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E.P.A. Finds More VW Cheating Software, Including in Porsches

nytimes.com

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Re: E.P.A. Finds More VW Cheating Software, Including in Porsches

#51

Post by blumentopf »

roymurdock wrote: post #26
mzs wrote: post #14

the release itself: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/bd4379a92ceceeac852... As alleged in the NOV, VW manufactured and installed software in the electronic control module of these vehicles that senses when the vehicle is being tested for compliance with EPA emissions standards. When the vehicle senses that it is undergoing a federal emissions test procedure, it operates in a low NOx “temperature conditioning”…

There was a good This American Life episode recently [1] that walked through a few different alternatives for how VW could respond to this whole scandal. The host solicited feedback from 3 different marketing firms: One firm, run by the guy who saved Jack In The Box with the ubiquitous sphere-head Jack commercials after an E. Coli outbreak killed 4 kids, said that VW should run an ad of a new executive blowing up the…

Mercedes-Benz was in a similar position in 1997 when the newly introduced A-Class flunked the moose test. After a short period of denial they hired a specialist (Armin Töpfer), halted production for several months and retooled all cars with a different suspension and ESP. The ESP wasn't even necessary but put competitors under pressure to include it in their compact class cars as well. The crisis was eventually overcome and the car sold very well in Europe (1.1 million produced in 7 years). There's a fascinating book (sadly in German only) on this called "Die A-Klasse: Elchtest, Krisenmanagement, Kommunikationsstrategie." (http://www.amazon.com/dp/3472037997)

Re: E.P.A. Finds More VW Cheating Software, Including in Porsches

#52

Post by bri3d »

TheHolyLancer wrote: post #48
bri3d wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The A4, Q5, Q7, Touraeg, Phaeton, and a lot of other VW vehicles which used the same 3.0TDI have the exact same rated power, which suggests that the engine calibration probably was shared as well. So I think it's plausible that Porsche dropped the engine in, went through their usual drive testing and tuning, and never thought about the emissions since they were already handled on the VW side.

Porsche have a bit more go juice than a lot of the other stuff. If they did a ECU remap (likely) coupled with some hw changes to the engine (maybe, maybe not), they would likely have at least suspected something. Like, I can tune my Lancer Evo, with stock parts, to around 360 chp / 290 whp from 291 chp / 220 whp. This will put more strain on the parts, to nuke the little gas mileage, up the emissions (no CARB), and v…

The rated horsepower on the 3.0 TDI in the Cayenne is the exact same as in all of the other applications I listed - do you have any source that it had a different map installed? I'm kind of basing my whole theory on the concept that it didn't because the rated output is identical.

Re: E.P.A. Finds More VW Cheating Software, Including in Porsches

#53

Post by kbenson »

danjayh wrote: post #27
bri3d wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I certainly don't buy the "pesky engineers" argument, it's actually somewhat plausible Porsche didn't know about the cheating (beyond what everyone knew, which was that the stated mileage and emissions were virtually impossible to achieve by any known mechanism). Since they dropped a VW manufactured engine (3.0 TDI) into a shared VW chassis (Touraeg) and built the Cayenne around that, there's a good chance the…

While I'm certainly not making excuses for VW cheating, I think that maybe the EPA needs to revisit its diesel emission standards. The EPA standard is the strictest in the world, and they have successfully ruined many diesel powered devices. Examples: 1) I was recently looking at compact tractors. To meet the standards, new tractors are fitted with Diesel Particulate Filters. Even if they don't flat-out fail (which h…

> One thing that all of the designs have in common is poor performance and piss-poor fuel economy.

At what point does it become economical to just run gasoline instead of diesel then (that is, manufacturers selling gasoline models)? If we are talking about diesel still being economical instead of gasoline, but just not as economical as when it was allowed to be more polluting, I'm not sure I can muster much sympathy (but I'm fairly uneducated on the subject, so it may just a matter of not knowing enough).

> When the EPA makes rules that result in dangerous and/or non-functional product designs

Did the EPA make rules that required that, or did manufacturers mess up in their attempt to offer the same features as before? Did the EPA dictate this solution, or did the market respond with a poor solution to an EPA requirement on emissions?

Re: E.P.A. Finds More VW Cheating Software, Including in Porsches

#55

Post by MBCook »

wnevets wrote: post #11
idbehold wrote: post #8

Why doesn't the EPA simply ban the sale of any car manufactured by VW until they start passing the new emissions tests? Even better, begin requiring previously purchased VW cars pass these emissions tests. If the cars don't pass the new emissions tests then VW is required to reimburse the blue book value of the car for false advertising, fraud, and acting in bad faith.

>Why doesn't the EPA simply ban the sale of any car manufactured by VW do they have the legal authority to do so? If they did, I doubt the republican led congress would stand by idly.

They do and have. They won't certify any 2016 VW Diesels. That's the whole reason this blew up now instead of last year when researchers first discovered it.

Re: E.P.A. Finds More VW Cheating Software, Including in Porsches

#56

Post by danjayh »

sliverstorm wrote: post #49
danjayh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true - regulation undeniably accelerates technological advancement for emissions technology ... I think that the key is just striking the right balance. I was just trying to express that in the case of Diesels, the EPA may have done too much too fast. As an aside, even when the technology matures and goes from "sucks"->"unquestionably better", all of this is not without cost. New car prices have significantly ou…

Mustangs got more expensive, but that's only one data point :) http://blog.caranddriver.com/are-cars-getting-less-affordabl... Heavily salted states certainly have an easier time justifying no emissions testing. You start out with a "known good" (regulated by the EPA) and count on cars to expire quickly. Compare to California, which thanks to gentle climate still has a huge fleet of 1980's cars on the road.

That's about the only good thing about the salt (aside from not dying on an ice patch :) ). My wife's 2005 Pontiac G6 with 120k on it is already starting to rust. I dumped my last car at ~9 years old with ~130k because it was starting to rust.

OTOH, I have a '96 Camaro that I only drive during the summer that doesn't have a speck of rust on it (driving an RWD car in a northern state during the winter is a good way to end up in an accident). It's amazing how big a difference the salt makes ... and dirt roads -- I think they kill cars even faster than salt. We are lucky enough to live on a paved road, so I don't have to worry about that particular problem.

Re: E.P.A. Finds More VW Cheating Software, Including in Porsches

#57

Post by ChuckMcM »

Johnny555 wrote: post #4

Clearly it's the fault of those pesky engineers again, how else could you explain the same type of cheating across multiple divisions of the company. They only other explanation would involve Management, and obviously that's not it. Though the fact that none of the other manufacturers spoke up about the violation of emissions standards when when they must have done their own tests to see how VW managed to get emissio…

I wouldn't be surprised either way, but why would the Porche engineers, getting the engine control software from the common engine control group, spot check the emissions on the test track rather than in the globally approved testing setup?

If you presume they are doing their job and not cheating, why would you cross check that your emissions were valid in both the dyno test and on the track? It requires that you assume your fellow workers are cheating, which is hard to do at most places.

Re: E.P.A. Finds More VW Cheating Software, Including in Porsches

#58

Post by Theodores »

aembleton wrote: post #45
Theodores wrote: post #28

Since Porsche do not use small diesels in their cars this looks to me like the scandal is a lot bigger than first thought. It isn't just the team working on the 1.8 litre diesel engine that fiddled the software, there is something more endemic going on as the 3 litre upwards size engines are implicated. The funny thing is this: Porsche could sue over £25 a day congestion charge (2008) http://www.theguardian.com/busin…

That article is from 2008.

Since when is history not allowed?

The point of that article is to show that Porsche are a company with total disregard for emissions, pollution and noise. It is in their DNA, it is what they do. Hence it is great that they finally get their comeuppance.

Re: E.P.A. Finds More VW Cheating Software, Including in Porsches

#59

Post by yuhong »

mzs wrote: post #14

the release itself: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/bd4379a92ceceeac852... As alleged in the NOV, VW manufactured and installed software in the electronic control module of these vehicles that senses when the vehicle is being tested for compliance with EPA emissions standards. When the vehicle senses that it is undergoing a federal emissions test procedure, it operates in a low NOx “temperature conditioning”…

Notice the different 3.0 litre engine affected.

Re: E.P.A. Finds More VW Cheating Software, Including in Porsches

#60

Post by jonknee »

I'd love to get my car tested... Anyone know how I could do that?

I have a 2015 Q5 TDI which while not specifically mentioned has the same size engine as several of the ones that are mentioned (3.0-liter). I would be shocked if they just started using the defeat device in the 2016 model year for the Q5 considering they were already getting pushback from the EPA before the 2016 models even got announced.

I bought the diesel specifically because of the high mileage and supposedly clean emissions. What a crock.

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