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EPA & Volkswagen 20

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We do, absolutely. But (a) we'd only do the California tests on emissions rolls, so would have agreed with their pass and (probably more important) (b) we'd only look at them seriously if we were thinking of going into the same market - we don't have the time or money to waste investigating blue sky stuff unless it is for a reason. Diesels in California? why bother.



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
Ratted them out?

Too bad testing labs don't have the equivalent of the "Don't Snitch" policy.
 
We own one of these cars. My husband is livid. He bought his car with promises of a certain combination of fuel economy, emissions, and power. Now that one of these will suffer, he no longer wants the car (or anything to do with VW).

SectionIX, why would you not have them share the information? As a consumer, we were sold a car that isn't what we were told. As an engineer, this offends me deeply. There's a code of ethics for a reason.

Please remember: we're not all guys!
 
It's interesting that our culture turns enforcement of ethical behavior into some sort of slimy swamp thing.

TTFN
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
homework forum: //faq731-376 forum1529
 
Incidentally, although I was wrong about urea for all the cars, the Passat that uses that engine does get urea, so it should have raised flags as I described. At least where I work fluid usage is monitored on the development fleet, not least to catch the occasional wise guy with a siphon at home.

There's a lot of interest about a 2007 Robert Bosch letter telling (reminding?) them the emissions bypass software was for testing purposes only.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
Seems to me that there's a rather huge difference between a simple ON/OFF switch for bypassing emission controls vs. additional software that specifically detects the EPA smog test regimen, and gets shipped that way. If the simple switch were left in the bypass condition and shipped that way, I could believe there's no malfeasance, but that's the sort of thing that a company would own up to rather quickly, particularly since the car would have failed the smog test. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to take it to the level that VW took it to.

TTFN
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
homework forum: //faq731-376 forum1529
 
The axe is starting to fall deeper into the VW group and hit engineering staff. According to the (London) Times yesterday, two R&D bosses, Hackenberg & Hatz were "relieved of their duties on Friday. Both deny commissioning the controversial software or knowing about it."

The Times is unfortunately hidden behind The Dirty Digger's paywall, but one of the auto rags also ran with the story: autocar




Steve
 
I must confess I can't really see what you'd really use the bypass switch for when testing, unless it was to depress yourself about all the lost performance. I'd have thought any performance calibration car would have a laptop in it and be able to switch strategies or set a flag.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
Maybe the bypass switch/test detect software was there to stop the vehicles from breaking down when driving to and from tests? ;-)

I used to have a boss who insisted on excluding our license manager from in-house software builds, since it wasn't needed and was just overhead. Similar basic argument.

Steve
 
SLTA,

That was deep sarcasm; I found it incredulous that the term 'ratted them out' was used to describe the situation. Unbelievable that the situation was reversed to make the Lab look like the bad guys...
 
Reading that VW switched the pollution technologies and was still cheating makes me think it started as a patch to make the failed LNT technology work and then VW basically decided "hey we got away with it for 6 or 7 years so let's keep doing it" when they switched to SCR technology. Wanting to keep the bragging rights seems to have trumped selling a properly working system.

I'm doubting that the code would simply be re-used without anyone realizing the bypass was in place when they switch technologies with the new engine development. I'd think that would involve a major re-work of the PCM and/or the code to the point that the bypass must have been intentionally written into the code again. But, I suppose there is a small possible they were using portable code segments and the bypass was accidentally copied into the new car.
 
There just isn't, in my mind, any plausible reason to create anything beyond a simple ON/OFF switch for the bypass, except for the express intent to subvert the EPA test. The possibility that the code was that portable speaks well of the software development process, but the original code has no plausible reason for being.

TTFN
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
homework forum: //faq731-376 forum1529
 
Sorry, SectionIX. That didn't come through to me.

VW says they're coming out with a "fix" soon... it will be interesting to see what that is.

Please remember: we're not all guys!
 
"That was deep sarcasm; I found it incredulous that the term 'ratted them out' was used to describe the situation. Unbelievable that the situation was reversed to make the Lab look like the bad guys..."

SLTA, I think I was first to use "...ratted out...". It may sound derogatory (in fact I thought it would have been a competitor where motives could be questioned), but I think "ratting out" crime and fraud is a duty of the law abiding. So, I'm happy someone finally ratted them out.

I suspect some competitors knew about what VW was doing, but probably didn't know how. The EPA may have known too, but again maybe not the how. It is the how that makes it a crime and not just a technical failure. I think that once the EPA received an official report from a reputable lab they were compelled to investigate further.
 
Warning, off topic..

Regarding the claim of no coal power plants in California, I have reason to doubt the veracity of that claim given the 2 plants about half an hour drive from where I live out in the desert that I still see coal trains heading toward.

May be an issue of semantics as at least those 2 are 'co-generation' plants.

Posting guidelines faq731-376 (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​
 
OK, it appears that there are still some minor amounts of electricity being generated in California using coal:


John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
 
As an aside, with the systems that do use urea, what's to stop the operators from simply not filling up with the Adblue / equivalent?

Is there an emissions test as part of registration renewal, or some sort of periodic inspection? It varies state by state, but in Queensland, Australia, there's no periodic inspections, and in Northern Territory where there is, I don't believe it includes emissions testing either.
 
Typically what happens is that when a new engine is to be developed [as for the EA288] and/or an existing engine gets an ECU upgrade with new electronic architecture [as for the EA189 with common rail], the fuel injection system supplier [Bosch in this case, but could just as easily be Delphi, Denso or Continental] will supply the new ECU with generic software that has active maps to operate the essentials, i.e. their injection system plus the EGR, VGT and intake throttle [to drive the EGR], and with this the OEM calibration team can begin to develop the base engine in terms of mechanical efficiency, NVH, turbo specification, torque curve, and mechanical robustness etc. Once this has been demonstrated with the development calibration, then work can begin on evolving an emissions compliant calibration that utilizes the full complement of sensors and actuators that are necessary to get any engine and complex aftertreatment to meet the current EPA regulations, including OBD. Getting to this point takes huge resource in manpower and equipment.

Once a robust and durable calibration has been achieved and at a system cost that the vehicle price-point can live with, the emissions map which only covers that portion of the speed/load map the test cycle roams over, is overlaid on the earlier development map and then the outer boundary between the emissions map and the speed/load torque map becomes the off-cycle zone where it is not strictly required to meet emissions - and typically one does not in the interests of conserving urea. This applies to gasoline cars too which often go rich near full load. This off-cycle band is greatly reduced in the US with the EPA '06 cycle, but is still relatively large in Europe. Thus if you are horrified at the thought of "spewing" emissions above and beyond the certified levels, make sure that you never stray into the off-cycle emissions zone.

At this point, the emissions map overlay should be baked into the overall calibration so there is just the one cal, but it rather sounds as if VW did not wipe the underlying performance development map and arranged for it to be switched in again for normal everyday running, but if so then that would be blatant wrongdoing. Nevertheless many in the media are too ready to focus on the "40 X" over the legal limit, but I am confident those are spikes and not steady state values. Also for all we know those values may have been recorded in the off-cycle zone. As I mentioned before, with diesel combustion it is something of a zero sum game since there is a trade off between NOx on one hand and Pm and CO2 on the other. Yes, NOx has gone up some, but fuel consumption and CO2 have come down relative to the legal levels. Ideally we want them all to come down for everyone's benefit.

PJGD

 
Freddy. When the Adblue runs out, it is detected by the system and the engine management drops into a "limp" mode with reduced performance (and presumably acceptable emissions).

je suis charlie
 
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