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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

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 emissions so low, seems to point to the fact they they were all doing it to some degree. Perhaps not as brazenly as VW, but still no one wants to rock the boat they are in.

dexterdog 11y ago
It's all just a play to get us to accept always-on emissions checkers on every car complete with location logging, you know, for verification.
- r00fus 11y ago
  Sure. But that doesn't pardon VW/Porsche of cheating when other vendors did not. Unless this is the tip of the iceberg and everyone is cheating but hasn't been caught yet...
  - Phlarp 11y ago
    Spoiler alert...
  - Alupis 11y ago
    > Unless this is the tip of the iceberg and everyone is cheating but hasn't been caught yet... Perhaps it's time to examine these standards. Perhaps the standard is what's unreasonable, not the vehicle's emissions. If these vehicles achieved greater horsepower and greater fuel economy, perhaps the long-term net pollution caused by these vehicles is equal-to-or-less-than the standard allows.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
bri3d 11y ago
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 engine and engine management were treated as a black box and simply integrated at face value.
- danjayh 11y ago
  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 happens too often, and costs thousands of dollars to fix), these filters require "regeneration", which is code for "a light comes on on the dashboard, your tractor stops moving, and runs wide-open throttle for 20 minutes while you stare in bewilderment". Google Kubota B3350 Regeneration if you want lots of fun horror stories. 2) Diesel commercial trucks. My uncle drives a large cube van over the road. When his truck goes into regen mode, it doesn't require wide-open throttle like a compact tractor, but it does lose power and tops out at 40-50MPH. If you are on a freeway where the flow of traffice is at 80MPH, this is dangerous and a major problem. 3) Diesel pickup trucks: Many trucks, in an effort to avoid additional hardware above and beyond the DPF, have taken to injecting fuel during the exhaust stroke. The idea is to have the unburned fuel get pumped through the engine and on to the DPF, where it burns and increases the temperature to the point that the carbon burns out of the DPF. Problem is, when you inject fuel into an engine during the exhaust stroke, it dilutes the oil in the cylinder, reduces lubrication, and causes premature wear/engine failure. In the two cases I am familiar with, diesel motorhomes and diesel compact tractors, the value of used vehicles has increased quite a bit in response to the fact that all of the new ones suck. My Dad owns a gravel pit, and he (along with everyone else in the industry) buys and re-builds existing vehicles from the frame-up to avoid having to purchase new products, which are unreliable, sometimes dangerous, and uneconomical to maintain. Google "glider truck kits" -- it's basically the idea of purchasing all the parts of a new vehicle (except the powertrain), and then manually taking the powertrain from a worn-out truck, re-building it, and installing it into the glider kit. This is often done at an expense that is similar to that of purchasing an entirely new vehicle. Many equally horrible solutions to this problem are employed. Some designs incorporate a fuel burner directly into the exhaust design. Others require a separate tank of catalytic fluid that must be filled regularly. One thing that all of the designs have in common is poor performance and piss-poor fuel economy. Many vehicles from multiple manufacturers have had trouble with catching on fire due to emissions control systems. If the EPA wants to make tough rules that will force manufacturers to produce products with the best available technology and encourage development of new technologies, that's one thing. When the EPA makes rules that result in dangerous and/or non-functional product designs, I think it's time to back off just a bit until the technology has come closer to being able to reasonably achieve the regulated cleanliness levels. It's completely insane to make a truck that will force you to slow to 40mph while you're driving it, or to make a tractor that will force a farmer to take an unplanned break in the middle of the day (remember -- farmers work all day long, and daylight is a limited, precious commodity to them). EDIT: To be completely clear, if you are doing work with the tractor that can be done at full RPM, you don't necessarily need to park it. However, if you're doing something that requires lower RPM (using a PTO attachment that needs low RPM like a post-hole digger, or a spreader, etc ... or doing low-speed work on a tractor with a geared transmission), then it's time to go get some coffee. Personally, the two major things I want to do with a tractor are run a large snowblower and maintain our horse pasture. For the horse pasture it's not a big deal, but if I need to clear the driveway before leaving for work in the morning, an unplanned 20 minute wait is completely unacceptable.
amelius 11y ago
> Clearly it's the fault of those pesky engineers again Well, in any case, it shows that ethical codes will probably not work for engineering professions (or any profession for that matter).
ChuckMcM 11y ago
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.
azernik 11y ago
My impression is that the process was structured in a way to give higher levels deniability. I highly doubt direct orders were given from the top to cheat; instead it was made clear that the performance numbers would come out right AND the emissions standards would be met, or heads would roll. And lo and behold! The numbers and sales targets were met. And management can say "well, we don't know how they did it. We never asked!"
oxryly1 11y ago
It is the fault of those pesky engineers. Of course, these particular engineers were promoted to top management, so...
addicted44 11y ago
if those pesky engineers are looking for a job after getting fired from VW, I heard there is a young intern position available with the Donald Trump campaign.

dexterdog 11y ago

It's all just a play to get us to accept always-on emissions checkers on every car complete with location logging, you know, for verification.

r00fus 11y ago
Sure. But that doesn't pardon VW/Porsche of cheating when other vendors did not. Unless this is the tip of the iceberg and everyone is cheating but hasn't been caught yet...
- Phlarp 11y ago
  Spoiler alert...
- Alupis 11y ago
  > Unless this is the tip of the iceberg and everyone is cheating but hasn't been caught yet... Perhaps it's time to examine these standards. Perhaps the standard is what's unreasonable, not the vehicle's emissions. If these vehicles achieved greater horsepower and greater fuel economy, perhaps the long-term net pollution caused by these vehicles is equal-to-or-less-than the standard allows.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

bri3d 11y ago

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 engine and engine management were treated as a black box and simply integrated at face value.

danjayh 11y ago
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 happens too often, and costs thousands of dollars to fix), these filters require "regeneration", which is code for "a light comes on on the dashboard, your tractor stops moving, and runs wide-open throttle for 20 minutes while you stare in bewilderment". Google Kubota B3350 Regeneration if you want lots of fun horror stories. 2) Diesel commercial trucks. My uncle drives a large cube van over the road. When his truck goes into regen mode, it doesn't require wide-open throttle like a compact tractor, but it does lose power and tops out at 40-50MPH. If you are on a freeway where the flow of traffice is at 80MPH, this is dangerous and a major problem. 3) Diesel pickup trucks: Many trucks, in an effort to avoid additional hardware above and beyond the DPF, have taken to injecting fuel during the exhaust stroke. The idea is to have the unburned fuel get pumped through the engine and on to the DPF, where it burns and increases the temperature to the point that the carbon burns out of the DPF. Problem is, when you inject fuel into an engine during the exhaust stroke, it dilutes the oil in the cylinder, reduces lubrication, and causes premature wear/engine failure. In the two cases I am familiar with, diesel motorhomes and diesel compact tractors, the value of used vehicles has increased quite a bit in response to the fact that all of the new ones suck. My Dad owns a gravel pit, and he (along with everyone else in the industry) buys and re-builds existing vehicles from the frame-up to avoid having to purchase new products, which are unreliable, sometimes dangerous, and uneconomical to maintain. Google "glider truck kits" -- it's basically the idea of purchasing all the parts of a new vehicle (except the powertrain), and then manually taking the powertrain from a worn-out truck, re-building it, and installing it into the glider kit. This is often done at an expense that is similar to that of purchasing an entirely new vehicle. Many equally horrible solutions to this problem are employed. Some designs incorporate a fuel burner directly into the exhaust design. Others require a separate tank of catalytic fluid that must be filled regularly. One thing that all of the designs have in common is poor performance and piss-poor fuel economy. Many vehicles from multiple manufacturers have had trouble with catching on fire due to emissions control systems. If the EPA wants to make tough rules that will force manufacturers to produce products with the best available technology and encourage development of new technologies, that's one thing. When the EPA makes rules that result in dangerous and/or non-functional product designs, I think it's time to back off just a bit until the technology has come closer to being able to reasonably achieve the regulated cleanliness levels. It's completely insane to make a truck that will force you to slow to 40mph while you're driving it, or to make a tractor that will force a farmer to take an unplanned break in the middle of the day (remember -- farmers work all day long, and daylight is a limited, precious commodity to them). EDIT: To be completely clear, if you are doing work with the tractor that can be done at full RPM, you don't necessarily need to park it. However, if you're doing something that requires lower RPM (using a PTO attachment that needs low RPM like a post-hole digger, or a spreader, etc ... or doing low-speed work on a tractor with a geared transmission), then it's time to go get some coffee. Personally, the two major things I want to do with a tractor are run a large snowblower and maintain our horse pasture. For the horse pasture it's not a big deal, but if I need to clear the driveway before leaving for work in the morning, an unplanned 20 minute wait is completely unacceptable.

amelius 11y ago

> Clearly it's the fault of those pesky engineers again Well, in any case, it shows that ethical codes will probably not work for engineering professions (or any profession for that matter).

ChuckMcM 11y ago

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.

azernik 11y ago

My impression is that the process was structured in a way to give higher levels deniability. I highly doubt direct orders were given from the top to cheat; instead it was made clear that the performance numbers would come out right AND the emissions standards would be met, or heads would roll. And lo and behold! The numbers and sales targets were met. And management can say "well, we don't know how they did it. We never asked!"

oxryly1 11y ago

It is the fault of those pesky engineers. Of course, these particular engineers were promoted to top management, so...

addicted44 11y ago

if those pesky engineers are looking for a job after getting fired from VW, I heard there is a young intern position available with the Donald Trump campaign.