13 ms·

EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations

116 points by denzil_correa 10y ago

bischofs 10y ago
We tested their engine back in 2013, it had an offset and a timer for the coolant temperature. So if you waited long enough between the test cycles the timer would run out and the actual coolant would be relayed to the ECU which would then run a different calibration. Its a joke but diesels unless they have major after-treatment systems just cant run that clean - as they become hotter (read: more efficient) they produce more NOx.
exabrial 10y ago
If you buy a vehicle, is it unreasonable to receive the source code so you can later fix it if necessary?
rubidium 10y ago
You think they would've done something after the Volkswagon disaster... this is either extreme ignorance (we don't really know what our code does) or malicious intent (let's hope we don't get caught like them).
- cptskippy 10y ago
  The release doesn't actually state that they violated emissions standards. It just says that they failed to notify the EPA of the presence of software that can alter the vehicle's emissions profile. Do trucks and SUVs in the US even have emissions standards? I know they're exempt from emissions tests in many states which is part of the reason for their popularity.
  - hx87 10y ago
    Every passenger vehicle in the US has to meet emissions standards. Testing whether they actually meet those standards in everyday practice is up to the states. If you roll coal in rural Montana it's up to individual police officers whether to pull you over or not.
  - dplgk 10y ago
    That's not why they're popular. They're popular because the average American thinks bigger is better and they also want a bigger car for when they have an accident, they can kill the other person instead of themselves.
    - mikestew 10y ago
      Though I see a slight grayish tint to your comment indicating some down votes, you're spot on. Does anyone really think someone's automotive buying decision goes something like, "yeah, it's hard to park and the mileage sucks, but at least I don't have to take 30 minutes out of my day once every few years to go get emissions tested. That'll make the rough ride and the hundreds of extra dollars in fuel expenses worth it."? No, no one has ever thought that when buying a car.
      - sp332 10y ago
        There was a subsidy relating to "business" vehicles weighing over 3 tons. It was supposed to target commercial equipment but lots of small business owners just started buying huge SUVs. http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2008/07/highways_paved_with_gold.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2008/07/high... It's been toned down a bit recently. http://www.section179.org/section_179_deduction.html http://www.section179.org/section_179_deduction.html
      - revelation 10y ago
        Consumer demands are a big part of it. I doubt they would have too many issues meeting emission specs if passenger cars were limited to the 40-50kW they realistically need.
      - Zak 10y ago
        Big cars were always popular in the US. Until the mid 1970s when fuel economy standards and an oil crisis or two changed the market. The oil crisis passed, but the economy standards did not. Trucks weren't held to the same standards as cars, so manufacturers started making more carlike trucks to meet consumer demand for larger vehicles. The improved visibility and image of toughness and independence also helps drive truck and SUV sales.
  - benjarrell 10y ago
    Diesels are required to have a particulate filter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter Which is usually used with exhaust fluid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid
    - problems 10y ago
      Correct me if I'm wrong, but most regular consumer vehicles aren't required to have a urea/DEF system, but all the big trucks and commercial vehicles tend to. Somebody was blaming this on trucks, but I'm thinking this might be the opposite - their small cars as it was with VW because they don't have these sorts of systems in place.
      - Reason077 10y ago
        You're right. It's now light diesel vehicles that are the primary problem with regard to excessive NOx emissions. At least in Europe, where there are a huge number of light diesel vehicles on the roads. But there are, of course, a lot of old pre-DEF heavy vehicles on the roads too that would not comply with modern emissions standards.
      - djrogers 10y ago
        The engine in question did have a DEF system though...
    - Reason077 10y ago
      DEF (AdBlue) can significantly reduce NOx emissions. It's now standard in modern heavy diesel trucks, busses, etc. However, it's very rare to find it in light diesels such as cars and SUVs which often have real-world NOx emissions far in excess of what emissions standards allow. DPFs remove visible soot from diesel emissions, but their actual benefit for health is less clear. They don't trap the ultra-fine, PM2.5 invisible sooty particles which are the most dangerous because they can penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream. These particles are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. DPFs also tend to break down after a few years of use. Often, they end up being (illegally) removed by owners who don't want to pay for an expensive replacement.
  - icantdrive55 10y ago
    Every state has their own commitment to testing Emission standards. Califirnia is too strict in my opinion. (CARB--require your Smog Technicians to have two ways of verifying the Visual Inspection. Most Shops only have a inexpensive Motor Emmission Manual to verify components. It is filled with errors. The better Smog Testing Stations have Mitchell Manuals online--which are spot on.) While, only 13 counties in Texas, require biannual emmission tests. After 24 years--no smog checks. While in CA, it's 1974, or earlier. (I went to automotive school, and still have had issues Smoging too many vechicles I have owned, and worked on. In all, but one case, it was a technician's error, or an error in the refrence material.)
  - mrbabbage 10y ago
    > Do trucks and SUVs in the US even have emissions standards? I know they're exempt from emissions tests in many states which is part of the reason for their popularity. In 1999, California enacted its LEV (low emissions vehicle) II regulations, which moved most pickup trucks and SUVs into the same regulatory scheme as passenger vehicles: https://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/levprog/levii/factsht.pdf https://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/levprog/levii/factsht.pdf
    - cptskippy 10y ago
      I recall that, Ford had to purchase a bunch of Honda V6 engines for their trucks because they didn't have an engine that could meet the standards.
- Zigurd 10y ago
  It's all out in the field, and fixing the problem in the field would be devilishly hard. VW's cheat enabled them to sell diesels without urea injection. Retrofitting that without admitting guilt or drawing attention isn't practical.
cptskippy 10y ago
I have a feeling this is just the first in a long line of violations that are going to surface due to the VW scandal.
- avn2109 10y ago
  If you've ever been near a major automaker's test engineering lab, you quickly realize that ~all of them are doing shady things to hit their numbers. This is a result of the cold hard engineering fact that our current level of technology is insufficient to hit the numbers without raising costs significantly. But once one automaker starts to fudge the numbers at a given price point, all the others must do the same thing or they fall behind. Being honest might add hundreds or thousands of dollars to the dealer cost of a family sedan, which is an absolute dealbreaker when your rivals are getting the same benefit by just lying. There's a spectrum from shady-but-nearly-defensible to absolute lies, and different manufacturers fall on the spectrum at different points. One that comes to mind is Mitsubishi [0], but there have been others. And as you suggest, there will be plenty more in the future. [0] http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/26/news/companies/mitsubishi-cheating-fuel-tests-25-years/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/26/news/companies/mitsubishi-ch...
  - LeifCarrotson 10y ago
    As someone who manufactures automotive test equipment, please apply a bit of Occam's razor. A lot of the "shady" stuff they're doing is just reducing and simplifying the cost of testing. It would always be nice to run a more accurate, more real-world test. Certain Ford specs, for example, require multi-axis robot arms with independently mobile manikin forms to apply loads to the seats. Old Ford specs, and some current competitor specs, just have a hemispherical indenter that moves through a sinusoidal profile on a straight line at a fixed speed by an electric motor. Hardware for the "realistic" test costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus about a man-year of expert engineering time by the test lab or a systems integrator to turn the robot arm into standards-compliant, turn-key test equipment. We're talking high-speed data aquisition, 3D modeling, CNC machining, user studies, and all that fun stuff. Checking that it works correctly requires high-speed cameras, pressure mats, and a lot of work. The old-style test requires bit of steel, a few bearings, an on/off switch, an electrical counter or timer (that even an ME can wire up, and that's saying something!) and an electric motor for cost a few thousand dollars, and can be built by anybody with a welder and a few wrenches, maybe a machinist lathe and old Bridgeport mill if they want to get fancy. You can verify the correct operation with a pair of calipers, a stopwatch, and a gentle kick to make sure the bearings are still tight. Or there are multi-million-dollar sled systems that throw assembled prototype vehicles at barriers to see how they break. I don't even want to get into the complexities of those. And a lot of what you measure there can be tested by chaining sub-components to a hydraulic ram and slowly tearing them apart to see what maximum force they can take. The two systems produce roughly the same test results. In rare cases, there's an effect that the simple system misses that would be caught by the complex one. In my realm, thankfully, it would be difficult and pointless to design it to pass only the simple test. In many cases, it's not about honesty, it's about pragmatism. In this case, the fault lies not with the technology but with the intentional effort that the manufacturer went through to cheat the test.
blakeyrat 10y ago
Note: they mean exceeding in the bad direction, not the good direction. At first I thought this was some kind of spoof article, or Chrysler marketing effort. It should probably read "exceeding limits" not "exceeding standards". EDIT: actually the press release doesn't even say that really. It says Fiat Chrysler installed software that could impact emissions testing but didn't tell the EPA about it, which is considered a violation of the Clean Air Act. It doesn't say the software cheats on tests.
- tomc1985 10y ago
  Seconded, the headline is misleading
- dsp1234 10y ago
  FTA: "This testing revealed that the FCA vehicle models in question produce increased NOx emissions under conditions that would be encountered in normal operation and use."
  - blakeyrat 10y ago
    Wow. Someone needs to tell the EPA about the inverted pyramid. You can't blame me for missing that when they bury the lede in the very last paragraph. That aside, the headline here still says the opposite of what it means to say. Exceeding the standard is a good thing. Exceeding the emissions limit is a bad thing.
    - munificent 10y ago
      This is the subtitle of the article: > FCA allegedly installed and failed to disclose software > that increases air pollution from vehicles Second sentence of the first paragraph: > The undisclosed software results in increased > emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the vehicles. What more do you want?
      - blakeyrat 10y ago
        I need more random people on the internet to tell me how stupid and illiterate I am, I guess. Thanks, that's really helpful.
grzm 10y ago
Actual title: "EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations"
josu 10y ago
Donald Trump was celebrating just a few days ago that Chrysler was going to open a new plant in Michigan instead of in Mexico[1][2]. Could this be a political move by the EPA? [1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/818460862675558400 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/81846086267555840... [2] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/818461467766824961 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/81846146776682496...
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  It could be, but it almost certainly is not.
  - problems 10y ago
    Yeah, I mean I don't think he's complained about the EPA busting emissions violators, has he? He at least seemed to be pushing a "clean air and water" thing, which something like this should certainly fall under, even if you don't want to police carbon emissions aggressively as some would like to. I think problems like this deserve investigation effort and aren't particularly political - probably an easy play to your average citizen.
- mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
  Given how much he wants to gut the EPA, maybe they figured this was their last chance to get the news out.
- burkaman 10y ago
  Why wouldn't they have done the same thing to Ford months ago?
- alphabettsy 10y ago
  It could be due to the fact that they were caught in Germany a few months ago doing the same thing.... Or that another major automaker was just caught, bringing greater attention to it. I'd say those are both more likely.
Zigurd 10y ago
The most interesting thing about the arrest of a senior VW manager and this is that, evidently, software isn't too hard to investigate. It's probably not easy, but if a white-enough-box test of the ECU shows it cheats by detecting a dynamometer using a simple expedient that has no practical use on the road, then you have evidence that will stand up in court.
byronwall 10y ago
The Notice of Violation (NOV) [0] is worth checking out if you're interested in the nitty gritty details of regulatory enforcement. It's quite readable and paints a clear picture that EPA believes FCA violated the Clean Air Act. Specifically that they have software/code (AECDs) which were "neither described nor justified". Also interesting that they already set up a short URL for this particular issue. [1] [0] https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-01/documents/fca-caa-nov-2017-01-12.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-01/documents... [1] https://www.epa.gov/fca https://www.epa.gov/fca
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
Volkswagen, a German company, admitted wrongdoing, is paying $4.3bn in fines and will see its executives, domestic and overseas, jailed by the U.S. government [1]. Curious if Fiat Chrysler will see those checkboxes--admission of wrongdoing, material fines and jailed executives--filled. [1] http://abcnews.go.com/US/volkswagen-pleads-guilty-pays-43-billion-fines-settle/story?id=44715043 http://abcnews.go.com/US/volkswagen-pleads-guilty-pays-43-bi...
- csours 10y ago
  >admitted wrongdoing "VW was concealing the facts from EPA, the state of California and consumers," EPA enforcement official Cynthia Giles says. "We expected better from VW."[1] They may have EVENTUALLY admitted wrongdoing, but it was only after being caught red-handed, lying about what they were caught doing, and then follow up testing [2]. 1. http://www.autonews.com/section/vw-timeline http://www.autonews.com/section/vw-timeline 2. 'Volkswagen tells regulators that the differences amount to technical issues and "unexpected" test conditions' Read more at https://www.cars.com/articles/vw-diesel-crisis-timeline-of-events-1420681251993/#lhCBUZb0q0mv0RH7.99 https://www.cars.com/articles/vw-diesel-crisis-timeline-of-e...
- yuhong 10y ago
  I personally don't think that jail for simply emitting NOx above limits is worth it
  - btilly 10y ago
    An estimated 60 people have died because of these excess emissions. What penalty would you consider appropriate for someone breaking the law, resulting in 60 deaths? Should it matter what law was broken, or how those deaths were caused?
    - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
      > Should it matter what law was broken, or how those deaths were caused? Yes, always. We don't jail people for doing immoral things. We jail them for doing illegal things. This is a big part of rule of law.
kylehotchkiss 10y ago
Why don't they just do emissions tests by attaching a probe to exhaust and taking the car on a normal drive. Harder to fake results when you're not performing them in the same lab conditions.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  The testing process is required to pass a gauge reproducibility and reliability study. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOVA_gauge_R%26R https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOVA_gauge_R%26R. Essentially, the goal is to analyze the results when a given vehicle is tested in different conditions. In your scenario, each of three operators might take a dozen different makes and models of vehicles on a "normal drive" on each of three consecutive days, resulting in 3 operators x 3 measurements x 12 vehicles = 108 NOx numbers. They would then analyze the results statistically, checking the average value and standard deviation. This should prove that each of the three operators produces the same result ("reproducibility"), and that each day produces the same result ("reliability"). There will be some variation - the vehicle may change a little from one run to another, even if the control inputs are identical. And the inaccuracy of the probe will also produce some small random variation. Those can't be helped - though they should be known. But if you use different operators, lead-foot Larry needs to produce test results that are indistingushable from when slow Sam runs the test, and they both need to produce the same values on windy days and snowy days. This is easy if the only function of the operator is to strap the vehicle to a dynamo, check the HVAC, tire pressure, and so on, plug the control cable into the OBDII port (or wherever it goes), and push the "start" button on the tester. Perhaps the best solution is to collect data on hundreds of actual, reasonable, human drivers and feed those noisy, difficult to distinguish profiles into the test system. But that means expensive dynamos, and lots of hours of testing.
- intrasight 10y ago
  I'm sure that would be more expensive. And there are union work rules.
- closeparen 10y ago
  What is a normal drive? It's easier to standardize and precisely specify the test cycle on a dyno.
draw_down 10y ago
Oh, oh, let me guess: it's the fault of a single rogue engineer, and does not in any way implicate company upper management.
- ssully 10y ago
  I am assuming your comment is referencing Volkswagen's emissions controversy? It doesn't really fit considering six executives have been charged [1] over the incident. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/business/volkswagen-diesel-vw-settlement-charges-criminal.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/business/volkswagen-diese...
  - adventured 10y ago
    I suspect the parent comment is referring to the way VW attempted to deflect blame from management / executives to claiming initially that it was rogue engineers. (rather than referring to who has or hasn't been charged by the government)
  - draw_down 10y ago
    That's nice. I was referring to this: http://www.reuters.com/article/volkswagen-emissions-congress-update-2-p-idUSL1N1281B720151008 http://www.reuters.com/article/volkswagen-emissions-congress...
- arprocter 10y ago
  Looks like the engine in question is the 3L L630 which is made by the Fiat-owned VM Motori
all_usernames 10y ago
When the EPA fines a company (e.g., $4.3Bn for VW), where exactly does that money go?
- strange_quark 10y ago
  The US Treasury
- adventured 10y ago
  http://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/When-government-fines-companies-who-gets-cash-3189724.php http://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/When-governm...
bit_logic 10y ago
This is all happening because at some point the car companies had this choice to make: 1) Deprecate/shutdown gas-only car factories, build hybrid factories with an upgrade roadmap to plugin-hybrid and eventually EV. Then make all models and all trim levels (from base to premium) hybrid as a starting point 2) Continue using gas-only car factories to get more ROI and profit, use shady tactics that either secretly violate EPA regulations or at best comply with the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. Make a few hybrid factories to profit from the eco-friendly market. Look at the new car market today, it's clear which option the car companies picked.
- djrogers 10y ago
  This is 'all happening' with diesel engines, which are a tiny percentage of gas-only engines sold in the US. Your choices above seem to ignore option 3 - stop making diesel engines and only sell gasoline engines.
- lutorm 10y ago
  This is a curious statement given that both this and the VW violations pertain to diesel-powered vehicles, not gasoline ones (hybrid or not).
verytrivial 10y ago
I've been expecting revelations like this. If the other manufacturers were legit in these measures I would have expected them to e.g. run full page ads poking fun at VW to curry favour. They've been curiously silent.

116 points by denzil_correa 10y ago

We tested their engine back in 2013, it had an offset and a timer for the coolant temperature. So if you waited long enough between the test cycles the timer would run out and the actual coolant would be relayed to the ECU which would then run a different calibration. Its a joke but diesels unless they have major after-treatment systems just cant run that clean - as they become hotter (read: more efficient) they produce more NOx.

exabrial 10y ago

If you buy a vehicle, is it unreasonable to receive the source code so you can later fix it if necessary?

rubidium 10y ago

You think they would've done something after the Volkswagon disaster... this is either extreme ignorance (we don't really know what our code does) or malicious intent (let's hope we don't get caught like them).

cptskippy 10y ago
The release doesn't actually state that they violated emissions standards. It just says that they failed to notify the EPA of the presence of software that can alter the vehicle's emissions profile. Do trucks and SUVs in the US even have emissions standards? I know they're exempt from emissions tests in many states which is part of the reason for their popularity.
- hx87 10y ago
  Every passenger vehicle in the US has to meet emissions standards. Testing whether they actually meet those standards in everyday practice is up to the states. If you roll coal in rural Montana it's up to individual police officers whether to pull you over or not.
- dplgk 10y ago
  That's not why they're popular. They're popular because the average American thinks bigger is better and they also want a bigger car for when they have an accident, they can kill the other person instead of themselves.
  - mikestew 10y ago
    Though I see a slight grayish tint to your comment indicating some down votes, you're spot on. Does anyone really think someone's automotive buying decision goes something like, "yeah, it's hard to park and the mileage sucks, but at least I don't have to take 30 minutes out of my day once every few years to go get emissions tested. That'll make the rough ride and the hundreds of extra dollars in fuel expenses worth it."? No, no one has ever thought that when buying a car.
    - sp332 10y ago
      There was a subsidy relating to "business" vehicles weighing over 3 tons. It was supposed to target commercial equipment but lots of small business owners just started buying huge SUVs. http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2008/07/highways_paved_with_gold.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2008/07/high... It's been toned down a bit recently. http://www.section179.org/section_179_deduction.html http://www.section179.org/section_179_deduction.html
    - revelation 10y ago
      Consumer demands are a big part of it. I doubt they would have too many issues meeting emission specs if passenger cars were limited to the 40-50kW they realistically need.
    - Zak 10y ago
      Big cars were always popular in the US. Until the mid 1970s when fuel economy standards and an oil crisis or two changed the market. The oil crisis passed, but the economy standards did not. Trucks weren't held to the same standards as cars, so manufacturers started making more carlike trucks to meet consumer demand for larger vehicles. The improved visibility and image of toughness and independence also helps drive truck and SUV sales.
- benjarrell 10y ago
  Diesels are required to have a particulate filter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter Which is usually used with exhaust fluid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid
  - problems 10y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but most regular consumer vehicles aren't required to have a urea/DEF system, but all the big trucks and commercial vehicles tend to. Somebody was blaming this on trucks, but I'm thinking this might be the opposite - their small cars as it was with VW because they don't have these sorts of systems in place.
    - Reason077 10y ago
      You're right. It's now light diesel vehicles that are the primary problem with regard to excessive NOx emissions. At least in Europe, where there are a huge number of light diesel vehicles on the roads. But there are, of course, a lot of old pre-DEF heavy vehicles on the roads too that would not comply with modern emissions standards.
    - djrogers 10y ago
      The engine in question did have a DEF system though...
  - Reason077 10y ago
    DEF (AdBlue) can significantly reduce NOx emissions. It's now standard in modern heavy diesel trucks, busses, etc. However, it's very rare to find it in light diesels such as cars and SUVs which often have real-world NOx emissions far in excess of what emissions standards allow. DPFs remove visible soot from diesel emissions, but their actual benefit for health is less clear. They don't trap the ultra-fine, PM2.5 invisible sooty particles which are the most dangerous because they can penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream. These particles are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancer. DPFs also tend to break down after a few years of use. Often, they end up being (illegally) removed by owners who don't want to pay for an expensive replacement.
- icantdrive55 10y ago
  Every state has their own commitment to testing Emission standards. Califirnia is too strict in my opinion. (CARB--require your Smog Technicians to have two ways of verifying the Visual Inspection. Most Shops only have a inexpensive Motor Emmission Manual to verify components. It is filled with errors. The better Smog Testing Stations have Mitchell Manuals online--which are spot on.) While, only 13 counties in Texas, require biannual emmission tests. After 24 years--no smog checks. While in CA, it's 1974, or earlier. (I went to automotive school, and still have had issues Smoging too many vechicles I have owned, and worked on. In all, but one case, it was a technician's error, or an error in the refrence material.)
- mrbabbage 10y ago
  > Do trucks and SUVs in the US even have emissions standards? I know they're exempt from emissions tests in many states which is part of the reason for their popularity. In 1999, California enacted its LEV (low emissions vehicle) II regulations, which moved most pickup trucks and SUVs into the same regulatory scheme as passenger vehicles: https://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/levprog/levii/factsht.pdf https://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/levprog/levii/factsht.pdf
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    I recall that, Ford had to purchase a bunch of Honda V6 engines for their trucks because they didn't have an engine that could meet the standards.
Zigurd 10y ago
It's all out in the field, and fixing the problem in the field would be devilishly hard. VW's cheat enabled them to sell diesels without urea injection. Retrofitting that without admitting guilt or drawing attention isn't practical.

cptskippy 10y ago

I have a feeling this is just the first in a long line of violations that are going to surface due to the VW scandal.

avn2109 10y ago
If you've ever been near a major automaker's test engineering lab, you quickly realize that ~all of them are doing shady things to hit their numbers. This is a result of the cold hard engineering fact that our current level of technology is insufficient to hit the numbers without raising costs significantly. But once one automaker starts to fudge the numbers at a given price point, all the others must do the same thing or they fall behind. Being honest might add hundreds or thousands of dollars to the dealer cost of a family sedan, which is an absolute dealbreaker when your rivals are getting the same benefit by just lying. There's a spectrum from shady-but-nearly-defensible to absolute lies, and different manufacturers fall on the spectrum at different points. One that comes to mind is Mitsubishi [0], but there have been others. And as you suggest, there will be plenty more in the future. [0] http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/26/news/companies/mitsubishi-cheating-fuel-tests-25-years/ http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/26/news/companies/mitsubishi-ch...
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  As someone who manufactures automotive test equipment, please apply a bit of Occam's razor. A lot of the "shady" stuff they're doing is just reducing and simplifying the cost of testing. It would always be nice to run a more accurate, more real-world test. Certain Ford specs, for example, require multi-axis robot arms with independently mobile manikin forms to apply loads to the seats. Old Ford specs, and some current competitor specs, just have a hemispherical indenter that moves through a sinusoidal profile on a straight line at a fixed speed by an electric motor. Hardware for the "realistic" test costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus about a man-year of expert engineering time by the test lab or a systems integrator to turn the robot arm into standards-compliant, turn-key test equipment. We're talking high-speed data aquisition, 3D modeling, CNC machining, user studies, and all that fun stuff. Checking that it works correctly requires high-speed cameras, pressure mats, and a lot of work. The old-style test requires bit of steel, a few bearings, an on/off switch, an electrical counter or timer (that even an ME can wire up, and that's saying something!) and an electric motor for cost a few thousand dollars, and can be built by anybody with a welder and a few wrenches, maybe a machinist lathe and old Bridgeport mill if they want to get fancy. You can verify the correct operation with a pair of calipers, a stopwatch, and a gentle kick to make sure the bearings are still tight. Or there are multi-million-dollar sled systems that throw assembled prototype vehicles at barriers to see how they break. I don't even want to get into the complexities of those. And a lot of what you measure there can be tested by chaining sub-components to a hydraulic ram and slowly tearing them apart to see what maximum force they can take. The two systems produce roughly the same test results. In rare cases, there's an effect that the simple system misses that would be caught by the complex one. In my realm, thankfully, it would be difficult and pointless to design it to pass only the simple test. In many cases, it's not about honesty, it's about pragmatism. In this case, the fault lies not with the technology but with the intentional effort that the manufacturer went through to cheat the test.

blakeyrat 10y ago

Note: they mean exceeding in the bad direction, not the good direction. At first I thought this was some kind of spoof article, or Chrysler marketing effort. It should probably read "exceeding limits" not "exceeding standards". EDIT: actually the press release doesn't even say that really. It says Fiat Chrysler installed software that could impact emissions testing but didn't tell the EPA about it, which is considered a violation of the Clean Air Act. It doesn't say the software cheats on tests.

tomc1985 10y ago
Seconded, the headline is misleading
dsp1234 10y ago
FTA: "This testing revealed that the FCA vehicle models in question produce increased NOx emissions under conditions that would be encountered in normal operation and use."
- blakeyrat 10y ago
  Wow. Someone needs to tell the EPA about the inverted pyramid. You can't blame me for missing that when they bury the lede in the very last paragraph. That aside, the headline here still says the opposite of what it means to say. Exceeding the standard is a good thing. Exceeding the emissions limit is a bad thing.
  - munificent 10y ago
    This is the subtitle of the article: > FCA allegedly installed and failed to disclose software > that increases air pollution from vehicles Second sentence of the first paragraph: > The undisclosed software results in increased > emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the vehicles. What more do you want?
    - blakeyrat 10y ago
      I need more random people on the internet to tell me how stupid and illiterate I am, I guess. Thanks, that's really helpful.

grzm 10y ago

Actual title: "EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations"

josu 10y ago

Donald Trump was celebrating just a few days ago that Chrysler was going to open a new plant in Michigan instead of in Mexico[1][2]. Could this be a political move by the EPA? [1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/818460862675558400 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/81846086267555840... [2] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/818461467766824961 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/81846146776682496...

matthewmacleod 10y ago
It could be, but it almost certainly is not.
- problems 10y ago
  Yeah, I mean I don't think he's complained about the EPA busting emissions violators, has he? He at least seemed to be pushing a "clean air and water" thing, which something like this should certainly fall under, even if you don't want to police carbon emissions aggressively as some would like to. I think problems like this deserve investigation effort and aren't particularly political - probably an easy play to your average citizen.
mrgoldenbrown 10y ago
Given how much he wants to gut the EPA, maybe they figured this was their last chance to get the news out.
burkaman 10y ago
Why wouldn't they have done the same thing to Ford months ago?
alphabettsy 10y ago
It could be due to the fact that they were caught in Germany a few months ago doing the same thing.... Or that another major automaker was just caught, bringing greater attention to it. I'd say those are both more likely.

Zigurd 10y ago

The most interesting thing about the arrest of a senior VW manager and this is that, evidently, software isn't too hard to investigate. It's probably not easy, but if a white-enough-box test of the ECU shows it cheats by detecting a dynamometer using a simple expedient that has no practical use on the road, then you have evidence that will stand up in court.

byronwall 10y ago

The Notice of Violation (NOV) [0] is worth checking out if you're interested in the nitty gritty details of regulatory enforcement. It's quite readable and paints a clear picture that EPA believes FCA violated the Clean Air Act. Specifically that they have software/code (AECDs) which were "neither described nor justified". Also interesting that they already set up a short URL for this particular issue. [1] [0] https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-01/documents/fca-caa-nov-2017-01-12.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-01/documents... [1] https://www.epa.gov/fca https://www.epa.gov/fca

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

Volkswagen, a German company, admitted wrongdoing, is paying $4.3bn in fines and will see its executives, domestic and overseas, jailed by the U.S. government [1]. Curious if Fiat Chrysler will see those checkboxes--admission of wrongdoing, material fines and jailed executives--filled. [1] http://abcnews.go.com/US/volkswagen-pleads-guilty-pays-43-billion-fines-settle/story?id=44715043 http://abcnews.go.com/US/volkswagen-pleads-guilty-pays-43-bi...

csours 10y ago
>admitted wrongdoing "VW was concealing the facts from EPA, the state of California and consumers," EPA enforcement official Cynthia Giles says. "We expected better from VW."[1] They may have EVENTUALLY admitted wrongdoing, but it was only after being caught red-handed, lying about what they were caught doing, and then follow up testing [2]. 1. http://www.autonews.com/section/vw-timeline http://www.autonews.com/section/vw-timeline 2. 'Volkswagen tells regulators that the differences amount to technical issues and "unexpected" test conditions' Read more at https://www.cars.com/articles/vw-diesel-crisis-timeline-of-events-1420681251993/#lhCBUZb0q0mv0RH7.99 https://www.cars.com/articles/vw-diesel-crisis-timeline-of-e...
yuhong 10y ago
I personally don't think that jail for simply emitting NOx above limits is worth it
- btilly 10y ago
  An estimated 60 people have died because of these excess emissions. What penalty would you consider appropriate for someone breaking the law, resulting in 60 deaths? Should it matter what law was broken, or how those deaths were caused?
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    > Should it matter what law was broken, or how those deaths were caused? Yes, always. We don't jail people for doing immoral things. We jail them for doing illegal things. This is a big part of rule of law.

kylehotchkiss 10y ago

Why don't they just do emissions tests by attaching a probe to exhaust and taking the car on a normal drive. Harder to fake results when you're not performing them in the same lab conditions.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago
The testing process is required to pass a gauge reproducibility and reliability study. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOVA_gauge_R%26R https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOVA_gauge_R%26R. Essentially, the goal is to analyze the results when a given vehicle is tested in different conditions. In your scenario, each of three operators might take a dozen different makes and models of vehicles on a "normal drive" on each of three consecutive days, resulting in 3 operators x 3 measurements x 12 vehicles = 108 NOx numbers. They would then analyze the results statistically, checking the average value and standard deviation. This should prove that each of the three operators produces the same result ("reproducibility"), and that each day produces the same result ("reliability"). There will be some variation - the vehicle may change a little from one run to another, even if the control inputs are identical. And the inaccuracy of the probe will also produce some small random variation. Those can't be helped - though they should be known. But if you use different operators, lead-foot Larry needs to produce test results that are indistingushable from when slow Sam runs the test, and they both need to produce the same values on windy days and snowy days. This is easy if the only function of the operator is to strap the vehicle to a dynamo, check the HVAC, tire pressure, and so on, plug the control cable into the OBDII port (or wherever it goes), and push the "start" button on the tester. Perhaps the best solution is to collect data on hundreds of actual, reasonable, human drivers and feed those noisy, difficult to distinguish profiles into the test system. But that means expensive dynamos, and lots of hours of testing.
intrasight 10y ago
I'm sure that would be more expensive. And there are union work rules.
closeparen 10y ago
What is a normal drive? It's easier to standardize and precisely specify the test cycle on a dyno.

draw_down 10y ago

Oh, oh, let me guess: it's the fault of a single rogue engineer, and does not in any way implicate company upper management.

ssully 10y ago
I am assuming your comment is referencing Volkswagen's emissions controversy? It doesn't really fit considering six executives have been charged [1] over the incident. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/business/volkswagen-diesel-vw-settlement-charges-criminal.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/business/volkswagen-diese...
- adventured 10y ago
  I suspect the parent comment is referring to the way VW attempted to deflect blame from management / executives to claiming initially that it was rogue engineers. (rather than referring to who has or hasn't been charged by the government)
- draw_down 10y ago
  That's nice. I was referring to this: http://www.reuters.com/article/volkswagen-emissions-congress-update-2-p-idUSL1N1281B720151008 http://www.reuters.com/article/volkswagen-emissions-congress...
arprocter 10y ago
Looks like the engine in question is the 3L L630 which is made by the Fiat-owned VM Motori

all_usernames 10y ago

When the EPA fines a company (e.g., $4.3Bn for VW), where exactly does that money go?

strange_quark 10y ago
The US Treasury
adventured 10y ago
http://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/When-government-fines-companies-who-gets-cash-3189724.php http://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/When-governm...

bit_logic 10y ago

This is all happening because at some point the car companies had this choice to make: 1) Deprecate/shutdown gas-only car factories, build hybrid factories with an upgrade roadmap to plugin-hybrid and eventually EV. Then make all models and all trim levels (from base to premium) hybrid as a starting point 2) Continue using gas-only car factories to get more ROI and profit, use shady tactics that either secretly violate EPA regulations or at best comply with the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. Make a few hybrid factories to profit from the eco-friendly market. Look at the new car market today, it's clear which option the car companies picked.

djrogers 10y ago
This is 'all happening' with diesel engines, which are a tiny percentage of gas-only engines sold in the US. Your choices above seem to ignore option 3 - stop making diesel engines and only sell gasoline engines.
lutorm 10y ago
This is a curious statement given that both this and the VW violations pertain to diesel-powered vehicles, not gasoline ones (hybrid or not).

verytrivial 10y ago

I've been expecting revelations like this. If the other manufacturers were legit in these measures I would have expected them to e.g. run full page ads poking fun at VW to curry favour. They've been curiously silent.