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EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations

epa.gov

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Re: EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations

#131
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reason to think it's nearly industry-wide is that ECUs, ECU firmware frameworks, sensors, and interface firmware come from a small set of common suppliers. Anyone not hitting a competitor's' numbers knows their competitors are using the same hardware and much of the same software.

These organizations are obsessive about IP and they definitely don't share engine management code on a regular basis, even if they use the same ECU and the result is largely similar code.

It's only that the result is functionally similar, it's that much of the code is identical, provided by the hardware supplier, and much of what differs is declarative.

Re: EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations

#132
post #34
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not why they're popular. They're popular because the average American thinks bigger is better and they also want a bigger car for when they have an accident, they can kill the other person instead of themselves.

Have you ever driven in a snowstorm? They're popular in areas with snow because the drivetrain handles better in the snow, and the higher ground clearance means that they can handle unplowed roads.

All you really need is FWD and snow tires. Sure AWD and extra height will save you some shoveling that one time you will park a little too far in a snow bank, but it's not worth the extra cost and weight.

The only thing you absolutely don't want in snow is RWD.

Re: EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations

#133
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "GM, BMW, MB, and Ford" GP here. My whole point is that ~everyone is cheating to various degrees, it's just that not everyone has been caught yet.

Based on?

>If you've ever been near a major automaker's test engineering lab

I think the op is claiming industry experience.

Re: EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If standards weren't forced on them we'd be living in smog-choked cities. Markets can't efficiently deal with tragedy-of-the-commons situations because the air belongs to everyone and there is no way to do price discovery. Even a manufacturer could advertise based on being eco-friendly the effects would be minuscule thus consumers would have little reason to prioritize such features. You're essentially claiming we sh…

I feel like there are more differences between China and the USA than just the EPA, and that's not at all what I was arguing. What did you read my argument as? Can you restate my argument? Either I spoke unclearly, or you read poorly. So, let me figure this out.

>Now, there's no reason to innovate because someone spends big bucks to actually do what everyone else is lying about.

This statement just doesn't make sense. If we punish actors who cheat the incentive is to innovate towards meeting the goal. If there's no mandate, and no punishment then there's no reason to innovate in a direction that protects the commons. There's simply no market mechanism for protecting the commons that works in practice.

Re: EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Someone needs to tell the EPA about the inverted pyramid. You can't blame me for missing that when they bury the lede in the very last paragraph. That aside, the headline here still says the opposite of what it means to say. Exceeding the standard is a good thing. Exceeding the emissions limit is a bad thing.

This is the subtitle of the article : > FCA allegedly installed and failed to disclose software > that increases air pollution from vehicles Second sentence of the first paragraph: > The undisclosed software results in increased > emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the vehicles. What more do you want?

I need more random people on the internet to tell me how stupid and illiterate I am, I guess. Thanks, that's really helpful.

Re: EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations

#136

Volkswagen, a German company, admitted wrongdoing, is paying $4.3bn in fines and will see its executives, domestic and overseas, jailed by the U.S. government [1]. Curious if Fiat Chrysler will see those checkboxes--admission of wrongdoing, material fines and jailed executives--filled. [1] http://abcnews.go.com/US/volkswagen-pleads-guilty-pays-43-bi...

>admitted wrongdoing

"VW was concealing the facts from EPA, the state of California and consumers," EPA enforcement official Cynthia Giles says. "We expected better from VW."[1]

They may have EVENTUALLY admitted wrongdoing, but it was only after being caught red-handed, lying about what they were caught doing, and then follow up testing [2].

1. http://www.autonews.com/section/vw-timeline

2. 'Volkswagen tells regulators that the differences amount to technical issues and "unexpected" test conditions' Read more at https://www.cars.com/articles/vw-diesel-crisis-timeline-of-e...

Re: EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then put the car on rollers for a fixed speed/acceleration/time profile

That's exactly what they do now. Volkswagen and Chrysler (and probably everyone else) have ECU firmware that watches for those profiles and adjusts the engine tuning for emissions differently compared to normal operation. They need profiles that are more difficult to identify and more of them to solve this technically. Or the EPA and other regulatory agencies can bring down the hammer when they catch cheating like th…

Or else they rewrite the legislation to say "You can't ever exceed X on emissions". Then they do two tests, one for the legislation, which is a random drive over a period of time from a randomly sampled vehicle, and a second which is the dyno test for consumer information.
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