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Volkswagen Is Ordered to Recall Nearly 500k Vehicles Over Emissions Software

• organsnyder 11y ago
  This is actively malicious. There had better be criminal charges filed.
  • cmurf 11y ago
    Harm to the consumer via fraud, and to the environment, yes. But corporations almost never see criminal charges. Fuck the environment for 6 years? Pay this fine. Sell some pot? Fuck you asshole go to jail for 3 years.
    • bduerst 11y ago
      Well, for the BP spill at least, people were charged with negligence, but the trial is still under way.
  • Amorymeltzer 11y ago
    Agreed. This somewhat mollifying quote gives hope: >"Using a defeat device in cars to evade clean air standards is illegal and a threat to public health," said Cynthia Giles, the E.P.A.’s assistant administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance.
    • organsnyder 11y ago
      Also, this: > California, the E.P.A. and the Justice Department are working together on an investigation of the allegations. Though I hold similar pessimism to cmurf. If we can't even bring criminal charges against people that destroy the economy, I don't have high hopes for anyone being charged for destroying the environment (given the difference in priority they're normally given).
  • a3n 11y ago
    I would like to see VW prohibited from selling any vehicles in the US for a small number of quarters. That would be real punishment. All those dealers and salespeople? There are a certain amount of cars that need to be sold. If VW is out of the mix, the demand is still there. The dealers can sell something else. I'm certain that Toyota and Ford can quickly come to some arrangement with those dealers, including any state legal issues.
    • zymhan 11y ago
      Do you have even the faintest clue of how car sales work? Or of how regulatory enforcement works? The EPA can't ban VW sales entirely.
      • a3n 11y ago
        I believe the AG's office is involved.
  • zardo 11y ago
    I expect at the least they are going to get hit with the maximum administrative fine, 37,500 per vehicle.
    • McGlockenshire 11y ago
      That maths out to somewhere in the ballpark of eighteen billion dollars. In 2012, the EPA issued $252 million in fines, total. Kia & Hyundai were fined $300 million total in 2014. I don't see them hitting VW with eighteen billion. e: Eh, that might not be so unreasonable after all. In 2012, VW made about $28 billion in profit on $250 billion of sales.
      • CamperBob2 11y ago
        If the cars can't pass smog testing without cheating, then they also need to be forced to buy each and every one of them back. $18 billion sounds reasonable to me. This needs to hurt.
        • Asbostos 11y ago
          I'm sure the patch will allow them to pass the tests. It'll just reduce driving performance as well.
          • DanielDent 11y ago
            Likely true; the problem with that is the owner ends up with a car with lower specs than they agreed to when they bought it. The owner of the car needs to be compensated.
      • Shivetya 11y ago
        it would be an insane judgement seeing how little GM paid out for a defect they willfully hid that led to actual recorded deaths.
    • justincormack 11y ago
      Which is $18b, so not insignificant. There may also be action in Europe.
  • PaulKeeble 11y ago
    Criminal charges seem like a good plan. But its not sufficient. Volswagen has over a period of time pumped a lot of this gas into the atmosphere and the fine ought to reflect the actual clean up damage. What is it going to cost to remove it and put the environment back to the way it should have been if they hadn't broken the law. That is what these sorts of fines ought to be based on.
    • justincormack 11y ago
      No fines should be punitive so they dont do it again. It is not about clean up with particulates, it is about their medical effects, which you cant be specific about.
      • gpvos 11y ago
        Fines that would really be enough to clean up the environment would probably obliterate the company.
        • plonh 11y ago
          Capital punishment is a deterrent against rational actors.
          • gpvos 11y ago
            My point was that a punitive fine was not necessary (as a deterrent or otherwise), but a fine that realistically represented the clean-up costs would already be enough. (Destroying such companies is fine with me.)
• gregwtmtno 11y ago
  I can't believe such a large company would cheat like that. I think there must be more to this. Maybe a rogue employee?
  • barkingcat 11y ago
    More like a Rogue CEO and Board. Decisions of this magnitude going over so many years likely were made by the people at the top. Recall that VW Chairman Ferdinand Piech resigned earlier this year http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/25/uk-volkswagen-ceo-chairman-idUKKBN0NG0N920150425 http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/25/uk-volkswagen-ceo-c... The board was quoted: "The members of the steering committee came to a consensus that, in the light of the past weeks, the mutual trust necessary for successful cooperation was no longer there" What likely happened was that the EPA filed suit against VW in April, and in uncovering the evidence needed to support the suit, VW chair Ferdinand knew that he needed to go in order to let VW continue to be a company. Or, Ferdinand could have been the ethical one and blew the whistle. Either way, let out the stink. Corporations aren't nearly the kind of flawless entities you think they are.
    • baakss 11y ago
      Corporations aren't flawless, but it definitely isn't a given that the people at the top have any clue what is going on with their software either. I can think of two instances that I've personally seen very similar to the referenced story where someone in middle to middle-upper management made the call, and only 1-2 devs/analysts had any idea what was done. If anything that should go to show the lack of sophistication a lot of these projects have. There often is no project manager, no code reviews, and a messy codebase where snippets of very unethical logic can hide for years.
  • omginternets 11y ago
    Poe's Law is in full effect, here...
  • jandrese 11y ago
    A large corporation...acting unethically? Say it ain't so! This is why regulations exist in the first place, because you can't trust companies to act ethnically on their own. Their job is to maximize profit, and the invisible hand only works on money.
• krapp 11y ago
  How would this benefit Volkswagen? The article says the device activates emissions control systems when it detects the car is being tested... so it's not as if they're saving money by emulating a system they're not manufacturing.
  • JorgeGT 11y ago
    To pass the test with lower emissions. This means lower taxes in some countries, and good PR in every one. Edit: to expand this, consider that in order to reduce emissions like NOx, you often must sacrifice performance, so the customer will complain. When standarised tests were introduced, a crude counter strategy was to trade performance for lower emissions for X amount of minutes (the duration of the test). So customers noticed "hey, my engine works much better after 15 min!" :P
  • arnoooooo 11y ago
    My guess is it uses some part that would need to be replaced (or replaced more often) if left in full use all the time ?
    • organsnyder 11y ago
      That could be—especially since automakers are required by the EPA to include emissions warranties of 8 years/80,000 miles.
  • jstanley 11y ago
    It probably ruins performance -- that's the usual tradeoff with emissions systems.
  • deleted 11y ago
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  • izacus 11y ago
    It's possible that the engine power / automatic transmission shift profile / maximum RPM / etc. is being manipulated to output less emissions at the cost of acceleration, top speed, ride comfort, etc. The most fuel-efficient / eco ride is rather "boring" by the standards of car enthusiasts and reviewers and I guess the cars wouldn't be configured for that mode by default. (Just a guess though.)
• JorgeGT 11y ago
  I research for the auto industry and this was very well known by the authorities. Fixed test cycles like the New European Driving Cycle https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/New_European_Driving_Cycle.svg/640px-New_European_Driving_Cycle.svg.png?1442593779002 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Ne... were easy to detect, and easy to optimize against. That's why coming regulations introduce more realistic cycles like WLTC https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/WLTC_class_3.svg/1024px-WLTC_class_3.svg.png?1442593767685 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/WL... and real road tests, where particle emissions will be trapped and compared against the lab test, and only a certain % of deviation will be allowed (last time I looked they didn't decided this % yet).
  • 1ris 11y ago
    I hope this gets fixed, although I don't believe it. I care about the noise emissions. AFAIK they are measured on a real road, but only up to 50 km/h and in a ridiculous narrow test. Harley Davidson and other are known to optimise for this test with movable parts in the exhaust pipes so these get much louder when the bikes goes faster than 50 Km/h.
    • JorgeGT 11y ago
      I actually work on aeroacoustics! My specialty is turbomachinery but regarding combustion noise, let me say that it is a very tricky subject... even slight variations on the fuel injection settings and valve openings can have a high impact on noise!
    • Raphmedia 11y ago
      Well, as much as a cheat it is, I'm happy that those bikes can go quiet on slow (city) streets but as loud as possible on the highway (increase security and swag).
      • bardworx 11y ago
        I'm always surprised when people don't realize that large bikes are suppose to be loud so that drivers can hear them coming. It's a necessary evil.
• whistlecrackers 11y ago
  Good for Volkswagen.
• doughj3 11y ago
  > The software was designed to conceal the cars’ emissions of the pollutant nitrogen oxide, which contributes to the creation of ozone and smog. Is this an error in the article or is creating ozone a bad thing?
  • aw3c2 11y ago
    It is! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone#Health_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone#Health_effects
  • capnrefsmmat 11y ago
    Ozone is a respiratory irritant when it's at low altitude, so pumping out ozone isn't a great way to help the ozone hole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone#Ozone_air_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone#Ozone_air_pollution
  • deleted 11y ago
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  • ctrl_freak 11y ago
    > is creating ozone a bad thing? At the ground level, yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone "Ozone is a powerful oxidant (far more so than dioxygen) and has many industrial and consumer applications related to oxidation. This same high oxidising potential, however, causes ozone to damage mucous and respiratory tissues in animals, and also tissues in plants, above concentrations of about 100 ppb. This makes ozone a potent respiratory hazard and pollutant near ground level."
  • jandrese 11y ago
    Ozone production at ground level won't reach the upper atmosphere. It is too reactive. So all it's doing is burning people.
    • dragonwriter 11y ago
• CodeWriter23 11y ago
  I don't understand how California detected this. The one time I had to take my 2010 Jetta turbo diesel for a smog check, the inspection was ENTIRELY visual. The inspector did not insert a probe into the tailpipe. He did plug the test rig into the OBD-II port under the steering column and turn the key to the accessory position (presumably to electronically capture the VIN), but that's it. I even asked him at the end if it was an entirely visual inspection and he said, puzzled, yes but that's what the computer told him to do.
  • jcreedon 11y ago
    I'm not sure about CA specifically, but some states only do full inspections on newer vehicles every other year. e.g. In a particular year the odd year models get the full inspection and the even year models just get a quick inspection and then vice versa in the next year.
    • beachstartup 11y ago
      ca doesn't even do smog checks on newer vehicles (i believe 5 years, not sure though). i haven't done one in over a decade because i lease my cars as a business expense. also, ca has 'test-only' smog centers which do not perform repairs - if you fail there, you have to get your car tested and repaired somewhere else. needless to say ca highly incentivizes you to buy new clean cars. it quickly becomes very expensive to fix an old, polluting car under this regime. imagine how fast the bills can pile up if the first or second fix doesn't work. with new econo class cars available for ~$100/month on finance or lease, it doesn't really make sense to keep an old clunker around unless it's a collectible.
      • geggam 11y ago
        incentivizes you to buy and old clunker ( pre emissions ) and keep it running forever... or a truck...
        • Evolved 11y ago
          Interesting to note is that 1997-older diesel trucks/cars did not and still do not require any smog testing at all. "Currently, smog inspections are required for all vehicles except diesel powered vehicles 1997 year model and older or with a Gross Vehicle Weight (GVWR) of more than 14,000 lbs, electric, natural gas powered vehicles over 14,000 lbs, motorcycles, trailers, or gasoline powered vehicles 1975 and older."[0] [0] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/smogfaq https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/smogfaq
• amadeusw 11y ago
  They even made commercials to prove how clean the cars are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNS2nvkjARk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNS2nvkjARk I own a TDI VW and fell into believing that the ride is indeed clean. Now it looks like their software hacks are even more refined than the combustion tech.
  • LesZedCB 11y ago
    Well, at least we've finally found out where the "Partial" in PZEV comes from.
  • thrownaway2424 11y ago
    Of course this is a major part of their marketing. If the EPA makes them reflash my ECU and as a result my fuel consumption goes up noticeably I'm going to expect them to buy the car back. They sold them on false claims. This also pretty much guarantees that I will never buy another VW.
    • pc86 11y ago
      > If the EPA makes them reflash my ECU and as a result my fuel consumption goes up noticeably I'm going to expect them to buy the car back. Good luck with that.
      • thrownaway2424 11y ago
        If they face a choice between having to pay an EPA fine equal to the original sale price of the car, or buying them back at depreciated values, I can imagine which one they'd prefer.
• dayjah 11y ago
  When I last bought a VW (2008) I was concerned due to a clunking noise after first starting it up and driving a few miles; I called the VW service dept and they explained that there was a compressor which captured exhaust fumes and released them at a lower rate for the first few miles of each journey -- to help them meet EPA emissions standards. I was assured there was nothing to worry about. While this is a different case, it struck me then that the emissions guidelines were being gamed by manufacturers. We're regularly reminded that barriers will be circumvented; what is the correct approach here? Like performance enhancing drugs in sports, too stiff of a fine and manufacturers are encouraged to find more subtle ways to beat the system, unenforced you leave a polluting industry to destroy our environment..
  • spydum 11y ago
    Perhaps the noise was poorly explained. What they describe is likely the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaust_gas_recirculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaust_gas_recirculation ). This isn't a system to game emissions, it's an active component in real emissions reduction. Still I get your point: manufacturers are clearly going to optimize based on the measured metrics. How do we know those metrics are meaningful in the overall system.
    • s1lver 11y ago
      ERG is just a pipe from the exhaust to the intake with a valve. Compressing and carefully releasing would be much more complicated and very much a not normal way of lowering exhaust temperature to reduce emissions.
      • spydum 11y ago
        Yes, on second thought, they probably confused secondary air injection ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_air_injection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_air_injection ) with EGR. It's very possible they were explaining secondary air, which doesn't compress exhaust gas, but does inject air into the exhaust gas to help burn more efficiently (not clear on the mechanism, I always thought it was a method to improve catalytic converter efficiency at startup).
• United857 11y ago
  The tech industry has been guilty of this in the past as well. Example: Nvidia and AMD drivers detected if you were running certain benchmarks or games, and would cheat by downgrading various rendering settings that had minimal effect visually. Often this was a simple check to get the process's executable name; simply renaming the .exe would get you significantly different perf results.
  • MBCook 11y ago
    Yeah that was how I first learned about this with ATI cheating on Quake III in 2001, as discovered by HardOCP. Here's a link to an article about it (original article doesn't seem to be around anymore): http://techreport.com/review/3089/how-ati-drivers-optimize-quake-iii http://techreport.com/review/3089/how-ati-drivers-optimize-q...
    • kbrosnan 11y ago
      Wayback has it http://web.archive.org/web/20020223144052/http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/vidcards/ati/8500/quack/ http://web.archive.org/web/20020223144052/http://www.hardocp... along with a link to a German site that points out some of the quality loss in the ATI driver. http://alt.3dcenter.org/artikel/2001/10-24_a.php http://alt.3dcenter.org/artikel/2001/10-24_a.php
  • bri3d 11y ago
    PhysX's "CPU-only" codepath was intentionally built at a lower optimization level than their "with NVidia GPU" codepath for a while, leading to disproportionately lower performance than simply the lack of GPU kernels would create: http://semiaccurate.com/2010/07/07/nvidia-purposefully-hobbles-physx-cpu/ http://semiaccurate.com/2010/07/07/nvidia-purposefully-hobbl...
  • justincormack 11y ago
    In this case defeat devices are specifically outlawed though, and VW have admitted creating them, so they are actually going to get punished, may put some people off.
  • 11y ago
• denzil_correa 11y ago
  Does HN not detect duplicates? I submitted the same article 3 minutes before OP. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10239985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10239985 There's also another submission 15 minutes after OP's submission too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10240106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10240106
  • doughj3 11y ago
    The URLs are slightly different, this post uses: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/business/volkswagen-is-ordered-to-recall-nearly-500000-vehicles-over-emissions-software.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/business/volkswagen-is-ord... Your submission uses: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/business/volkswagen-is-ordered-to-recall-nearly-500000-vehicles-over-emissions-software.html?module=Notification&version=BreakingNews&region=FixedTop&action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=50913528&pgtype=Homepage http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/business/volkswagen-is-ord...
  • metasean 11y ago
    It does to a point. The OP's link after .html: ?_r=0 Your link after .html: ?module=Notification&version=BreakingNews&region=FixedTop&action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=50913528&pgtype=Homepage The 3rd link after .html: ?referrer= In this case, while the links may lead to the same article, they are NOT the SAME link. edited: to make url differences more visible
  • bigdubs 11y ago
    The urls are different for the one you submitted and OPs. Generally if you can remove extra query string params in the submission it helps the filter / deduper work better.
  • chmaynard 11y ago
    As I understand it, the new policy at HN is to allow duplicate posts to make sure enough readers see the article. I used to check for duplicates before posting, but now I don't bother.
• flippyhead 11y ago
  I don't quite understand how the car can known it's getting an emissions test. I thought you just pulled up and revved the engine. Or do they plug the computer in nowadays?
  • seiji 11y ago
    Yeah, plug in OBD-II reader, get result back. Some emissions places also do the tube-up-tailpipe check, but the car could adjust exhaust output if it has an active OBD-II connection.
  • toyg 11y ago
    Tests have fixed usage patterns. You detect those while total mileage is low, and you assume it's a test. After X thousand miles, you stop detecting. Job done.
    • notwhereyouare 11y ago
      eh, not really. In atlanta, it was once a year, around your birthday. Where I am, outside savannah, it's never. So my car would have no idea if it's being tested or not
      • wil421 11y ago
        I can second this, once a year in the Metro Atlanta area. Where I went to college they didnt do emission. Many classmates switched their registration so they didnt have to pay yearly emissions.
      • zardo 11y ago
        That's not the test we're talking about here. This is the official test to get a certificate of compliance and sell a vehicle in the US.
  • elihu 11y ago
    Where I live, they just plug a thing into the OBD-II port and go with whatever the car tells them. (I drive a '96 Honda Civic.) They don't test the exhaust directly.
• ju-st 11y ago
  The technical debt of petrol engines is becoming apparent.
  • BorgHunter 11y ago
    The technical debt of petrol engines is not relevant to this article: > The allegations cover roughly 482,000 diesel passenger cars sold in the United States since 2009.
    • ju-st 11y ago
      Sorry, I'm not a native speaker. I thought the word "petrol" includes diesel, too!
      • BorgHunter 11y ago
        No worries! "Internal combustion engines" might be the best phrase to use, then.
• devicenull 11y ago
  I'm wondering how this is going to be implemented.. it doesn't seem like a thing that's really fixable here.
  • joshrotenberg 11y ago
    Total speculation based solely on experience as a consumer (and I own a 2013 VW Golf TDI, so it affects me), but my guess is that the fix would be updated software to apply the stricter emissions controls all the time, presumably at the expense of engine performance. EDIT: And reducing fuel economy, which is a huge selling point of the TDI in the first place. No idea "by how much" though, and typically TDI numbers are understated, so its possible that a reduction in economy will still be in line with their claims.
    • devicenull 11y ago
      Yea, I have a 2015 Jetta which is why I was curious. I wonder if this explains why my car sounds really weird for the first few minutes of running.
      • joshrotenberg 11y ago
        I think that's just a diesel thing.
        • devicenull 11y ago
          I don't have a diesel, but it sure sounds like I do!
      • snotrockets 11y ago
        It's probably the secondary air pump (sometimes nicknamed the "Good Morning Pump" by VW owners) that operates when the engine is cold, to reduce pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_air_injection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_air_injection
• thrownaway2424 11y ago
  This is interesting. VW has already been performing a nationwide ECU reflash on all MkIV TDI cars this year. Was that part of this action, or was it the cause of this action?
• tlb 11y ago
  This was a longstanding practice to make diesel engines more efficient while passing the official emissions test. There was a similar enforcement against Caterpillar and other truck makers in 1998: http://www2.epa.gov/enforcement/caterpillar-inc-diesel-engines-settlement http://www2.epa.gov/enforcement/caterpillar-inc-diesel-engin... And against Ford in 1998: http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-06/documents/defeat.pdf http://www2.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2014-06/documents... along with a clear ruling that defeat devices were illegal.
• bpodgursky 11y ago
  What actually incentivizes a customer to take their car to a shop to get this fixed though? It's not causing harm to individual car owners, and it's not like they can get collections agencies to sieze them. Seems like they're going to have trouble getting compliance here...
  • joshrotenberg 11y ago
    I've got a 2013 Golf TDI and was thinking about this as well. If it isn't a safety related recall, I'm not sure how you get people to comply aside from some other action related to, say, their next years registration (i.e. if your VIN doesn't have this fix applied, you can't reregister your car). Not sure if that's a thing, though. I'd personally plan to take my car in "real soon now" to get the fix.
    • mjt0229 11y ago
      I have a 2014 Jetta TDI, and the thing I'm wondering is what the cost of the fix will be - not to me in dollars, since it would be covered by the recall - but rather, will this affect my fuel economy or performance in some other way? I'm just trying to figure out why they don't have the cars running in this lower-emissions mode all the time.
      • rozap 11y ago
        The performance and/or lifetime of the engine will likely be compromised to meet the standards.
    • dougb 11y ago
      I wonder how you car will drive after the "fix." I suspect you won't be very happy with it.
      • joshrotenberg 11y ago
        Yup, quite possibly thinking about bailing on the car sooner rather than later. I have no idea if this kind of thing significantly affects resale value, but I'm not sure I want to wait around to find out.
• deleted 11y ago
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• Alex3917 11y ago
  Instead of fining the manufacturer, just fine everyone who owns one. If every VW owner was forced to pay 20k or so, the problem would fix itself.
  • cordite 11y ago
    I'm not sure if you are satirical. How would fining the end users solve the problem?
    • Alex3917 11y ago
      Because no one will ever buy a VW again, and so other carmakers will take note.
      • pc86 11y ago
        And people will be on the hook for $20,000 because they purchased something from a now-nonexistent company? That's idiotic.
      • brc 11y ago
        Would anyone buy any vehicle ever again, given the possibility of a 20k liability for something out of their control? This position has not been thought through.
  • dragonwriter 11y ago
    Well, sure, if auto purchasers were at risk of massive fines if they received a vehicle where the manufacturer had done something that the average user wouldn't have the skill to detect, no one subject to the government imposing such fines would ever buy a car again, which would solve the problem quite completely. OTOH, destroying the entire auto industry in the subject jurisdiction might not be considered an optimal means of resolving the problem. (And, indeed, might be so suboptimal to the population as to have catastrophic political consequences for the government imposing it.)
    • Alex3917 11y ago
• anonu 11y ago
  This reminds me of gaming hardware benchmarks.
• cmurf 11y ago
  2009-2015, I'm surprised it's only 1/2 million vehicles.
  • smchang 11y ago
    It's only the diesel models, which are still only a small fraction of the cars being sold today.
• deleted 11y ago
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• Hermel 11y ago
  If these controllers were open source, drivers could decide on their engine settings themselves. That could be an interestimg strategy for VW as it would move responsibility to the drivers.
  • GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    It's my understanding that there's plenty of aftermarket opportunities available for this kind of tuning.
    • selimthegrim 11y ago
      VW denies you warranty repairs if you do this tuning if the damage can be traced to ECU modifications. Class action lawsuit in 3...2...1...
      • lutorm 11y ago
        That's a perfectly reasonable policy.
• swang 11y ago
  I love the look/feel/drive of a VW, but I will never again own one. My parents bought a 2002 VW which I mostly drove and the maintenance costs were through the roof. There have been at least 3-4 recall notices, one time while parked on an incline, it rained and flooded the back of the car with water. When I went to VW, they said that I had to manually clean out some drainage underneath the car. How the hell am I going to do that? Then the coolant leaks, engine belts, cracked radiator. You name it I probably had to get it fixed. Never again.
  • hn9780470248775 11y ago
    IIRC, 2002 was around a local minimum in VW reliability.
  • thrownaway2424 11y ago
    On the newer ones the high pressure fuel pump disintegrates and poops metal bits into the engine, requiring the engine to be replaced. That's why VW recently extended the warranty against the HPFP to, if I recall correctly, 100k miles. Here's the 400-page-long forum thread on that defect: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=308323 http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=308323
    • durin42 11y ago
      Note that the pump in question has been redesigned multiple times by Bosch. Hardware bugs are a thing, even in cars.
      • thrownaway2424 11y ago
        Maybe the bug is that the engine requires ludicrous fuel pressure to achieve its claimed performance.
  • izacus 11y ago
    Interesting, since here in EU the VAG group cars (Seat, Škoda, VW, Audi) are widely perceived as the most reliable and there's a huge amount of people buying nothing else.
• aidenn0 11y ago
  I drive a mazda, and my car definitely runs rich (visible buildup on tailpipe, the exhaust smells like gasoline when the engine is cold), but it just passed its first emissions test (at 6 years old) showing no detectable gasoline. I wonder if there's some gaming going on there too.
  • grecy 11y ago
    From the factory all vehicles run rich - it helps immensely with longevity as the extra fuel cools and lubricates the engine.
    • lutorm 11y ago
      Vehicles run rich when cold and at full throttle. No engine would pass emissions checks if they didn't run stoichiometric mixture during idle and low-throttle operation.
      • grecy 11y ago
        > stoichiometric mixture during idle and low-throttle operation. I don't believe I've ever seen a factory tuned vehicle run less than 16:1, most are 17 or 18 : 1
    • zardo 11y ago
      That was an accurate statement like 40 years ago.
• cmurf 11y ago
  I wonder if the primary control code should be open source. That's without respect to right to modify or reuse the code, just whether it should be mandatory that it be published. And it'd exclude things like user space apps and UI/UX stuff. But any of the code that controls or affects steering, acceleration, ignition, braking, and lighting, really seems like it's not OK to just consider it a black box, subject to DMCA, copyright, and trade secrets laws and thus risky (or flat out illegal) to reverse engineer and understand how it works. And right now a significant part of an automobile is a black box, and you do not fully own it. It was supposed to be that patenting required you to fully disclose all the details of an invention. The idea was to not only make clear what you had a monopoly for, but so that others could learn from your invention and make something different that was better.
  • yason 11y ago
    If it's just published you can't be sure it's the same code that runs in the car. You should be able to compile the code and inject your locally compiled firmware to the ECU if you want to verify that the car engine is doing what it's supposed to be doing.
    • _yosefk 11y ago
      If you can do it, chances are an attacker can, too. I prefer hardware that won't load unsigned software in such places.
      • 336f5 11y ago
        Then use reproducible builds. You inspect the source code, and if it does what it's supposed to, compile it reproducibly, and compare the binary with the official one which has a signature. If they match, then everything is kosher.
        • cmurf 11y ago
          Difficult unless the compile tools are free and open source, and the manufacturer documents the exact version of what compiler they're using, and what feature flags are enabled, etc. Otherwise the exact same source code can produce many different binaries, each of which hash differently. I don't know the solution, but the black box approach we have right now I do not like. As a pilot this is a bit weird for me to say because those systems are also completely proprietary as well, full on black box - and not the d/v recording type. And I'm even wondering if that's overdue for a change as well.
• johnny99 11y ago
  Given the low cost and ubiquity of sensors nowadays, you'd think it would be feasible to require car makers to test emissions in real time, in the real world.
  • ibarrajo 11y ago
    We already have that, It's called OBDII. Besides error codes, OBDII has 8 emissions monitors. In California all cars after 2001 are checked by means of a visual and these 8 readiness monitors: catalyst, heated catalyst, EVAP, SAI, O2, O2 Heater, EGR/VVT, AC Source: I work on my two Audis
    • sokoloff 11y ago
      If you need to, you can beat most O2 monitors with a 555, most O2 heater monitors with a $0.45 resistor (or an O2 heater from a neutered O2 sensor), an EGR sensor monitor with a diode and couple resistors. Many catalyst monitors are just downstream O2 sensors that detect cycling (another 555 will defeat). OBD2 monitoring, without fairly careful visual inspection, isn't a full solution. It's used because it's cheap, easy, and close to good enough, but enthusiasts are easily able to defeat it, for "off road use only", of course...
      • invaliddata 11y ago
        Until recently O2 sensors were not used on diesels. There are a host of reasons for this, one of the main ones being that until recently, diesel fuel in most places had high levels of sulfur, which is a known poison for Pt and some of the other metals which are used in both catalysts and O2 sensors. As for EGR monitoring, most OBD2 systems I've seen monitor the presence of the egr solenoid by looking for the back emf. So you'd need an inductor or a solenoid for that. Additionally, they usually will often do a test of the manifold pressure while cycling the valve, to confirm the flow rate (obviously this can only be done of the engine in question has a MAP sensor). And if the MAP sensor is the primary sensor for doing fuel monitoring (ie, no MAF sensor), then there would be no easy way of defeating this monitor without messing up the normal performance of the engine. So in my experience, defeating EGR and passing the EGR related OBD2 monitors is non trivial. But then, since there is usually an allowance (in the current CA smog check schemes) for some of the monitors to not have completed running while still passing the test, it doesn't matter too much in practice (can't disconnect the EGR valve, but the egr readiness monitor is moot). The EGR monitor is usually the last one to run anyway, so this makes passing the smog check with what would otherwise be a egr related OBD2 failure, fairly easy. Beating O2 monitors is actually much more difficult in practice. First of all, an increasing number of O2 sensors in cars are wideband sensors which don't output the traditional switching signal one could simulate with a 555. Even some older cars use wideband O2 sensors (I have personal experience with two MY 1998 Toyotas [california cars] for which this is the case). Secondly, even if you do have all narrowband O2 sensors on a car, the way the O2 monitors work is that the downstream (of the catalyst) O2 sensor(s) output is compared to the upstream (of the catalyst) O2 sensor(s) to see, not whether the O2 sensor is working, but that the catalyst efficiency is above some threshold. Simply simulating one or both signals with a naive switching circuit will trip the catalyst efficiency monitor. And why would you want to disable the upstream O2 sensor(s) anyway, it's main job is to provide an error signal to the fuel system which would otherwise be a completely open loop system? Without a working feedback loop your fuel system won't be running very well, and usually falls back to a super conservative fuel mapping because of the danger of unknowingly running lean (obviously a concern for gas engines only, not diesels). Defeating OBD2 monitoring in these sorts of ways is not an issue in any meaningful sense. Enthusiasts often will replace their ECUs wholesale with an aftermarket one. When the ecu hardware and its programming is completely outside of the manufacturer's control, who can say anything about the validity of it's outputs for emissions compliance purposes?
• oppositelock 11y ago
  The NYT is being disingenuous in presenting this as VW detecting the EPA test cycle and doing something to cheat. I think they've confused open loop and closed loop engine operation. VW's 4-cylinder engines which failed the EPA tests are all turbo engines. Turbo engines run hotter than naturally aspirated engines and so, they produce more NOx, since it's one of the high temperature byproducts. In fact, EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) systems inject exhaust into the intake to lower combustion temperatures and NOx output. All engines do this, turbo or not. Whatever NOx makes it out of the engine can be catalyzed in the catalytic converter if there is enough O2 for the catalyst. All the engine's intake air and temperature sensors, and pre-cat and post-cat O2 sensors exist to balance the gases coming into the catalytic converter to optimize the catalytic reaction. When the engine is using all of these sensors to fine tune the amount of air, fuel and EGR to maximize catalyst efficiency, it's running in something called "closed loop" mode. The sensors and inputs work in a closed loop to balance the system. This is what happens when you're cruising on the highway or driving around at relatively fixed throttle. Give the car a lot of gas, and something else happens. All of a sudden, a LOT more air enters the engine. The sensors can't change reading fast enough (mass air flow sensor, for example) or their readings are now out of the sensor's useful sensitivity band (for O2). The engine code knows that sensor capabilities have been exceeded, and it goes into "open loop" mode. In this mode, rather than using sensor readings, the engine reverts to pre-programmed maps, usually indexed by RPM, throttle position, engine load, and boost level. These maps are designed for relatively clean combustion and engine safety, but they will not generate optimal catalyst input gases, and so, the catalyst efficiency drops off tremendously. Furthermore, performance cars will often burn rich (too much gas for amount of air) in order to prevent engine destroying pre-detonation. Most of the EPA test cycle will happen in closed loop mode. Most high throttle acceleration or "fun" driving will happen in open loop mode. There's the source of the discrepancy between EPA test cycle and real world driving. VW got caught, but every car does this, as we don't have wide-band, high-rate sensors yet at a price point even close to where it would need to be for consumer cars. (Next time you see someone racing off from a stop light, in pretty much any car, watch the exhaust pipe, you'll see dark smoke. I guarantee you they're running rich in open loop mode).
  • tlb 11y ago
    The cars in this recall are all diesel.
• nissehulth 11y ago
  While this seems to be made on purpose, my gut feeling is that car makers shouldn't do software...
  • joosters 11y ago
    Who should write the software then? People who don't know anything about cars?
    • lmm 11y ago
      People who know software, sitting in the same room as people who know cars. I fear a big company would find it impossible, but that's how you get good software.
      • ArchReaper 11y ago
        Are you under the impression they don't hire programmers to write their software? I don't understand your point.
• daniel-levin 11y ago
  Many of the comments in this thread follow a similar pattern. They are all essentially derivatives of Goodhart's law. [0] >> Once a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. It's quite useful to have a name - a label - for this sort of behaviour. In this case, the means by which VW optimised for this metric was crafty computer software! A metric is only as good as the cost of the unintended consequences that come with imposing it on people, in particular large corporations. I am not surprised that this is done by many corporations as mentioned elsewhere in the comments (ATI/Nvidia etc). This is because regulations and benchmarks that can be gamed, such as engine efficiency, will be gamed because the incentives of corporations work out that way: (I hope this isn't perceived as an anti-corporate rant because it's not. Just a way of framing facts). For regulations imposed on large corporations in general (think EPA admissions standards): 1) Regulations are mandated by a government to effect some purpose (stop destroying Earth) 2) Executives - the people running the corporations - are bound by legal responsibility - their fiduciary duty [1] - to create value for their shareholders (selling lots of cars, and profitably). 3) Regulations can obstruct the activities of a corporation by making them do things they don't want to (making efficient cars is hard and costly and affects the bottom line - its cheaper to manufacture a car with less platinum [2] in it) 4) Companies are incentivized to minimize the time and money spent on adhering to regulations 5) Once a regulation is standardised and codified, it becomes possible to follow the letter of it, while ignoring the spirit of it. All a corporation has to do is meet the metrics in the specification to abide by the regulation - in other words - game the system. Given these incentives, we have seen that corporations prefer to abide by regulations in the maximally efficient way: gaming them. Thus reducing a well-meaning government initiative to gamesmanship. Kudos to the EPA for calling VW out on this. This kind of incident reinforces (in me at least) the idea that environmental legislation is an extraordinarily difficult thing to get right. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fiduciary_duty https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fiduciary_duty [2] Catalytic convertors
  • zardo 11y ago
    >This kind of incident reinforces (in me at least) the idea that environmental legislation is an extraordinarily difficult thing to get right. And the more detailed you make the regulation to prevent gaming, the harder it is for new competitors to enter the industry. Also good god having read and interpet their frequently self contradicting regs is a nightmare. Hell, Tesla got hit with an EPA penalty early on because they didn't certify the roadster's non-existant emissions.
• TootsMagoon 11y ago
  Is this an example of software becoming a hindrance or more beneficial to the industry?
• eisa01 11y ago
  Anyone know if this "defeat device" would be a violation of the various Euro* regulations in Europe? It's been widely reported [1] that diesel cars emit more NOx than the specification allows, but so far no consequences. More than 50% of all cars sold in the EU are diesel fueled, and many countries are breaching the EU air quality limits. This causes an estimated 400,000 premature deaths each year [2] [1] http://www.theicct.org/news/press-release-new-icct-study-shows-real-world-exhaust-emissions-modern-diesel-cars-seven-times http://www.theicct.org/news/press-release-new-icct-study-sho... [2] http://www.euractiv.com/sections/health-consumers/eu-sends-belgium-and-bulgaria-court-over-air-quality-315532 http://www.euractiv.com/sections/health-consumers/eu-sends-b...
  • justincormack 11y ago
    Apparently made illegal at least by 2007 regualtions (maybe adopted later, not expert in EU law) http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32007R0715 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:320...
• ChuckMcM 11y ago
  I guess this is the automaker equivalent to a CPU detecting its running benchmark code.
• draw_down 11y ago
  If the ultimate and only resolution to this is that VW has to pay a fine, or other outgoing monies due to the recalls, in an amount that is not significant to the operation of their business, nobody should be surprised that this happened, nor question whether it can happen again.
• neves 11y ago
  Funny coincidence, reading the article we see that the american gov just punishes foreign companies.
  • tyrust 11y ago
    What is coinciding with what?
• ams6110 11y ago
  I'm keeping my old Mercedes diesels with no computers at all.
  • twothamendment 11y ago
    Oh, you have a Unimog too?
  • CamperBob2 11y ago
    That's OK, I probably use more clean air than I need anyway.
• acd 11y ago
  There is also quite some lies "optimism" in the EU regarding stated mpg L/100km from the manufacturer and real world measured mpg. Is it the same software that the car companies use during EU drive cycle tests vs real world production cars? If you were a cheating manufacturer you would tune your car lean for the tests and more sporty with slightly higher consumption for the real world production run.
  • usrusr 11y ago
    Sure, the real challenge must lie in quickly recognizing the different test setups for consumption vs pollution, because they certainly "require" very different engine parameters. I would not be surprised if (or rather: I'd be surprised if not) consulting industry experts managed to sneak some easily detectable patterns into the initial part of the standardized "test scripts". It's not like these kinds of optimizations are in any way brand exclusive, or it was impossible to know of them before these news (the only way to not know about them, assuming a moderate interest in all thing car related, was deliberately turning a blind eye for the sake of believing in progress)
  • switch007 11y ago
    It's hard to believe anyone still fooled by VW's claim of 94.2 MPG (1.6 TDI BlueMotion Golf, manual, extra urban). There's been a lot of press about stated fuel figures not matching real world consumption (and it's even mention/stated briefly in adverts now I think) In my own experience with that model, driving about 500 miles, 50-55 is a valid expectation
• kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
  That's okay. They just need to grow the wheelbase a bit and reclassify all their cars as "light trucks". Problem solved.
• jonknee 11y ago
  I have an Audi TDI, but luckily not one of the affected models. I would be furious, especially if post-update performance was noticeably different. If so they are going to be up to their eye balls in class action suits demanding buybacks and the like (not unprecedented, Dodge just did a buyback).
• blondie9x 11y ago
  DDOS VW shall we?
• spdmn 11y ago
  Seems very UnGerman to patch over a flaw instead of rooting out the problem from the ground level and engineering a solution. I'm just saying deceitfully patching over the problem seems uncharacteristic of the cultural norm/stereotype that I know.
• smsm42 11y ago
  How anybody at VW would think it's a good idea? Sure, it's a clever trick, but when they get caught - and it's assured they will - they'd probably get it pretty hard. I mean, Toyota got hit for $1.2 bln for problems that were mostly imaginary[1], how much this would cost? [1] http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/justice-departments-unjust-toyota-fine http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/justice-departme...