy in the trunk and it has a good enough range. Not cheap but it’s what I can do as a consumer in this liberal market economy.

Good job, greedy bastards! :)

Side note - using an EV have given me for the third time kind of an technology epiphany experience:

1. Internet

2. The first iphone

3. Now, the EV

Charging in the garage over night, never visting a gas station other than for coffe on the road. It’s awesome!

What’s so incredibly convenient is that the grid is built out already, i.e the infrastructure is in place, and has been for decades.

Imagine someone suggesting we haul this toxic and highly flammable stuff called “gasoline” around the world to “stations”... what a ludicrous idea!

I see parallells to music and media distribution and the internet.

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