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When I was car shopping the VW diesel numbers, for tdi sportwagen in particular, were impressive. Nothing else came close to VW's combination of power, space, a

by joshmoz 11y ago

When I was car shopping the VW diesel numbers, for tdi sportwagen in particular, were impressive. Nothing else came close to VW's combination of power, space, and mileage. Now maybe there are people who know more about cars than I do and can dispute that, but that was my perception a couple of years ago. If I were the other car companies, I'd want to know exactly how VW was pulling that off. They must have looked into it, and surely they're not as easily misled as I apparently was (how would I know if VW was outright lying about the car?). This suggests to me that the other car companies must have known that VW was doing something wrong. The fact that they didn't rat VW out suggests to me that they were either doing the same thing (maybe not as aggressively as VW) or they hoped to get away with the same thing. The former seems more likely, and if that's true then I expect this to spread beyond VW soon.

dragontamer 11y ago
It was a researcher from West Virginia who tested it. Researcher is on the record as "I didn't believe the results" and "I thought I made a mistake". Also, lol @ efficient market thesis because the results of his research were posted early 2014. EPA took a look at them, and being the slow bureaucracy that it is... took a year and a half to levy charges against Volkswagen. So this entire "surprise" was over a year in the making. It's been discussed publicly in research groups for a year and no one seemed to care till now.
- mzs 11y ago
  Slight correction, EPA was not slow to act. When they caught wind of this they approached VW who had one excuse after another: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/22/anatomy-of-volkswagons-deception-the-recall-that-never-fixed-any-cars/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/22/an...
  - qubex 11y ago
    The EMH predicts that unless the net probability of effects where totally zero there would be a move. I don't see evidence of there having been one.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
bch 11y ago
> The fact that they didn't rat VW out suggests to me that they were either doing the same thing (maybe not as aggressively as VW) or they hoped to get away with the same thing. Or (only hypothesizing) they realized they're all in the same industry and are necessarily treading softly wondering what the best course to accuse an 800lb gorilla of cheating. It will be interesting to see if there are other cheaters, and to what degree, and also if this was an open secret in the industry. Nothing would surprise me. I'm now searching for a story I'm sure happened, which was Mitsubishi faking crash test data... but damned if I can find it. Best I see is this[0]. Am I imagining a scandal w/ Mitsubishi where they were rigging crash test data ? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Motors#Vehicle_defect_cover-up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Motors#Vehicle_defe...
Nelson69 11y ago
VW has also built a huge reputation on diesel. They go and win Le Mans with diesels. They have a giant budget and research ability. They've pushed diesel forward in a lot of ways. Maybe the others knew they were cheating, I can't imagine that it wouldn't leak out some how. I also can't imagine how you wouldn't go buy a hundred VWs and meticulously take them apart and understand them after getting brutalized in the diesel market. With mid-sized and heavy trucks, there is an entire subculture of guys that mod them for "more power" and such. There is a little industry built on it and nearly a religion surrounding the "better mileage" and "more power." Some of the systems and devices are sophisticated enough that they have integrated on/off switches for passing smog tests and such. If we really really cared about it, that would be illegal, there would be much more stringent emissions testing more frequently. I'm of the belief that the regulators knew or suspected there was some cheating but it's political to make waves.
- ta0967 11y ago
  I also can't imagine how you wouldn't go buy a hundred VWs and meticulously take them apart and understand them after getting brutalized in the diesel market. every miniscule detail of the VW car is patented. if you infringe one of those patents accidentally and VW sues you, you'll get slammed with damages proportionate to money you have made or VW has lost (thanks to you). now, you basically cannot infringe a patent incidentally after you've seen it at work. competition buying a bunch of VW cars to take them apart would be an invitation for VW to sue them for willful patent infringement and the accompanying treble damages. you can read accounts on the internet of programmers working for major corporations (Sun Microsystems among others IIRC) who were prohibited from reading others' patents for exactly this reason. it's a thouroughly corrupt system. edit: "the holder" -> VW + some styling
  - bsilvereagle 11y ago
    > competition buying a bunch of VW cars to take them apart would be an invitation for VW to sue them for willful patent infringement and the accompanying treble damages. As someone noted above, every auto manufacturer is buying the competitor's cars, tearing them down, figuring out they work, rebuilding them, and benchmarking. The last point is key - you can run your internal tests against their vehicles and see how you compare in your tests. You can also get a feel for how many molds/stamps/etc that your competitor has in their factory by looking at the mold IDs. You can figure out how tight their weld tolerances are by X-Ray'ing the welds. There is a wealth of information inside a competitor's product that goes beyond the IP.

by joshmoz 11y ago

dragontamer 11y ago

It was a researcher from West Virginia who tested it. Researcher is on the record as "I didn't believe the results" and "I thought I made a mistake". Also, lol @ efficient market thesis because the results of his research were posted early 2014. EPA took a look at them, and being the slow bureaucracy that it is... took a year and a half to levy charges against Volkswagen. So this entire "surprise" was over a year in the making. It's been discussed publicly in research groups for a year and no one seemed to care till now.

mzs 11y ago
Slight correction, EPA was not slow to act. When they caught wind of this they approached VW who had one excuse after another: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/22/anatomy-of-volkswagons-deception-the-recall-that-never-fixed-any-cars/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/22/an...
- qubex 11y ago
  The EMH predicts that unless the net probability of effects where totally zero there would be a move. I don't see evidence of there having been one.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

bch 11y ago

> The fact that they didn't rat VW out suggests to me that they were either doing the same thing (maybe not as aggressively as VW) or they hoped to get away with the same thing. Or (only hypothesizing) they realized they're all in the same industry and are necessarily treading softly wondering what the best course to accuse an 800lb gorilla of cheating. It will be interesting to see if there are other cheaters, and to what degree, and also if this was an open secret in the industry. Nothing would surprise me. I'm now searching for a story I'm sure happened, which was Mitsubishi faking crash test data... but damned if I can find it. Best I see is this[0]. Am I imagining a scandal w/ Mitsubishi where they were rigging crash test data ? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Motors#Vehicle_defect_cover-up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Motors#Vehicle_defe...

Nelson69 11y ago

VW has also built a huge reputation on diesel. They go and win Le Mans with diesels. They have a giant budget and research ability. They've pushed diesel forward in a lot of ways. Maybe the others knew they were cheating, I can't imagine that it wouldn't leak out some how. I also can't imagine how you wouldn't go buy a hundred VWs and meticulously take them apart and understand them after getting brutalized in the diesel market. With mid-sized and heavy trucks, there is an entire subculture of guys that mod them for "more power" and such. There is a little industry built on it and nearly a religion surrounding the "better mileage" and "more power." Some of the systems and devices are sophisticated enough that they have integrated on/off switches for passing smog tests and such. If we really really cared about it, that would be illegal, there would be much more stringent emissions testing more frequently. I'm of the belief that the regulators knew or suspected there was some cheating but it's political to make waves.

ta0967 11y ago
I also can't imagine how you wouldn't go buy a hundred VWs and meticulously take them apart and understand them after getting brutalized in the diesel market. every miniscule detail of the VW car is patented. if you infringe one of those patents accidentally and VW sues you, you'll get slammed with damages proportionate to money you have made or VW has lost (thanks to you). now, you basically cannot infringe a patent incidentally after you've seen it at work. competition buying a bunch of VW cars to take them apart would be an invitation for VW to sue them for willful patent infringement and the accompanying treble damages. you can read accounts on the internet of programmers working for major corporations (Sun Microsystems among others IIRC) who were prohibited from reading others' patents for exactly this reason. it's a thouroughly corrupt system. edit: "the holder" -> VW + some styling
- bsilvereagle 11y ago
  > competition buying a bunch of VW cars to take them apart would be an invitation for VW to sue them for willful patent infringement and the accompanying treble damages. As someone noted above, every auto manufacturer is buying the competitor's cars, tearing them down, figuring out they work, rebuilding them, and benchmarking. The last point is key - you can run your internal tests against their vehicles and see how you compare in your tests. You can also get a feel for how many molds/stamps/etc that your competitor has in their factory by looking at the mold IDs. You can figure out how tight their weld tolerances are by X-Ray'ing the welds. There is a wealth of information inside a competitor's product that goes beyond the IP.