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VW actively detected if the car was on a treadmill testing setup and electronically changed the engine parameters to make it run cleaner. The water heater was

VW actively detected if the car was on a treadmill testing setup and electronically changed the engine parameters to make it run cleaner. The water heater was designed with the test in mind but functions the same regardless. VW was clearly cheating whereas the water heater is taking advantage of known deficiencies in the test (is that cheating?).

ivanbakel 6y ago
What was more heinous about the VW case IIRC is that the cleanliness gains the cars made on the treadmill setup were enough to push them into compliance with regulations, which the engines normally didn't meet. "Cheating" a better efficiency rating is significantly less reprehensible than cheating a legal obligation which was legislated for public health and environmental reasons.
- ebg13 6y ago
  But the efficiency ratings also exist for public health and environmental reasons. Why does it matter to you that one is a mandate? They're both intentionally deceiving regulators and consumers (vs accidentally acing the test without cheating). Both are fraud.
  - ReactiveJelly 6y ago
    One is polluting at the tailpipe, the other is only polluting at a power plant.
  - Bartweiss 6y ago
    I do think that manipulating a purely instructive measure is less extreme than manipulating a compliance test; consumers can seek alternate tests and reviews, but the state emissions test has special status even if a dozen other tests give a different result. That said, I believe Energy Star ratings affect tax rebates and electric bills, and they're required to be printed on products - so that's not really an arbitrary test. There are other differences here too, I think. The water heater trick is passive manipulation that stays in place at all times, which limits how far from "real" performance it can get. And per the story, it seems more like "teaching to the test" than "cheating". That is, Volkswagen consciously moved away from the mandate outside of testing. The water heater was (potentially) as energy-efficient as they could design, with the test score manipulated on top of that. None of that makes it harmless - if "as good as you can make" doesn't hit standards without manipulating them, that's still a problem. But I do find it less galling than "intentionally worsens emissions outside the test bench".
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      The flip side of the water heater test is, you could game the test the other way too. Making your water heater look worse than it is. Would you do that? No. The difference between the water heater and VW is the water heater manufacturer is providing a representative sample. And VW was not. It'd also be dubious to say that the water heater company is acting in bad faith. Where VW's bad faith rose to the level of criminal. On the other hand Volvo appears to be acting in strictly good faith. Bad faith for a crash test would be crafting a silver plate model for testing. Reminds me that's what my uncle said the power supply manufacturer he worked for did.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    The difference is that the water heater test itself was flawed in that it depended on arbitrary design decisions that have nothing to do with efficiency. Two completely innocent manufacturers could build water heaters with the exact same real-world efficiency, but score fairly differently on the efficiency ratings just due to how they're designed. While I agree that this particular water heater manufacturer was doing something shady in order to get the best score, at least they weren't selling a product that did something differently while under test conditions vs. in real-world usage. They merely realized that the test itself had wide error bars, and designed their heater to "err" in the positive side of those. VW, in contrast, sold a product that lied to the testers about its emissions in order to pass certifications, while in real-world driving would behave in a way that would not pass muster. And to me I think that's the key: VW's cars intentionally behaved differently depending on if they were being tested or if they were being driven in normal real-world usage. This water heater behaved the same regardless of whether it was being tested or was heating water in someone's home. In a way I think of this in academic terms. The water heater manufacturer studied the SAT to learn what kind of questions were going to be asked. VW stole the answer key to the test and memorized it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
alistairSH 6y ago
I'm not sure that's an accurate description of VW's cheat. VW knew the parameters of the test (stationary car, no steering input, prescribed throttle inputs, etc). And they configured the car to pass the test. Water-heater engineer knew the parameters of the test (number and location of probes). And he configure the water-heater to pass the test. Same-same. In both cases, an engineering team willfully committed fraud to improve their sales figures. The only differences are a bit pedantic. VW's "configuration" was more elaborate. But, both groups gamed the test.
- amscanne 6y ago
  You might misunderstand what VW did. Apparently it is common for cars to have a "test mode" bit, because they run on a dyno (only one set of wheels spin), and the car may disable certain traction control systems, etc. VW changed the way other systems (the engine itself) function in this mode. So even if everything is exactly the same on the road (e.g. 30mph in a straight line for hours), the car will perform differently and have different emissions. You don't drive around on a dyno. Optimizing for the test may go up to the line, but VW crossed it.
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  One added difference is that the water heater. The intent may be deceptive but they provided what was asked for and what they claimed. It is almost malicious compliance. Dickish gaming and probably worth suing over but not sure if it is criminal fraud per se. It is like the joke about Soviet factory metrics for some item like nails. They set the quota on numbers and got useless ones better described as needles. They wised up a bit and set the quota by weight next month and got one useless massive nail instead. It isn't even too far from the truth given actual management involved things like a train line circularly shipping coal between depots instead of retrieving from source or distributing to end users to boost their "metric tons transported kilometers" metric. VW meanwhile had a covert illegal configuration while claiming mileage and lack of maintenancd urea. The claims are outright false - that it provides all three benefits instead of two of three.
  - viraptor 6y ago

ivanbakel 6y ago

What was more heinous about the VW case IIRC is that the cleanliness gains the cars made on the treadmill setup were enough to push them into compliance with regulations, which the engines normally didn't meet. "Cheating" a better efficiency rating is significantly less reprehensible than cheating a legal obligation which was legislated for public health and environmental reasons.

ebg13 6y ago
But the efficiency ratings also exist for public health and environmental reasons. Why does it matter to you that one is a mandate? They're both intentionally deceiving regulators and consumers (vs accidentally acing the test without cheating). Both are fraud.
- ReactiveJelly 6y ago
  One is polluting at the tailpipe, the other is only polluting at a power plant.
- Bartweiss 6y ago
  I do think that manipulating a purely instructive measure is less extreme than manipulating a compliance test; consumers can seek alternate tests and reviews, but the state emissions test has special status even if a dozen other tests give a different result. That said, I believe Energy Star ratings affect tax rebates and electric bills, and they're required to be printed on products - so that's not really an arbitrary test. There are other differences here too, I think. The water heater trick is passive manipulation that stays in place at all times, which limits how far from "real" performance it can get. And per the story, it seems more like "teaching to the test" than "cheating". That is, Volkswagen consciously moved away from the mandate outside of testing. The water heater was (potentially) as energy-efficient as they could design, with the test score manipulated on top of that. None of that makes it harmless - if "as good as you can make" doesn't hit standards without manipulating them, that's still a problem. But I do find it less galling than "intentionally worsens emissions outside the test bench".
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    The flip side of the water heater test is, you could game the test the other way too. Making your water heater look worse than it is. Would you do that? No. The difference between the water heater and VW is the water heater manufacturer is providing a representative sample. And VW was not. It'd also be dubious to say that the water heater company is acting in bad faith. Where VW's bad faith rose to the level of criminal. On the other hand Volvo appears to be acting in strictly good faith. Bad faith for a crash test would be crafting a silver plate model for testing. Reminds me that's what my uncle said the power supply manufacturer he worked for did.
- kelnos 6y ago
  The difference is that the water heater test itself was flawed in that it depended on arbitrary design decisions that have nothing to do with efficiency. Two completely innocent manufacturers could build water heaters with the exact same real-world efficiency, but score fairly differently on the efficiency ratings just due to how they're designed. While I agree that this particular water heater manufacturer was doing something shady in order to get the best score, at least they weren't selling a product that did something differently while under test conditions vs. in real-world usage. They merely realized that the test itself had wide error bars, and designed their heater to "err" in the positive side of those. VW, in contrast, sold a product that lied to the testers about its emissions in order to pass certifications, while in real-world driving would behave in a way that would not pass muster. And to me I think that's the key: VW's cars intentionally behaved differently depending on if they were being tested or if they were being driven in normal real-world usage. This water heater behaved the same regardless of whether it was being tested or was heating water in someone's home. In a way I think of this in academic terms. The water heater manufacturer studied the SAT to learn what kind of questions were going to be asked. VW stole the answer key to the test and memorized it.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

alistairSH 6y ago

I'm not sure that's an accurate description of VW's cheat. VW knew the parameters of the test (stationary car, no steering input, prescribed throttle inputs, etc). And they configured the car to pass the test. Water-heater engineer knew the parameters of the test (number and location of probes). And he configure the water-heater to pass the test. Same-same. In both cases, an engineering team willfully committed fraud to improve their sales figures. The only differences are a bit pedantic. VW's "configuration" was more elaborate. But, both groups gamed the test.

amscanne 6y ago
You might misunderstand what VW did. Apparently it is common for cars to have a "test mode" bit, because they run on a dyno (only one set of wheels spin), and the car may disable certain traction control systems, etc. VW changed the way other systems (the engine itself) function in this mode. So even if everything is exactly the same on the road (e.g. 30mph in a straight line for hours), the car will perform differently and have different emissions. You don't drive around on a dyno. Optimizing for the test may go up to the line, but VW crossed it.
Nasrudith 6y ago
One added difference is that the water heater. The intent may be deceptive but they provided what was asked for and what they claimed. It is almost malicious compliance. Dickish gaming and probably worth suing over but not sure if it is criminal fraud per se. It is like the joke about Soviet factory metrics for some item like nails. They set the quota on numbers and got useless ones better described as needles. They wised up a bit and set the quota by weight next month and got one useless massive nail instead. It isn't even too far from the truth given actual management involved things like a train line circularly shipping coal between depots instead of retrieving from source or distributing to end users to boost their "metric tons transported kilometers" metric. VW meanwhile had a covert illegal configuration while claiming mileage and lack of maintenancd urea. The claims are outright false - that it provides all three benefits instead of two of three.
- viraptor 6y ago