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My conclusion, from the first time I thought about it, is that they were all cheating. Engineers move job; they talk to each other. Every car company had to ha

My conclusion, from the first time I thought about it, is that they were all cheating. Engineers move job; they talk to each other. Every car company had to have people who knew the truth and, if they were being unfairly competed against, could publish this truth.

close04 8y ago
Correct. Every single manufacturer in the industry knows what the others are doing. They all buy each other's vehicles and tear them down to the last bolt and bit to see how they work and how they can "borrow" some ideas without infringing on any patent (or breaking the law maybe). They were all aware of what VW was doing and it wasn't a surprise, lots of companies did it [0] a lot of times [1]. Usually though the penalties were light. Many times they involved US companies and the strong local lobby pushed for the lighter fines. Like the heavy duty diesel engines case where 7 truck manufacturers were ordered to pay $1bn together for doing the exact same thing. Which in the grand scheme of things was peanuts compared to VW's $4.5bn (plus the tens of $bn of extra costs). So the expectation was always "it's just the cost of doing business, pay it and let bygones be bygones". [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/22/us/record-penalty-likely-against-diesel-makers.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/22/us/record-penalty-likely-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal#Previous_defeat_device_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal#Previ...
blattimwind 8y ago
> My conclusion, from the first time I thought about it, is that they were all cheating. Mazda did, in fact, admit to cheating in emissions testing. In other words, yes, pretty much the entire automobile industry cheated on those tests to varying degrees. The current "iteration" was also by far not the only one.
LifeLiverTransp 8y ago
Its even simpler- they send each other prototypes, way before release of a new model, so everyone can reverse engineer that.

close04 8y ago

Correct. Every single manufacturer in the industry knows what the others are doing. They all buy each other's vehicles and tear them down to the last bolt and bit to see how they work and how they can "borrow" some ideas without infringing on any patent (or breaking the law maybe). They were all aware of what VW was doing and it wasn't a surprise, lots of companies did it [0] a lot of times [1]. Usually though the penalties were light. Many times they involved US companies and the strong local lobby pushed for the lighter fines. Like the heavy duty diesel engines case where 7 truck manufacturers were ordered to pay $1bn together for doing the exact same thing. Which in the grand scheme of things was peanuts compared to VW's $4.5bn (plus the tens of $bn of extra costs). So the expectation was always "it's just the cost of doing business, pay it and let bygones be bygones". [0] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/22/us/record-penalty-likely-against-diesel-makers.html https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/22/us/record-penalty-likely-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal#Previous_defeat_device_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal#Previ...

blattimwind 8y ago

> My conclusion, from the first time I thought about it, is that they were all cheating. Mazda did, in fact, admit to cheating in emissions testing. In other words, yes, pretty much the entire automobile industry cheated on those tests to varying degrees. The current "iteration" was also by far not the only one.

LifeLiverTransp 8y ago

Its even simpler- they send each other prototypes, way before release of a new model, so everyone can reverse engineer that.