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" Schmied responded that as long as emissions went down when limits were tightened, his department didn’t mind they were many times higher than allowed." Some

by makomk 8y ago

" Schmied responded that as long as emissions went down when limits were tightened, his department didn’t mind they were many times higher than allowed." Some context for this: the official European test cycle was known not to be representative of real driving conditions. Because it was less aggressive than real-world driving, it pretty much always overstated fuel efficiency and understated emissions. So real-world emissions not going down at the same rate as tested emissions is a sign of foul play, but them being higher isn't necessarily. (The US test cycle is better.)

mirimir 8y ago
Sure, but don't the laws limit emissions? Irrespective of how well standard government tests were measuring those emissions? So "We publish this data" just sounds like "I'm doing my job. Anything more is not my problem."
- makomk 8y ago
  The laws limited emissions in the standard government test cycle, and the thresholds on emissions were chosen based on how well cars could be made to perform in those test cycles. While actual defeat devices were illegal, the legal emissions limit wasn't actually the real-world emissions limit and everyone knew it. (The EU is now gradually moving to real-world emissions testing and a more realistic test cycle, though judging from the other reply they might have some cheating problems with that - especially as real-world testing inherently has wider errors than lab testing.)
rurban 8y ago
> The US test cycle is better. Then you never heard about the US test cycle cheating scandal. It's not better, it's actually simplier to cheat. The US test cycle is tailored to a more realistic city environment with a lot of stop's and go's, cold starts, and requires an actual professional driver. No automation. These drivers learned soo much how to cheat the system, that they were in high demand and they were all held exclusively by the US car industry, so Asian and European companies were at disadvantage. That's why the Asian industry agreed to use the European test cycles and not the more realistic US system. It was too expensive and too easily tricked. The European standard was cheaper and fairer (those times). Until they found a way to trick it also.

by makomk 8y ago

mirimir 8y ago

Sure, but don't the laws limit emissions? Irrespective of how well standard government tests were measuring those emissions? So "We publish this data" just sounds like "I'm doing my job. Anything more is not my problem."

makomk 8y ago
The laws limited emissions in the standard government test cycle, and the thresholds on emissions were chosen based on how well cars could be made to perform in those test cycles. While actual defeat devices were illegal, the legal emissions limit wasn't actually the real-world emissions limit and everyone knew it. (The EU is now gradually moving to real-world emissions testing and a more realistic test cycle, though judging from the other reply they might have some cheating problems with that - especially as real-world testing inherently has wider errors than lab testing.)

rurban 8y ago

> The US test cycle is better. Then you never heard about the US test cycle cheating scandal. It's not better, it's actually simplier to cheat. The US test cycle is tailored to a more realistic city environment with a lot of stop's and go's, cold starts, and requires an actual professional driver. No automation. These drivers learned soo much how to cheat the system, that they were in high demand and they were all held exclusively by the US car industry, so Asian and European companies were at disadvantage. That's why the Asian industry agreed to use the European test cycles and not the more realistic US system. It was too expensive and too easily tricked. The European standard was cheaper and fairer (those times). Until they found a way to trick it also.