7 ms·

I'd like to know how they expected to get away with this? Something like this isn't a decision made by one or two people. The layers of engineering, and number

by uptown 11y ago

I'd like to know how they expected to get away with this? Something like this isn't a decision made by one or two people. The layers of engineering, and number of people that had to be involved in pulling this off had to be enormous. I'm amazed that a whistleblower didn't come forward sooner.

pyre 11y ago
It just takes a different mindset. My father used to work in the auto industry and he still complains to no end about the EPA and emissions testing, and how in California the car exhaust is "cleaner" than the air going into it, so the cars are actually all "cleaning the air." I could easily see people at VW resenting these tests, and actively working to thwart them.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
  I'm not really surprised. I used to know someone who ran a small Printed Circuit Board manufacturing shop. His waste water had to meet certain conditions for environmental pollution before he could send it down the sewer. Because the incoming water was so dirty and had to be filtered so well before use, the water going out the sewer connection was actually cleaner than the city water coming in!
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  As a car enthusiast it was pretty hard not to get frustrated with CARB. The rules are very draconian, and even things that would dramatically improve emissions are often not allowed!
spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
This is the end result of political decisions 20 years ago in europe to prioritize reducing Co2 by pushing Diesel and to hell with increased NoX I wonder if any of the Politicians and bureaucrats who made that decision will get asked hard Q's. Apparently Mrs Thatcher Questioned this approach at the time.
- brisance 11y ago
  Hold on. It seems that the other manufacturers don't have this problem.
  - spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
    Apart from going along with the political status quo you mean? I was talking about the underlying cause of the rise of Diesel and the health effects being ignored and the Technocrats and politicians avoiding any questioning
creshal 11y ago
> I'd like to know how they expected to get away with this? The whole industry has been getting away with similar schemes for decades, why shouldn't they get away with one more? Cars in Germany have to undergo emission tests every two years, and even older gasoline cars with rudimentary engine computers will perform vastly different when subjected to its standardized testing interval – and if they don't, it's all sorts of trouble for the owner and mechanic responsible. My dad is a car mechanic, and he has been complaining about engine computers occasionally not going into emission test mode for as long as I can think. It's an open secret and the testing agencies are actively helping their mechanics to make sure the cars pass.
emcrazyone 11y ago
Actually one or two people could have gotten away with this. As a software developer on large automotive projects, I was often writing code to do things I didn't understand. My coding came from hand written specifications that often had sequence diagrams which is basic software flows. I.E. Do this when you see these conditions. I typically didn't understand the conditions. Additionally, modern ECUs in vehicles are modifiable at run time through something called XCP/CCP programming. You can think of of this as calibrating the ECU. ECU = Electronic Control Unit. The thing that really bothers me about all this is from the article "Carder said he's surprised to see such a hullabaloo now, because his team's findings were made public nearly a year and a half ago." It seems nothing was done until the media outlets got a hold of the story? Why didn't this blow up happen a year and a half ago before all these additional vehicles were put on the road?
- scott_s 11y ago
  This didn't blow up a year and a half ago because VW had not yet confessed. The timeline as I know it is that these results were published a year and a half ago, which got the attention of the EPA. The EPA did their homework, and about a year ago, started pressing VW on this issue. VW denied for a year, and just recently finally admitted. It's an unfortunate timeline, but I think a reasonable one. Source, from molecule in this thread: http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/advanced-cars/how-professors-caught-vw-cheating http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/adva... And great insights on the software side of this.
  - jazzyk 11y ago
    EPA doing their homework is fine, but what exactly is reasonable in VW denying this for a year?
    - scott_s 11y ago
      Nothing. I'm assuming that VW is in the wrong and not reasonable. I interpreted the original question to mean, why did every one else (media, government, public) not pay attention to this until now? Given the timeline, it's reasonable that the media, government and public did pay attention when they did.
andremendes 11y ago
>I'm amazed that a whistleblower didn't come forward sooner. From the article: Carder said he's surprised to see such a hullabaloo now, because his team's findings were made public nearly a year and a half ago. "We actually presented this data in a public forum and were actually questioned by Volkswagen," said Carder.
- frandroid 11y ago
  You're surprised with this? I'm surprised that it took so long for Chelsea Manning to come out when literally hundreds of thousands of people had access to the same information. Snowden also had access to stuff tens or hundreds of thousands had access to, although in his case he also had access to stuff much fewer people had access to. I know they were working for intelligence services, but there must be thousands of others that were disgusted by what they were seeing in the files...
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Its a literal mindset. The car has to perform to a standard during a test. The test procedure is written that way. So, ok, it will perform during the test to the standard. End of thought process. Not really cheating; just conforming as written. You think that's too easy an answer? Let me tell you about our phone module on the old Unisys NGen series. It was a programmable answering machine, plug a phone line into it, then a handset (remember those?). All worked fine. Then we tried to sell it in Germany. They had a regulation: phone handsets had to be connected directly to the wall. The idea was, presumably, they didn't want any other equipment failure to compromise phone service, which was arguably part of safety/emergency equipment. But our answer was, build a special cable, runs from the wall to the handset. There's a dongle on the end there, that splits the signal to run on another wire to the computer. But internally, the wire connection ran from wall to dongle to computer, then back to the handset. Electrically, same as in USA. This wasn't a subterfuge. Heck, the German qualifying agency helped us put it together. It was how you got things done in a highly regulated society.
SilasX 11y ago
It's a common event for assessed fines to be too low to deter behavior (in expectation). Maybe they thought that the fine/risk profile didn't exceed the potential gain? I know there have been several occasions (especially when it comes to banks) I've heard about a fine and mentally reckoned that it would be too low to make the behavior unprofitable. It's still an open question whether the actual fine they end up paying will wipe out the benefit.

by uptown 11y ago

pyre 11y ago

It just takes a different mindset. My father used to work in the auto industry and he still complains to no end about the EPA and emissions testing, and how in California the car exhaust is "cleaner" than the air going into it, so the cars are actually all "cleaning the air." I could easily see people at VW resenting these tests, and actively working to thwart them.

HeyLaughingBoy 11y ago
I'm not really surprised. I used to know someone who ran a small Printed Circuit Board manufacturing shop. His waste water had to meet certain conditions for environmental pollution before he could send it down the sewer. Because the incoming water was so dirty and had to be filtered so well before use, the water going out the sewer connection was actually cleaner than the city water coming in!
sliverstorm 11y ago
As a car enthusiast it was pretty hard not to get frustrated with CARB. The rules are very draconian, and even things that would dramatically improve emissions are often not allowed!

spacecowboy_lon 11y ago

This is the end result of political decisions 20 years ago in europe to prioritize reducing Co2 by pushing Diesel and to hell with increased NoX I wonder if any of the Politicians and bureaucrats who made that decision will get asked hard Q's. Apparently Mrs Thatcher Questioned this approach at the time.

brisance 11y ago
Hold on. It seems that the other manufacturers don't have this problem.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
  Apart from going along with the political status quo you mean? I was talking about the underlying cause of the rise of Diesel and the health effects being ignored and the Technocrats and politicians avoiding any questioning

creshal 11y ago

> I'd like to know how they expected to get away with this? The whole industry has been getting away with similar schemes for decades, why shouldn't they get away with one more? Cars in Germany have to undergo emission tests every two years, and even older gasoline cars with rudimentary engine computers will perform vastly different when subjected to its standardized testing interval – and if they don't, it's all sorts of trouble for the owner and mechanic responsible. My dad is a car mechanic, and he has been complaining about engine computers occasionally not going into emission test mode for as long as I can think. It's an open secret and the testing agencies are actively helping their mechanics to make sure the cars pass.

emcrazyone 11y ago

Actually one or two people could have gotten away with this. As a software developer on large automotive projects, I was often writing code to do things I didn't understand. My coding came from hand written specifications that often had sequence diagrams which is basic software flows. I.E. Do this when you see these conditions. I typically didn't understand the conditions. Additionally, modern ECUs in vehicles are modifiable at run time through something called XCP/CCP programming. You can think of of this as calibrating the ECU. ECU = Electronic Control Unit. The thing that really bothers me about all this is from the article "Carder said he's surprised to see such a hullabaloo now, because his team's findings were made public nearly a year and a half ago." It seems nothing was done until the media outlets got a hold of the story? Why didn't this blow up happen a year and a half ago before all these additional vehicles were put on the road?

scott_s 11y ago
This didn't blow up a year and a half ago because VW had not yet confessed. The timeline as I know it is that these results were published a year and a half ago, which got the attention of the EPA. The EPA did their homework, and about a year ago, started pressing VW on this issue. VW denied for a year, and just recently finally admitted. It's an unfortunate timeline, but I think a reasonable one. Source, from molecule in this thread: http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/advanced-cars/how-professors-caught-vw-cheating http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/adva... And great insights on the software side of this.
- jazzyk 11y ago
  EPA doing their homework is fine, but what exactly is reasonable in VW denying this for a year?
  - scott_s 11y ago
    Nothing. I'm assuming that VW is in the wrong and not reasonable. I interpreted the original question to mean, why did every one else (media, government, public) not pay attention to this until now? Given the timeline, it's reasonable that the media, government and public did pay attention when they did.

andremendes 11y ago

>I'm amazed that a whistleblower didn't come forward sooner. From the article: Carder said he's surprised to see such a hullabaloo now, because his team's findings were made public nearly a year and a half ago. "We actually presented this data in a public forum and were actually questioned by Volkswagen," said Carder.

frandroid 11y ago
You're surprised with this? I'm surprised that it took so long for Chelsea Manning to come out when literally hundreds of thousands of people had access to the same information. Snowden also had access to stuff tens or hundreds of thousands had access to, although in his case he also had access to stuff much fewer people had access to. I know they were working for intelligence services, but there must be thousands of others that were disgusted by what they were seeing in the files...

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Its a literal mindset. The car has to perform to a standard during a test. The test procedure is written that way. So, ok, it will perform during the test to the standard. End of thought process. Not really cheating; just conforming as written. You think that's too easy an answer? Let me tell you about our phone module on the old Unisys NGen series. It was a programmable answering machine, plug a phone line into it, then a handset (remember those?). All worked fine. Then we tried to sell it in Germany. They had a regulation: phone handsets had to be connected directly to the wall. The idea was, presumably, they didn't want any other equipment failure to compromise phone service, which was arguably part of safety/emergency equipment. But our answer was, build a special cable, runs from the wall to the handset. There's a dongle on the end there, that splits the signal to run on another wire to the computer. But internally, the wire connection ran from wall to dongle to computer, then back to the handset. Electrically, same as in USA. This wasn't a subterfuge. Heck, the German qualifying agency helped us put it together. It was how you got things done in a highly regulated society.

SilasX 11y ago

It's a common event for assessed fines to be too low to deter behavior (in expectation). Maybe they thought that the fine/risk profile didn't exceed the potential gain? I know there have been several occasions (especially when it comes to banks) I've heard about a fine and mentally reckoned that it would be too low to make the behavior unprofitable. It's still an open question whether the actual fine they end up paying will wipe out the benefit.