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Nissan Admits Internal Emissions-Test Results were Falsified

665 points by blawson 8y ago

fein 8y ago
The general assumption at the time when VW was put under a microscope for these issues is that everyone is cheating, VAG just got caught first. What stinks seems to be the way the regulations are being implemented moreso than what sort of detours the manufacturers can take to avoid them. I won't be surprised when we see more auto makers added to the list, however I wonder if anyone will criticize the regulations instead of shaming auto manufacturers. Here's a non paywalled BBC article: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44763905 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44763905
- hervature 8y ago
  Completely agree that what is lacking here is the regulations. I have tried to argue (often unsuccessfully) that VW did not commit fraud, that the numbers reported by the tests were 100% accurate. The problem being that the way the car is tested is not even remotely similar to how people drive. The clear fix to me is to simply give normal people free leases for a short period of time and generate something similar to http://www.fuelly.com/ http://www.fuelly.com/ . The only way to cheat that is to convince people to drive more efficiently, seems like a win.
  - devy 8y ago
    Without knowing the general driving population's driving habits, it's difficult to estimate how effective driving will improve fuel efficiency and/or reduce pollution. Sure there are known bad driving habits like sudden accerlation/sudden stops will increase fuel consumption, but what about road sign design, speed limits, traffic light designs and Electronic Toll Collection systems? Those are all factors of fuel efficiency. Also, the government regulation on emission is going to get tighter and tighter due to incentives to push for EV adoption. So arguing emission test method is a moot point.
  - wildebaard 8y ago
    How is embedding software that changes the way the engine behaves during tests versus during actual usage not fraud? The numbers may have been accurate _for an engine with the 'limit emissions' mode enabled_ but it's still fraudulent if you do not make that explicitly clear.
    - pofilat 8y ago
      If you use the car the way tests use the car, the performance will be the same. The trick is you can't complete your daily driving needs by driving the way the test does.
      - mikeash 8y ago
        The intent was to cheat the tests by secretly tailoring the behavior to the tests, even though they knew that real-world driving would be different and that the tests are supposed to indicate real-world emissions. Intent matters. You can’t set out to cheat a test, succeed, and then say that it’s legal because you succeeded, any more than you can steal from a store by hiding an item under your coat and then say that it’s legal because you disguised it well enough to fool the guard.
      - wlll 8y ago
        The only way to drive in a way that would have replicated the results of the VAG tests would be to not touch the steering wheel. At all. For VAG this wasn't a case of the test not being quite the same as regular driving, it was VAG deliberately detecting a tests and altering the way the engine worked to avoid failing.
      - Siecje 8y ago
        If you turned the steering wheel the test would fail, you can't drive without turning the steering wheel.
        hwillis 8y ago
        It would also turn off if the back wheels were spinning.
  - SilasX 8y ago
    Regulations are obeyed and enforced by humans. There’s a general expectation that common sense is applied, which is hard to define but “you know it when you see it”. “The engine will fundamentally perform differently when you’re testing it because it will detect the test” is not common sense and is not a reasonable interpretation of how to comply with the rules. I agree that a better method would be to attack sensors to a random (and ideally, concealed from OEM) sample of cars and charge automakers per unit of detected emissions. That would force them to optimize for real world driving, which is much harder to game.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    Emissions tests are different from fuel efficiency tests, and in fact are often at odds with each other. A more efficient car doesn’t necessarily have better emissions, and there’s no easy way for a typical driver to measure their emissions.
    - blattimwind 8y ago
      NOx emissions specifically are a problem because the engines are run very efficiently at high burning temperatures with complete combustion.
    - hervature 8y ago
      Thank you for the extra insight, I may have had the wrong conclusion but I think the logic still follows. From this system I outlined, the manufacturers would be forced to alter designs to get the desired emissions during normal driving conditions. This is the whole spirit of the regulation right?
      - mikeash 8y ago
        My point is that the system you outline doesn’t work, because ordinary drivers can’t check their own emissions. It would be fine for fuel consumption since that’s easily measured, but emissions requires special equipment and careful testing.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - acranox 8y ago
    The VW stuff wasn't simply about fuel efficiency it was about emissions output. I think this was the video where a guy basically reverse engineered the system. (Starts around 40m in) https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7331-the_exhaust_emissions_scandal_dieselgate#video https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7331-the_exhaust_emissions_scand... I'd encourage you to watch that, and still see if you say that it wasn't fraud. VM gamed the test in order to produce results that were not achievable by consumers, with the intent to deceive people.
    - hervature 8y ago
      I will watch that video later and get back to you. I understand what they did. I'm not saying that what they did was right, simply that it wasn't fraud. My point being that if the test is already deceptive for true vehicle emissions (laboratory settings, very particular configurations, etc.) then the test itself is the problem. If we flip the script and say that a car fails the emissions testing but is in reality the cleanest car, is it not "fraudulent" to label this car as dirty?
      - acranox 8y ago
        Intent matters. Your example of flipping the script would only be comparable if the manufacturer engineered the car to fail the test. VW built their car to produce a specific test result to get buyers to buy the car. It fits the description at the link below all too perfectly. https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Fraud https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Fraud
- wuliwong 8y ago
  Do you have any links to something I could read about the way the regulations are being implemented? It is relevant to my interests.
- jartelt 8y ago
  I am all for shaming the auto manufacturers that get caught cheating. The regulations are aimed at reducing pollution and I think that is a good thing!
  - duckerude 8y ago
    The regulations might have a good aim, but when everybody is violating them it's probably safe to say something is wrong with them. I don't know if the problem is in the content or in the enforcement, but it exists. I don't think criticism of regulations should replace shaming of auto manufacturers, but it might be more effective.
  - amarant 8y ago
    it's not about what the regulations AIM to do, it's what they achieve, and also if they could feasibly achieve something closer to their aim, which is what was suggested. that's to say, if emission testing was done differently, maybe we would have caught these cars earlier. Now it seems likely every single non-electric car on the market is polluting more than advertised/allowed, which begs the question if there is a systemic issue here. I tend to agree that there is.
    - ghostly_s 8y ago
      The 'systemic issue' is that conducting lab tests in cooperation with automakers is clearly an inadequate way of enforcing the regulations. That does not imply the regulations are faulty, it implies they need a more robust enforcement methodology.
      - amarant 8y ago
        yes, i see now i formulated that rather poorly. this is what I meant by systemic failure. the regulations themselves are not the issue.
    - eurticket 8y ago
      What if the AIM was to create the incentive for electric cars manufacturing
- stephengillie 8y ago
  From a recent HN thread[0], it sounds like this issue is present across the auto industry: > One way to reconcile these seemingly contradictory statements is the following. The actual programmer & designer of the software is the supplier of the engine control units (ECUs), in most cases Bosch. The software that they supply actually already contains these cheating routines. These routines are delivered as a part of the software packages, and can be turned on/off with some flags. It is up to the auto company how to set these flags. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286697
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- blattimwind 8y ago
  > The general assumption at the time when VW was put under a microscope for these issues is that everyone is cheating, VAG just got caught first. Well, they do. Here's a list of some car manufacturers who do or did emissions cheating: - Volvo - Volkswagen - Renault - Jeep - Hyundai - Honda - Citroen - Fiat - Chrysler - Ford - General Motors - Toyota - Nissan - Mercedes - Mitsubishi (Which pretty much sums up to "all car manufacturers")
  - teamhappy 8y ago
    IIRC Mercedes wasn't caught cheating they just got in trouble because they use the same engine control units which contain the routines that make cheating possible.
    - blattimwind 8y ago
      Mercedes was already ordered to recall affected models.
    - Maybestring 8y ago
      Mercedes was entering an allowable disclosed higher emission mode with an unallowable, undisclosed, entry condition. In EPA terminology, a defeat device.
  - pedrocr 8y ago
    This gets repeated on every thread on this topic but from what I've read is not true and heavily favors VW. VW was caught actively faking the test results by having the ECU detect it's being tested and change its settings. What every manufacturer has been caught doing is optimzing for the test and not getting the same results in real world conditions. That's a fault of the test and is perfectly legal. The only guilt of the manufacturers is lobbying to not upgrade the test.
- ken 8y ago
  > VAG just got caught first. Sure. Since the VW incident, many cars from several of the big automakers have been found to fail emissions tests. > I wonder if anyone will criticize the regulations instead of shaming auto manufacturers. It's telling that the automakers have chosen to cheat rather than call out the tests for being unrealistic -- or build a slightly less powerful car. By doing so, they forfeit any possible sympathy from me. You don't get to cheat on a test, brag about how you passed, and then if you're discovered, claim that the test was too hard. Too late.
  - nashashmi 8y ago
    > You don't get to cheat on a test, brag about how you passed, and then if you're discovered, claim that the test was too hard. Too late. It is the competition that pushes you to such extremes. If others are doing it, then what is to stop you. Too much regulation and court procedures are preventing others from coming out and blowing the whistle on themselves.
    - stochastic_monk 8y ago
      The point of regulation is so that everyone has to reach the same bar. Breaking the rules to cut costs doesn’t absolve you.
      - nashashmi 8y ago
        And when the regulation fails to regulate for a long period of time, such that all eventually meet the regulation with either a loophole or a crime, it does not make the system any fairer when the axe falls. If the reg's were never put into effect, and companies never given citations, it is institutional failure. And very unfair to all entities who are suddenly scolded at not meeting the criteria. VW presumably started it. Other companies eventually competed. And all of a sudden everyone is now in violation. It is like cheating on a test. One kid starts it. Teacher does not care. Kid does not get scolded. Competition gets intense. Rest of kids start cheating too. The axe falls, sometimes on the dull, slow kid, and then everyone falls in line. But then teacher goes back and sees who else cheated in the past, and the entire class is outed. How is this fair again?
- wlll 8y ago
  > however I wonder if anyone will criticize the regulations instead of shaming auto manufacturers. What's wrong with the regulations? It seems that they're designed to prevent cars from spewing toxic shit into the atmosphere, something that seems to be an admirable goal.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    This mindset is exactly the problem: you’ve judged the regulations on their goal, rather than their effectiveness and how they interact with the industry’s incentives.
    - wlll 8y ago
      Well what do you suggest then? I mean, the current regulations seem to have caught a number of car manufacturers faking test data and presumably they will be punished. I think we can agree that the goal is to reduce dangerous emissions, but if we're not going to have regulations that state a limit and perhaps a penalty for abuse, then how?
      - Klathmon 8y ago
        The worry is that they start to become impossible (or at least impossible without massively increasing the cost and complexity of the system). So "cheating" starts to look more and more worth the risk. Granted, I don't think we are quite at that point yet, and don't take this to be implying that we should not have environmental regulations here, just that we need real information about what's possible and how, and there needs to be a 2 way conversation with the manufacturers to evolve the regs with what's possible.
        wlll 8y ago
        > The worry is that they start to become impossible (or at least impossible without massively increasing the cost and complexity of the system). That's not really a worry. Governments are well aware that people need cars that they can afford. Governments are ultimately elected by the people, and messing around with transport makes you unpopular (the recent backlash at the possibility that fuel duty will be unfrozen in the UK is an example).
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  This incident only related to cars sold in Japan. The VW scandal was different.
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  In the auto industry its generally understood that the emissions limits are so low, especially for diesel, that its physically impossible to meet them in some situations like cold engine + cold weather and when driving up grade. Emissions regulations have made great progress in cleaning up auto emissions, but now politicians keep squeezing the numbers without realizing some of the limits are becoming impossible. So everyone starts cheating, because otherwise we would have no combustion powered cars. Insane irony is that ships and even some buildings burn horrifically impure "bunker fuel" or wood, and with car emission limits so low these sources are the vast majority of harmful emissions. Its like cities in Cali forcing citizens to make drastic changes to conserve water, when over 90% is used by farmers.
  - wlll 8y ago
    > especially for diesel There's another way of looking at this, and that's that maybe diesel just isn't clean enough for consumer cars?
    - bloomthrowaway 8y ago
      maybe, but its cleaner in other ways. It burns hotter and more efficiently, creating less CO2 and some other byproducts by a decent margin. It produces more SO due to fuel sulfur content, and more NOX which is produced because of high temperatures. So its a trade-off. But at this point the limits are just politicians pulling levers. There's not enough science involved to debate which pollutants we care about and what the lowest realistic limits are.
  - cryoshon 8y ago
    >Its like cities in Cali forcing citizens to make drastic changes to conserve water, when over 90% is used by farmers yes, this is a common process by which private costs are offloaded onto the public so as to increase the private benefits of exploitation of public goods. it's legalized theft.
  - mikelward 8y ago
    Forbes says that it would have cost an extra $430 per vehicle for VW to meet the NOx requirements fairly. That's hardly the same as regulations resulting in no combustion-powered cars. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lianeyvkoff/2015/09/28/all-to-save-e300-per-volkswagen-jetta/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/lianeyvkoff/2015/09/28/all-to-s...
- taf2 8y ago
  I think it's great that they're falling on their faces... Hopefully it locks them into only 1 solution - all electric zero. Pumping gas sucks. Smelling gas sucks. Hearing gas burn sucks. Gas cars suck.
  - phikai 8y ago
    That's the answer... shift the emissions burden to power companies and battery disposal companies! But I'll feel good driving my "zero environmental impact" electric car around!
    - function_seven 8y ago
      I think you meant this as snark, but I agree with it non-ironically. Shifting the emissions burden to centralized power plants makes later reductions simpler to achieve as power generation migrates to cleaner technologies. It's easier to determine how dirty the energy is when it's being generated at N places rather than 1e6(N) places. Emissions per watt decrease as new solar/wind capacity is added to the grid. You have full control over your energy source with an electric car (i.e. you can switch to solar now if you'd like and charge from that).
    - lagadu 8y ago
      Actually yes, despite your tone. It's significantly easier to control emissions and implement emission control systems at the production side because economies of scale means that for the same cost of making $number of cars cleaner you can make 1 power plant significantly cleaner using far more expensive technologies and still be more cost efficient.
  - bsagdiyev 8y ago
    That is a ridiculous solution. Batteries are far from clean, what do you propose we do for disposal of these batteries? What about the environmental and human cost to greatly increasing production of materials required? All electric isn't the utopia people make it out to be.
    - 8y ago
- csours 8y ago
  VAG cheated for years, got caught, then lied to regulators for a year, then got caught in the lie. That's how you REALLY piss off regulators (or law enforcement in general). Also, yes, regulations should be better matched to real world performance.
- Reason077 8y ago
  "everyone is cheating, VAG just got caught first." Everyone was cheating in Europe, because European emissions rules were/are weak and you could get away with a defeat device provided it was for "engine protection". The difference with VW was that they tried to pull the same thing in the USA, which had much stronger rules and a clear prohibition against defeat devices.
bsparker 8y ago
Pay wall. Anyone have a link to a cached version?
- dmvinson 8y ago
  Best service for paywalled articles from my experience https://outline.com/TF7GJv https://outline.com/TF7GJv
  - bsparker 8y ago
    Thanks!
  - ibdf 8y ago
    Thanks! But how does one know the url?
    - rando444 8y ago
      You go to the main website and plug in the paywalled URL. The person you are responding to is just saving others that step.
      - ibdf 8y ago
        oh.. I see.. outline bypasses the paywall because it strips all of the code away. I thought someone had to have access to the page without paywall first.
      - ableal 8y ago
        I went back up top, clicked on the example button, and it yielded https://outline.com/6ps979 https://outline.com/6ps979 "The Fasinatng… Fascinating History of Autocorrect" (From Wired in 2014, totally off-topic, but with a few amusing illustrations in case you need cheering up from the sadness here.)
    - dredmorbius 8y ago
      Prefix "outline.com/" to the URL.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dmvinson 8y ago
How rigorous are Japan's laws/punishments expected to be for this? Relative to the Volkswagen emissions scandal which, correct me if I'm wrong, led to decently harsh punishments for those involved at the top level.
- sleepychu 8y ago
  > Nissan said all of the affected vehicles met Japanese auto standards. The data alterations were made by staff to meet Nissan’s own stricter internal standards, it said. Seems unlikely that there will be any criminal liability unless Nissan wants to sue it's own employees.
baby 8y ago
I flagged the post.
- r3bl 8y ago
  From the FAQ: > Are paywalls ok? > It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. > In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic.
  - baby 8y ago
    If enough people flag these, then it becomes "not OK"
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - pvg 8y ago
      Misusing flagging and advocating for others to misuse flagging is already not OK.
      - baby 8y ago
        How is this misusing flagging? I believe this kind of page doesn't have its place here.
        pvg 8y ago
        You believe that but the people who run the site believe otherwise and have said so. Flagging is a way you can help them and everyone else moderate the site, not an invitation to engage in a contest of wills over a settled matter. Chances are, if you keep doing it, you'll lose your ability to flag.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
anonu 8y ago
This puts a dark stain on Carlos Ghosn's previously model career. My bet would be that Renault will be outed next with similar falsification of data.
- dopamean 8y ago
  I'm totally not discounting the seriousness of what has been done but I do question how dark of a stain this will ultimately be. Especially if it turns out many other car companies have done the same thing.
  - thinkling 8y ago
    How serious is it? They falsified results for internal testing and the cars still passed regulations.
    - dopamean 8y ago
      I was trying to avoid making a point about the seriousness of it because I don't think I'm in a position to accurately judge that.
- fakepeople 8y ago
  As long as he is in power He will clean things and cover It is a big gane Where always power win They owe the media They feed them what they need Worst then politician They have more power
S_A_P 8y ago
Nissan has gone from being a sought after sports car brand to the second worst manufacturer in Japan. They are lucky that Mitsubishi makes cars in that respect. After Infiniti took the near premium market, Nissan went down market and now makes cars that are sold to subprime buyers en masse. I remember when the early to mid 90s 300zx turbo came out I put that car on a pedestal as a semi attainable near super car. Now they just make commodity crap cars that all look exactly the same. Sad to see this decline.
- Bahamut 8y ago
  FWIW, Infiniti is owned by Nissan.
  - orbitur 8y ago
    The parent is saying Nissan handled segmentation wrong with Infinti.
- RankingMember 8y ago
  I agree except that I don't think they were ever in a different position despite some iconic sports cars; Toyota and Honda have always been on top. Well, maybe there was one change- Subaru got their shit together starting in the early 90s and, at least in my opinion, are definitely preferable to Nissan at this point.
  - hydrox24 8y ago
    But Subaru certainly hold a slightly more luxurious segment of the market than Nissan. Are you talking about raw quality or value for money?
    - RankingMember 8y ago
      I don't see how they're more luxurious considering Infiniti is an arm of Nissan and I consider them to be much more luxury-oriented than Subaru, but I'd say my perception is based on brand strength and perceived quality. Subaru's brand has a bit of a halo over it due to their charitable, environmental, and subversively social efforts (e.g. their gay-friendly ad campaign), as well as the typically less painful dealership experience. Well, all of that, plus, as a car guy, I have some positive fuzzy feelings for them because they finally brought some modern turbo-charged AWD rally cars over to the US at a time when there weren't a lot of interesting fast cars (early 2000s).
searine 8y ago
Can we finally just admit that increased emissions standards are putting lipstick on a pig? ICE vehicles will never be clean energy. We need to be investing more in the transition to EVs and improving electricity generation in general.
- syshum 8y ago
  You believe EV is "clean" even though most electricity is generated by Burning some kind of Hydrocarbon, be it Coal, NatGas etc... Further the current electrical grid can not support a full migration to EV, we can barely support summer time loads in some area with A/C Running, if everyone changed to EV Tomorrow it would completely collapse the electric grid.
  - pofilat 8y ago
    EVs use regional power, including hydro, solar, and wind. A significant improvement over gasoline. EVs charge mostly at night, so the balance out daytime A/C use to produce a more stable power draw.
    - syshum 8y ago
      Something on the order to 10% of my power comes from "renewable" sources in my region. over 50% is still coal here. There is a push to change that, but it comes at the expense if raising electrical rates (which we have some of the lowest as well) and that harms poor people. It is hyperbolic but it is worth considering how many people you are willing to sacrifice today for lowering emissions? Every time you increase energy costs that is increasing costs on the people that least can afford it, they then have to choose between food (which also increases), and heat, or hot water, or Air Conditioning... >>>EVs charge mostly at night That is the use case today, when they make up a low part of the overall fleet... I doubt that will maintain as their percentages increase and people that do not have Salary 9-5 jobs start using EV's
      - floatrock 8y ago
        A "coal-powered car" in the most coal-heavy electrical grids gets the equivalent of 39 MPG in terms of emissions, and that's the worst-case grids around Wisconsin and Illinois/Missouri. Places with high renewable penetration can get >100mpg. https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electric-vehicles-continue-to-get-cleaner https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electri... So the worst case EV's are better than the smallest, most efficient ICE subcompacts. And you can flip the map on that post between 2009 and 2016 numbers. You can see things are getting cleaner. They're getting cleaner because renewables are out-competing dirty coal. Yes, most of it is gas displacing coal (gas is marginally cleaner), but there are cases of renewables/storage outcompeting gas in terms of price. It's not a hidden agenda -- it's pure competitive economics.
Eridrus 8y ago
Does anyone have an estimate on how these scandals would have effected down stream climate/particulate modelling? (I'm not totally sure what emissions were lowered)
neurotech1 8y ago
Non-Paywall archived version: http://archive.is/IoaKQ http://archive.is/IoaKQ
godelski 8y ago
As software engineers/computer people, we have to have ethical standards. If you participate in writing code like the one in the VW case then you are not only complacent but active in fraud. Engineers have a code of ethics. If you were to knowingly build an unsafe bridge then you would be liable for the damage and injuries it caused if/when it failed. This is true even if your boss told you to do it. You not only have a moral/ethical obligation to not build that bridge, but also a legal one. As we write software we need to keep these things also in mind. We are writing things that affect peoples lives. That could kill people. That affect the environment. We need to hold ourselves to the same moral obligations as other engineers. We have a duty to prevent harming people when we write our software. If you have no stand to refuse to do the work then it is your duty to report such actions. First up the chain, and if that is rejected, then to the media. It is also your duty to report it if you have refused and you see it still happening. There are whistleblower rights in place to protect you.
- adamson 8y ago
  Civil engineers also have professional associations and certification boards backing them up in most jurisdictions whereas we do not. We don’t have anything to appeal to when we go to our boss with ethical concerns besides, well, our sense of ethics. If the order has already made it down the chain, that sense is probably not shared.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    FWIW, software engineers do have professional organizations like the IEEE and ACM, whether or not they back members in any significant way. There are also PE licenses although my understanding is that they are being discontinued for software engineering because basically no one was getting them in that field.
    - PeterisP 8y ago
      The thing that matters is not whether professional organizations exist, but whether their acceptance is mandatory. The reason why this works in civil engineering is because the boss or the company cannot overrule the engineer. If the engineer declines to sign off some thingy as acceptable because X, Y and Z must be addressed, then that's it - the company can't proceed until the issues have been resolved; the management can't sign off by themselves, and they can't really even fire the engineer and get someone else to sign off for that because a complaint from the fired engineer about that would result in the process getting an independent review, (assuming the issues are real) the process getting stopped anyway, and the unethical engineer who agreed to sign off despite these flaws losing his/her licence - so that even if not signing gets you fired from one place, it's still the better choice than signing and being unable to ever work in that profession again. "Ethics standards in a profession" mean the standards that the profession imposes on its members even if they and their employer want to violate these standards. Without effective enforcement, however, the whole process would be useless.
danielvf 8y ago
This isn't what you think it is from the headline. This is not a case of Nissan software engineers writing emissions test defeat code. Rather, this is some Nissan factory workers faking internal emissions test results that are done on every completed car. Only about 1,000 cars were affected, and almost all of these cars still met regulatory emissions limits - the targets they were trying to meet were Nissan's stricter internal standards.
- neogodless 8y ago
  > Other than one model still under investigation, Nissan said all of the affected vehicles met Japanese auto standards. The data alterations were made by staff to meet Nissan’s own stricter internal standards, it said. Good catch. This comment should probably be higher, because I don't think the majority is reading the news that way.
  - degenerate 8y ago
    > I don't think the majority is reading the news that way More like, "I don't think the headlines are written to portray the news that way" I put the blame, always, on sensationalist clickbait headlines from dishonest news organizations. They are competing for your attention and clicks, so the headline is often flat out wrong.
    - windows_tips 8y ago
      What's the sensationalism? Nissan was producing out-of-spec cars due to falsified data, no?
      - vorpalhex 8y ago
        When I read the headline, it seemed to me that Nissan was falsifying data to meet Government/mandated emissions tests and was caught. In reality, Nissan's internal workers were caught falsifying an internal test. That might seem like a small point but it's quite an important difference - the difference between a live malicious data breach and an internal audit failing.
fixermark 8y ago
So at what point do we stop trusting auto manufacturers to run these calculations and start mandating it be done by third-parties with different incentive structures?
erikb 8y ago
At one point we need to ask if the emission requirements are realistic, if everybody is cheating on them.
onetimemanytime 8y ago
question: is it even possible to meet the emission standards and still have a decent /affordable car? Once one fakes, the others have two options, one of them is joining them. At least the DOJ now just has to change the names from VW filings
- intopieces 8y ago
  Hybrids, plug-ins and full electrics are not new, not expensive, are more reliable, and meet all emissions standards.
calimac 8y ago
how much of this foul play is partially attributed to the absolutely insane 54.4 mpg fleet average? How the hell were auto makers going to achieve this insane requirement in less than a decade? The players like VW and Nissan and GM played the game of plug in hybrid to change the formula of MPG by calculating in the battery daily usage into the overall mpg. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/28/obama-administration-finalizes-historic-545-mpg-fuel-efficiency-standard https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/0... Trump rolled it back to the relief of every auto manufacturer. by the way all of the auto manufacturers invested billions into America 2017-2020. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2018/04/02/epa-roll-back-auto-fuel-economy-rules/33485969/ https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2018/04/02/...
jimnotgym 8y ago
Who is next in the emmisions scandal? Ford? GM? Tesla?
- xutopia 8y ago
  The tests are especially made for ICE cars. Tesla is electric.
easytiger 8y ago
Odd isn't it that no american companies are being dragged through hell for this.
jacquesm 8y ago
Just for some perspective: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/us/glider-trucks-loophole-pruitt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/us/glider-trucks-loophole... Reading that it looks to me as if VW should ask for their money back. The double standard and hypocrisy incredible. "One year’s worth of truck sales was estimated to release 13 times as much nitrogen oxide as all of the Volkswagen diesel cars with fraudulent emissions controls, a scheme that resulted in a criminal case against the company and more than $4 billion in fines."
iandanforth 8y ago
That's it, I'm returning my LEAF.
feefie 8y ago
Articles like these just makes this wikipedia page even more exciting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_banning_fossil_fuel_vehicles#List_of_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_banning_foss... Are you thinking Norway hitting 2025 is unrealistic being only 7 years away? A video from last year states electric car sales there are already near 30% of new car sales: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSjYra7cYqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSjYra7cYqY
eulers__number 8y ago
good
known 8y ago
Isn't it possible to detect this fraud by measuring external emissions?

665 points by blawson 8y ago

fein 8y ago

The general assumption at the time when VW was put under a microscope for these issues is that everyone is cheating, VAG just got caught first. What stinks seems to be the way the regulations are being implemented moreso than what sort of detours the manufacturers can take to avoid them. I won't be surprised when we see more auto makers added to the list, however I wonder if anyone will criticize the regulations instead of shaming auto manufacturers. Here's a non paywalled BBC article: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44763905 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44763905

hervature 8y ago
Completely agree that what is lacking here is the regulations. I have tried to argue (often unsuccessfully) that VW did not commit fraud, that the numbers reported by the tests were 100% accurate. The problem being that the way the car is tested is not even remotely similar to how people drive. The clear fix to me is to simply give normal people free leases for a short period of time and generate something similar to http://www.fuelly.com/ http://www.fuelly.com/ . The only way to cheat that is to convince people to drive more efficiently, seems like a win.
- devy 8y ago
  Without knowing the general driving population's driving habits, it's difficult to estimate how effective driving will improve fuel efficiency and/or reduce pollution. Sure there are known bad driving habits like sudden accerlation/sudden stops will increase fuel consumption, but what about road sign design, speed limits, traffic light designs and Electronic Toll Collection systems? Those are all factors of fuel efficiency. Also, the government regulation on emission is going to get tighter and tighter due to incentives to push for EV adoption. So arguing emission test method is a moot point.
- wildebaard 8y ago
  How is embedding software that changes the way the engine behaves during tests versus during actual usage not fraud? The numbers may have been accurate _for an engine with the 'limit emissions' mode enabled_ but it's still fraudulent if you do not make that explicitly clear.
  - pofilat 8y ago
    If you use the car the way tests use the car, the performance will be the same. The trick is you can't complete your daily driving needs by driving the way the test does.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      The intent was to cheat the tests by secretly tailoring the behavior to the tests, even though they knew that real-world driving would be different and that the tests are supposed to indicate real-world emissions. Intent matters. You can’t set out to cheat a test, succeed, and then say that it’s legal because you succeeded, any more than you can steal from a store by hiding an item under your coat and then say that it’s legal because you disguised it well enough to fool the guard.
    - wlll 8y ago
      The only way to drive in a way that would have replicated the results of the VAG tests would be to not touch the steering wheel. At all. For VAG this wasn't a case of the test not being quite the same as regular driving, it was VAG deliberately detecting a tests and altering the way the engine worked to avoid failing.
    - Siecje 8y ago
      If you turned the steering wheel the test would fail, you can't drive without turning the steering wheel.
      - hwillis 8y ago
        It would also turn off if the back wheels were spinning.
- SilasX 8y ago
  Regulations are obeyed and enforced by humans. There’s a general expectation that common sense is applied, which is hard to define but “you know it when you see it”. “The engine will fundamentally perform differently when you’re testing it because it will detect the test” is not common sense and is not a reasonable interpretation of how to comply with the rules. I agree that a better method would be to attack sensors to a random (and ideally, concealed from OEM) sample of cars and charge automakers per unit of detected emissions. That would force them to optimize for real world driving, which is much harder to game.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Emissions tests are different from fuel efficiency tests, and in fact are often at odds with each other. A more efficient car doesn’t necessarily have better emissions, and there’s no easy way for a typical driver to measure their emissions.
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    NOx emissions specifically are a problem because the engines are run very efficiently at high burning temperatures with complete combustion.
  - hervature 8y ago
    Thank you for the extra insight, I may have had the wrong conclusion but I think the logic still follows. From this system I outlined, the manufacturers would be forced to alter designs to get the desired emissions during normal driving conditions. This is the whole spirit of the regulation right?
    - mikeash 8y ago
      My point is that the system you outline doesn’t work, because ordinary drivers can’t check their own emissions. It would be fine for fuel consumption since that’s easily measured, but emissions requires special equipment and careful testing.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- acranox 8y ago
  The VW stuff wasn't simply about fuel efficiency it was about emissions output. I think this was the video where a guy basically reverse engineered the system. (Starts around 40m in) https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7331-the_exhaust_emissions_scandal_dieselgate#video https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7331-the_exhaust_emissions_scand... I'd encourage you to watch that, and still see if you say that it wasn't fraud. VM gamed the test in order to produce results that were not achievable by consumers, with the intent to deceive people.
  - hervature 8y ago
    I will watch that video later and get back to you. I understand what they did. I'm not saying that what they did was right, simply that it wasn't fraud. My point being that if the test is already deceptive for true vehicle emissions (laboratory settings, very particular configurations, etc.) then the test itself is the problem. If we flip the script and say that a car fails the emissions testing but is in reality the cleanest car, is it not "fraudulent" to label this car as dirty?
    - acranox 8y ago
      Intent matters. Your example of flipping the script would only be comparable if the manufacturer engineered the car to fail the test. VW built their car to produce a specific test result to get buyers to buy the car. It fits the description at the link below all too perfectly. https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Fraud https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Fraud
wuliwong 8y ago
Do you have any links to something I could read about the way the regulations are being implemented? It is relevant to my interests.
jartelt 8y ago
I am all for shaming the auto manufacturers that get caught cheating. The regulations are aimed at reducing pollution and I think that is a good thing!
- duckerude 8y ago
  The regulations might have a good aim, but when everybody is violating them it's probably safe to say something is wrong with them. I don't know if the problem is in the content or in the enforcement, but it exists. I don't think criticism of regulations should replace shaming of auto manufacturers, but it might be more effective.
- amarant 8y ago
  it's not about what the regulations AIM to do, it's what they achieve, and also if they could feasibly achieve something closer to their aim, which is what was suggested. that's to say, if emission testing was done differently, maybe we would have caught these cars earlier. Now it seems likely every single non-electric car on the market is polluting more than advertised/allowed, which begs the question if there is a systemic issue here. I tend to agree that there is.
  - ghostly_s 8y ago
    The 'systemic issue' is that conducting lab tests in cooperation with automakers is clearly an inadequate way of enforcing the regulations. That does not imply the regulations are faulty, it implies they need a more robust enforcement methodology.
    - amarant 8y ago
      yes, i see now i formulated that rather poorly. this is what I meant by systemic failure. the regulations themselves are not the issue.
  - eurticket 8y ago
    What if the AIM was to create the incentive for electric cars manufacturing
stephengillie 8y ago
From a recent HN thread[0], it sounds like this issue is present across the auto industry: > One way to reconcile these seemingly contradictory statements is the following. The actual programmer & designer of the software is the supplier of the engine control units (ECUs), in most cases Bosch. The software that they supply actually already contains these cheating routines. These routines are delivered as a part of the software packages, and can be turned on/off with some flags. It is up to the auto company how to set these flags. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286697
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
blattimwind 8y ago
> The general assumption at the time when VW was put under a microscope for these issues is that everyone is cheating, VAG just got caught first. Well, they do. Here's a list of some car manufacturers who do or did emissions cheating: - Volvo - Volkswagen - Renault - Jeep - Hyundai - Honda - Citroen - Fiat - Chrysler - Ford - General Motors - Toyota - Nissan - Mercedes - Mitsubishi (Which pretty much sums up to "all car manufacturers")
- teamhappy 8y ago
  IIRC Mercedes wasn't caught cheating they just got in trouble because they use the same engine control units which contain the routines that make cheating possible.
  - blattimwind 8y ago
    Mercedes was already ordered to recall affected models.
  - Maybestring 8y ago
    Mercedes was entering an allowable disclosed higher emission mode with an unallowable, undisclosed, entry condition. In EPA terminology, a defeat device.
- pedrocr 8y ago
  This gets repeated on every thread on this topic but from what I've read is not true and heavily favors VW. VW was caught actively faking the test results by having the ECU detect it's being tested and change its settings. What every manufacturer has been caught doing is optimzing for the test and not getting the same results in real world conditions. That's a fault of the test and is perfectly legal. The only guilt of the manufacturers is lobbying to not upgrade the test.
ken 8y ago
> VAG just got caught first. Sure. Since the VW incident, many cars from several of the big automakers have been found to fail emissions tests. > I wonder if anyone will criticize the regulations instead of shaming auto manufacturers. It's telling that the automakers have chosen to cheat rather than call out the tests for being unrealistic -- or build a slightly less powerful car. By doing so, they forfeit any possible sympathy from me. You don't get to cheat on a test, brag about how you passed, and then if you're discovered, claim that the test was too hard. Too late.
- nashashmi 8y ago
  > You don't get to cheat on a test, brag about how you passed, and then if you're discovered, claim that the test was too hard. Too late. It is the competition that pushes you to such extremes. If others are doing it, then what is to stop you. Too much regulation and court procedures are preventing others from coming out and blowing the whistle on themselves.
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    The point of regulation is so that everyone has to reach the same bar. Breaking the rules to cut costs doesn’t absolve you.
    - nashashmi 8y ago
      And when the regulation fails to regulate for a long period of time, such that all eventually meet the regulation with either a loophole or a crime, it does not make the system any fairer when the axe falls. If the reg's were never put into effect, and companies never given citations, it is institutional failure. And very unfair to all entities who are suddenly scolded at not meeting the criteria. VW presumably started it. Other companies eventually competed. And all of a sudden everyone is now in violation. It is like cheating on a test. One kid starts it. Teacher does not care. Kid does not get scolded. Competition gets intense. Rest of kids start cheating too. The axe falls, sometimes on the dull, slow kid, and then everyone falls in line. But then teacher goes back and sees who else cheated in the past, and the entire class is outed. How is this fair again?
wlll 8y ago
> however I wonder if anyone will criticize the regulations instead of shaming auto manufacturers. What's wrong with the regulations? It seems that they're designed to prevent cars from spewing toxic shit into the atmosphere, something that seems to be an admirable goal.
- closeparen 8y ago
  This mindset is exactly the problem: you’ve judged the regulations on their goal, rather than their effectiveness and how they interact with the industry’s incentives.
  - wlll 8y ago
    Well what do you suggest then? I mean, the current regulations seem to have caught a number of car manufacturers faking test data and presumably they will be punished. I think we can agree that the goal is to reduce dangerous emissions, but if we're not going to have regulations that state a limit and perhaps a penalty for abuse, then how?
    - Klathmon 8y ago
      The worry is that they start to become impossible (or at least impossible without massively increasing the cost and complexity of the system). So "cheating" starts to look more and more worth the risk. Granted, I don't think we are quite at that point yet, and don't take this to be implying that we should not have environmental regulations here, just that we need real information about what's possible and how, and there needs to be a 2 way conversation with the manufacturers to evolve the regs with what's possible.
      - wlll 8y ago
        > The worry is that they start to become impossible (or at least impossible without massively increasing the cost and complexity of the system). That's not really a worry. Governments are well aware that people need cars that they can afford. Governments are ultimately elected by the people, and messing around with transport makes you unpopular (the recent backlash at the possibility that fuel duty will be unfrozen in the UK is an example).
lawnchair_larry 8y ago
This incident only related to cars sold in Japan. The VW scandal was different.
bloomthrowaway 8y ago
In the auto industry its generally understood that the emissions limits are so low, especially for diesel, that its physically impossible to meet them in some situations like cold engine + cold weather and when driving up grade. Emissions regulations have made great progress in cleaning up auto emissions, but now politicians keep squeezing the numbers without realizing some of the limits are becoming impossible. So everyone starts cheating, because otherwise we would have no combustion powered cars. Insane irony is that ships and even some buildings burn horrifically impure "bunker fuel" or wood, and with car emission limits so low these sources are the vast majority of harmful emissions. Its like cities in Cali forcing citizens to make drastic changes to conserve water, when over 90% is used by farmers.
- wlll 8y ago
  > especially for diesel There's another way of looking at this, and that's that maybe diesel just isn't clean enough for consumer cars?
  - bloomthrowaway 8y ago
    maybe, but its cleaner in other ways. It burns hotter and more efficiently, creating less CO2 and some other byproducts by a decent margin. It produces more SO due to fuel sulfur content, and more NOX which is produced because of high temperatures. So its a trade-off. But at this point the limits are just politicians pulling levers. There's not enough science involved to debate which pollutants we care about and what the lowest realistic limits are.
- cryoshon 8y ago
  >Its like cities in Cali forcing citizens to make drastic changes to conserve water, when over 90% is used by farmers yes, this is a common process by which private costs are offloaded onto the public so as to increase the private benefits of exploitation of public goods. it's legalized theft.
- mikelward 8y ago
  Forbes says that it would have cost an extra $430 per vehicle for VW to meet the NOx requirements fairly. That's hardly the same as regulations resulting in no combustion-powered cars. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lianeyvkoff/2015/09/28/all-to-save-e300-per-volkswagen-jetta/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/lianeyvkoff/2015/09/28/all-to-s...
taf2 8y ago
I think it's great that they're falling on their faces... Hopefully it locks them into only 1 solution - all electric zero. Pumping gas sucks. Smelling gas sucks. Hearing gas burn sucks. Gas cars suck.
- phikai 8y ago
  That's the answer... shift the emissions burden to power companies and battery disposal companies! But I'll feel good driving my "zero environmental impact" electric car around!
  - function_seven 8y ago
    I think you meant this as snark, but I agree with it non-ironically. Shifting the emissions burden to centralized power plants makes later reductions simpler to achieve as power generation migrates to cleaner technologies. It's easier to determine how dirty the energy is when it's being generated at N places rather than 1e6(N) places. Emissions per watt decrease as new solar/wind capacity is added to the grid. You have full control over your energy source with an electric car (i.e. you can switch to solar now if you'd like and charge from that).
  - lagadu 8y ago
    Actually yes, despite your tone. It's significantly easier to control emissions and implement emission control systems at the production side because economies of scale means that for the same cost of making $number of cars cleaner you can make 1 power plant significantly cleaner using far more expensive technologies and still be more cost efficient.
- bsagdiyev 8y ago
  That is a ridiculous solution. Batteries are far from clean, what do you propose we do for disposal of these batteries? What about the environmental and human cost to greatly increasing production of materials required? All electric isn't the utopia people make it out to be.
  - 8y ago
csours 8y ago
VAG cheated for years, got caught, then lied to regulators for a year, then got caught in the lie. That's how you REALLY piss off regulators (or law enforcement in general). Also, yes, regulations should be better matched to real world performance.
Reason077 8y ago
"everyone is cheating, VAG just got caught first." Everyone was cheating in Europe, because European emissions rules were/are weak and you could get away with a defeat device provided it was for "engine protection". The difference with VW was that they tried to pull the same thing in the USA, which had much stronger rules and a clear prohibition against defeat devices.

bsparker 8y ago

Pay wall. Anyone have a link to a cached version?

dmvinson 8y ago
Best service for paywalled articles from my experience https://outline.com/TF7GJv https://outline.com/TF7GJv
- bsparker 8y ago
  Thanks!
- ibdf 8y ago
  Thanks! But how does one know the url?
  - rando444 8y ago
    You go to the main website and plug in the paywalled URL. The person you are responding to is just saving others that step.
    - ibdf 8y ago
      oh.. I see.. outline bypasses the paywall because it strips all of the code away. I thought someone had to have access to the page without paywall first.
    - ableal 8y ago
      I went back up top, clicked on the example button, and it yielded https://outline.com/6ps979 https://outline.com/6ps979 "The Fasinatng… Fascinating History of Autocorrect" (From Wired in 2014, totally off-topic, but with a few amusing illustrations in case you need cheering up from the sadness here.)
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    Prefix "outline.com/" to the URL.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dmvinson 8y ago

How rigorous are Japan's laws/punishments expected to be for this? Relative to the Volkswagen emissions scandal which, correct me if I'm wrong, led to decently harsh punishments for those involved at the top level.

sleepychu 8y ago
> Nissan said all of the affected vehicles met Japanese auto standards. The data alterations were made by staff to meet Nissan’s own stricter internal standards, it said. Seems unlikely that there will be any criminal liability unless Nissan wants to sue it's own employees.

baby 8y ago

I flagged the post.

r3bl 8y ago
From the FAQ: > Are paywalls ok? > It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. > In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic.
- baby 8y ago
  If enough people flag these, then it becomes "not OK"
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - pvg 8y ago
    Misusing flagging and advocating for others to misuse flagging is already not OK.
    - baby 8y ago
      How is this misusing flagging? I believe this kind of page doesn't have its place here.
      - pvg 8y ago
        You believe that but the people who run the site believe otherwise and have said so. Flagging is a way you can help them and everyone else moderate the site, not an invitation to engage in a contest of wills over a settled matter. Chances are, if you keep doing it, you'll lose your ability to flag.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]

anonu 8y ago

This puts a dark stain on Carlos Ghosn's previously model career. My bet would be that Renault will be outed next with similar falsification of data.

dopamean 8y ago
I'm totally not discounting the seriousness of what has been done but I do question how dark of a stain this will ultimately be. Especially if it turns out many other car companies have done the same thing.
- thinkling 8y ago
  How serious is it? They falsified results for internal testing and the cars still passed regulations.
  - dopamean 8y ago
    I was trying to avoid making a point about the seriousness of it because I don't think I'm in a position to accurately judge that.
fakepeople 8y ago
As long as he is in power He will clean things and cover It is a big gane Where always power win They owe the media They feed them what they need Worst then politician They have more power

S_A_P 8y ago

Nissan has gone from being a sought after sports car brand to the second worst manufacturer in Japan. They are lucky that Mitsubishi makes cars in that respect. After Infiniti took the near premium market, Nissan went down market and now makes cars that are sold to subprime buyers en masse. I remember when the early to mid 90s 300zx turbo came out I put that car on a pedestal as a semi attainable near super car. Now they just make commodity crap cars that all look exactly the same. Sad to see this decline.

Bahamut 8y ago
FWIW, Infiniti is owned by Nissan.
- orbitur 8y ago
  The parent is saying Nissan handled segmentation wrong with Infinti.
RankingMember 8y ago
I agree except that I don't think they were ever in a different position despite some iconic sports cars; Toyota and Honda have always been on top. Well, maybe there was one change- Subaru got their shit together starting in the early 90s and, at least in my opinion, are definitely preferable to Nissan at this point.
- hydrox24 8y ago
  But Subaru certainly hold a slightly more luxurious segment of the market than Nissan. Are you talking about raw quality or value for money?
  - RankingMember 8y ago
    I don't see how they're more luxurious considering Infiniti is an arm of Nissan and I consider them to be much more luxury-oriented than Subaru, but I'd say my perception is based on brand strength and perceived quality. Subaru's brand has a bit of a halo over it due to their charitable, environmental, and subversively social efforts (e.g. their gay-friendly ad campaign), as well as the typically less painful dealership experience. Well, all of that, plus, as a car guy, I have some positive fuzzy feelings for them because they finally brought some modern turbo-charged AWD rally cars over to the US at a time when there weren't a lot of interesting fast cars (early 2000s).

searine 8y ago

Can we finally just admit that increased emissions standards are putting lipstick on a pig? ICE vehicles will never be clean energy. We need to be investing more in the transition to EVs and improving electricity generation in general.

syshum 8y ago
You believe EV is "clean" even though most electricity is generated by Burning some kind of Hydrocarbon, be it Coal, NatGas etc... Further the current electrical grid can not support a full migration to EV, we can barely support summer time loads in some area with A/C Running, if everyone changed to EV Tomorrow it would completely collapse the electric grid.
- pofilat 8y ago
  EVs use regional power, including hydro, solar, and wind. A significant improvement over gasoline. EVs charge mostly at night, so the balance out daytime A/C use to produce a more stable power draw.
  - syshum 8y ago
    Something on the order to 10% of my power comes from "renewable" sources in my region. over 50% is still coal here. There is a push to change that, but it comes at the expense if raising electrical rates (which we have some of the lowest as well) and that harms poor people. It is hyperbolic but it is worth considering how many people you are willing to sacrifice today for lowering emissions? Every time you increase energy costs that is increasing costs on the people that least can afford it, they then have to choose between food (which also increases), and heat, or hot water, or Air Conditioning... >>>EVs charge mostly at night That is the use case today, when they make up a low part of the overall fleet... I doubt that will maintain as their percentages increase and people that do not have Salary 9-5 jobs start using EV's
    - floatrock 8y ago
      A "coal-powered car" in the most coal-heavy electrical grids gets the equivalent of 39 MPG in terms of emissions, and that's the worst-case grids around Wisconsin and Illinois/Missouri. Places with high renewable penetration can get >100mpg. https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electric-vehicles-continue-to-get-cleaner https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electri... So the worst case EV's are better than the smallest, most efficient ICE subcompacts. And you can flip the map on that post between 2009 and 2016 numbers. You can see things are getting cleaner. They're getting cleaner because renewables are out-competing dirty coal. Yes, most of it is gas displacing coal (gas is marginally cleaner), but there are cases of renewables/storage outcompeting gas in terms of price. It's not a hidden agenda -- it's pure competitive economics.

Eridrus 8y ago

Does anyone have an estimate on how these scandals would have effected down stream climate/particulate modelling? (I'm not totally sure what emissions were lowered)

neurotech1 8y ago

Non-Paywall archived version: http://archive.is/IoaKQ http://archive.is/IoaKQ

godelski 8y ago

As software engineers/computer people, we have to have ethical standards. If you participate in writing code like the one in the VW case then you are not only complacent but active in fraud. Engineers have a code of ethics. If you were to knowingly build an unsafe bridge then you would be liable for the damage and injuries it caused if/when it failed. This is true even if your boss told you to do it. You not only have a moral/ethical obligation to not build that bridge, but also a legal one. As we write software we need to keep these things also in mind. We are writing things that affect peoples lives. That could kill people. That affect the environment. We need to hold ourselves to the same moral obligations as other engineers. We have a duty to prevent harming people when we write our software. If you have no stand to refuse to do the work then it is your duty to report such actions. First up the chain, and if that is rejected, then to the media. It is also your duty to report it if you have refused and you see it still happening. There are whistleblower rights in place to protect you.

adamson 8y ago
Civil engineers also have professional associations and certification boards backing them up in most jurisdictions whereas we do not. We don’t have anything to appeal to when we go to our boss with ethical concerns besides, well, our sense of ethics. If the order has already made it down the chain, that sense is probably not shared.
- ghaff 8y ago
  FWIW, software engineers do have professional organizations like the IEEE and ACM, whether or not they back members in any significant way. There are also PE licenses although my understanding is that they are being discontinued for software engineering because basically no one was getting them in that field.
  - PeterisP 8y ago
    The thing that matters is not whether professional organizations exist, but whether their acceptance is mandatory. The reason why this works in civil engineering is because the boss or the company cannot overrule the engineer. If the engineer declines to sign off some thingy as acceptable because X, Y and Z must be addressed, then that's it - the company can't proceed until the issues have been resolved; the management can't sign off by themselves, and they can't really even fire the engineer and get someone else to sign off for that because a complaint from the fired engineer about that would result in the process getting an independent review, (assuming the issues are real) the process getting stopped anyway, and the unethical engineer who agreed to sign off despite these flaws losing his/her licence - so that even if not signing gets you fired from one place, it's still the better choice than signing and being unable to ever work in that profession again. "Ethics standards in a profession" mean the standards that the profession imposes on its members even if they and their employer want to violate these standards. Without effective enforcement, however, the whole process would be useless.

danielvf 8y ago

This isn't what you think it is from the headline. This is not a case of Nissan software engineers writing emissions test defeat code. Rather, this is some Nissan factory workers faking internal emissions test results that are done on every completed car. Only about 1,000 cars were affected, and almost all of these cars still met regulatory emissions limits - the targets they were trying to meet were Nissan's stricter internal standards.

neogodless 8y ago
> Other than one model still under investigation, Nissan said all of the affected vehicles met Japanese auto standards. The data alterations were made by staff to meet Nissan’s own stricter internal standards, it said. Good catch. This comment should probably be higher, because I don't think the majority is reading the news that way.
- degenerate 8y ago
  > I don't think the majority is reading the news that way More like, "I don't think the headlines are written to portray the news that way" I put the blame, always, on sensationalist clickbait headlines from dishonest news organizations. They are competing for your attention and clicks, so the headline is often flat out wrong.
  - windows_tips 8y ago
    What's the sensationalism? Nissan was producing out-of-spec cars due to falsified data, no?
    - vorpalhex 8y ago
      When I read the headline, it seemed to me that Nissan was falsifying data to meet Government/mandated emissions tests and was caught. In reality, Nissan's internal workers were caught falsifying an internal test. That might seem like a small point but it's quite an important difference - the difference between a live malicious data breach and an internal audit failing.

fixermark 8y ago

So at what point do we stop trusting auto manufacturers to run these calculations and start mandating it be done by third-parties with different incentive structures?

erikb 8y ago

At one point we need to ask if the emission requirements are realistic, if everybody is cheating on them.

onetimemanytime 8y ago

question: is it even possible to meet the emission standards and still have a decent /affordable car? Once one fakes, the others have two options, one of them is joining them. At least the DOJ now just has to change the names from VW filings

intopieces 8y ago
Hybrids, plug-ins and full electrics are not new, not expensive, are more reliable, and meet all emissions standards.

calimac 8y ago

how much of this foul play is partially attributed to the absolutely insane 54.4 mpg fleet average? How the hell were auto makers going to achieve this insane requirement in less than a decade? The players like VW and Nissan and GM played the game of plug in hybrid to change the formula of MPG by calculating in the battery daily usage into the overall mpg. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/28/obama-administration-finalizes-historic-545-mpg-fuel-efficiency-standard https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/0... Trump rolled it back to the relief of every auto manufacturer. by the way all of the auto manufacturers invested billions into America 2017-2020. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2018/04/02/epa-roll-back-auto-fuel-economy-rules/33485969/ https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2018/04/02/...

jimnotgym 8y ago

Who is next in the emmisions scandal? Ford? GM? Tesla?

xutopia 8y ago
The tests are especially made for ICE cars. Tesla is electric.

easytiger 8y ago

Odd isn't it that no american companies are being dragged through hell for this.

jacquesm 8y ago

Just for some perspective: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/us/glider-trucks-loophole-pruitt.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/us/glider-trucks-loophole... Reading that it looks to me as if VW should ask for their money back. The double standard and hypocrisy incredible. "One year’s worth of truck sales was estimated to release 13 times as much nitrogen oxide as all of the Volkswagen diesel cars with fraudulent emissions controls, a scheme that resulted in a criminal case against the company and more than $4 billion in fines."

iandanforth 8y ago

That's it, I'm returning my LEAF.

feefie 8y ago

Articles like these just makes this wikipedia page even more exciting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_banning_fossil_fuel_vehicles#List_of_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_banning_foss... Are you thinking Norway hitting 2025 is unrealistic being only 7 years away? A video from last year states electric car sales there are already near 30% of new car sales: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSjYra7cYqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSjYra7cYqY

eulers__number 8y ago

good

known 8y ago

Isn't it possible to detect this fraud by measuring external emissions?