Volkswagen diesel scandal
09-22-15, 08:16 AM
#76
Lexus Champion
09-22-15, 08:19 AM
#77
Lead Lap
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Good thing we don't have to buy their products.
Yet only $900M slap on the wrist for Govt Motors that directly killed people and no criminal charges? Isnt the EPA supposed to be verifying this since 2008? So if this ends up dramatically increasing the price of TDI products from VW is this good for consumers overall?
It's NOx. Regardless, THEY LIED.
Last edited by TangoRed; 09-22-15 at 08:54 AM.
09-22-15, 08:19 AM
#78
NOx is what they can't meet.
Call it whatever you want, but VW knowingly cheated and cornered the market for small diesel cars. They faced basically 0 competition because no manufacturer could meet the standards without adding the SCR and in a smaller car with smaller margins, it didn't make sense to do so. Are the fines drastically biased against foreign car companies? Sure seems like it, but that's besides the point. VW cheated, got caught, and admitted their guilt. Punitive fines are going to be the least of their worries if this ends up being a global issue
Call it whatever you want, but VW knowingly cheated and cornered the market for small diesel cars. They faced basically 0 competition because no manufacturer could meet the standards without adding the SCR and in a smaller car with smaller margins, it didn't make sense to do so. Are the fines drastically biased against foreign car companies? Sure seems like it, but that's besides the point. VW cheated, got caught, and admitted their guilt. Punitive fines are going to be the least of their worries if this ends up being a global issue
09-22-15, 08:24 AM
#79
Lexus Champion
09-22-15, 08:52 AM
#80
Lexus Fanatic
iTrader: (20)
back to epa testing, we all know car makers have tweaked their products SPECIFICALLY to meet or evade regulations whether it be crash testing / safety, emissions, fuel economy, engine sizing, power, etc.
many say that bmw's engines all put out more power than their published specs. why would they do this? maybe it's to keep insurance more reasonable for enthusiast buyers i don't know. but if true, it's gaming the system for an advantage.
if small vw diesel cars can 'sense' when being tested by the epa, but run differently when they sense they're not being tested, it might be sneaky at best, but worth losing a huge chunk of their market cap? that's absurd.
europe's 'common wisdom' for decades has been that diesels are awesome, reliable, best economy, etc., but they're finally realizing that even though diesels are a lot more refined than they used to be, they still put out noxious emissions and places like paris are choking under the pollution.
i have NO doubt that ALL car makers tune/tweak their vehicles to be able to do their best during the testing. for anyone to act shocked is funny.
09-22-15, 09:19 AM
#82
Building a car to meet certain specs or to do well on crash tests is not cheating. BMW under reporting HP? Not an issue as that's not regulated. Creating a software algorithm to artificially lower a regulated output? That's cheating. It's basically having a cheat sheet on a test and hiding it when the teacher is making their rounds.
09-22-15, 09:20 AM
#83
Lexus Champion
The company will be forced to recall all the affected vehicles and bring them into compliance. How it will do so was unclear at press time, though there are really only two options available to the company: install a urea-injection system on every vehicle without one and reprogram vehicles with one at great expense, or reprogram all affected vehicles to run in "dyno calibration" at all times, which will reduce emissions as well as fuel economy and power. The latter solution seems more likely given the potential cost of the former.
According to a source who engineers catalyst systems for a major automotive supplier, Volkswagen AG saved roughly $400 per car not outfitting them with urea injection systems, or roughly $200 million total over six years.
According to a source who engineers catalyst systems for a major automotive supplier, Volkswagen AG saved roughly $400 per car not outfitting them with urea injection systems, or roughly $200 million total over six years.
09-22-15, 09:34 AM
#84
Lexus Champion
i have NO doubt that ALL car makers tune/tweak their vehicles to be able to do their best during the testing. for anyone to act shocked is funny.
09-22-15, 10:09 AM
#85
Lexus Champion
Thread Starter
see, i have a problem with the word 'cheat' here. gamed the regulators to their advantage? yes. almost every website out there does this to get higher search rankings. google however is more competent than the epa though and continues to refine their search ranking engine to catch 'cheaters'.
back to epa testing, we all know car makers have tweaked their products SPECIFICALLY to meet or evade regulations whether it be crash testing / safety, emissions, fuel economy, engine sizing, power, etc.
many say that bmw's engines all put out more power than their published specs. why would they do this? maybe it's to keep insurance more reasonable for enthusiast buyers i don't know. but if true, it's gaming the system for an advantage.
if small vw diesel cars can 'sense' when being tested by the epa, but run differently when they sense they're not being tested, it might be sneaky at best, but worth losing a huge chunk of their market cap? that's absurd.
europe's 'common wisdom' for decades has been that diesels are awesome, reliable, best economy, etc., but they're finally realizing that even though diesels are a lot more refined than they used to be, they still put out noxious emissions and places like paris are choking under the pollution.
i have NO doubt that ALL car makers tune/tweak their vehicles to be able to do their best during the testing. for anyone to act shocked is funny.
back to epa testing, we all know car makers have tweaked their products SPECIFICALLY to meet or evade regulations whether it be crash testing / safety, emissions, fuel economy, engine sizing, power, etc.
many say that bmw's engines all put out more power than their published specs. why would they do this? maybe it's to keep insurance more reasonable for enthusiast buyers i don't know. but if true, it's gaming the system for an advantage.
if small vw diesel cars can 'sense' when being tested by the epa, but run differently when they sense they're not being tested, it might be sneaky at best, but worth losing a huge chunk of their market cap? that's absurd.
europe's 'common wisdom' for decades has been that diesels are awesome, reliable, best economy, etc., but they're finally realizing that even though diesels are a lot more refined than they used to be, they still put out noxious emissions and places like paris are choking under the pollution.
i have NO doubt that ALL car makers tune/tweak their vehicles to be able to do their best during the testing. for anyone to act shocked is funny.
Hyundai did not correctly complete one part of the fuel economy measurement protocol, resulting in an incorrect compensation factor that gave them higher (false) fuel economy numbers. This incorrectly-implemented test caused no harm except to Hyundai's reputation (and buyers of Hyundai and Kia cars who spent more money on fuel than they believed they would). The mistake was merely a labelling issue ("incorrect" fuel economy numbers).
If Hyundai/Kia had not gamed the system, they would merely have reported lower fuel economy numbers.
VW's cheat, however, caused their cars to emit 40x (!) less emissions during testing. This allowed them to pass the EPA certification testing and allowed them to sell their small Diesel cars in the USA and Canada. If VW had not cheated, and their small Diesel cars were allowed to run during the test as they normally would, their cars would have been rated as too dirty and would not have been allowed to sell those cars.
VW's cheat allowed them to sell half-a-million cars that did not meet regulations because they were too dirty (especially for Los Angeles and the rest of California). This would have reduced their already low sales volume in the USA, and they need as much volume as possible in order to maintain their "largest automaker" claim (grabbed from Toyota).
VW's cheat allowed them to pollute the air with nitrogen oxides, which is a major component of ground-level ozone and the deadly smog that was once a common feature of LA but largely cleaned up due to CARB's and EPA's efforts to clean up vehicle emissions. Ground level ozone is a major irritant to anybody who has breathing problems, such as asthma.
According to this Motor Trend article, VW will have two choices:
http://wot.motortrend.com/everything...s_scandal.html
http://wot.motortrend.com/everything...s_scandal.html
But that would likely restrict the engine, robbing it of what little power it already has and increase fuel consumption.
Adding an urea SCR system would require too many changes, to the engine and to the structure of the car itself. There would have to be engine plumbing changes to add an liquid urea SCR system, if this is even possible to retrofit to an engine. There would also have to be an urea tank added to the car, perhaps in the spare tire well and plumbing added to feed it to the engine.
Retro-fitting an SCR system to a Diesel engine may not even be possible.
09-22-15, 11:14 AM
#86
Lexus Champion
Until the advent of selective catalytic reduction (SCR, implemented with Diesel Exhaust Fluid or AdBlue), people were saying that Diesel cars were effectively dead in North America. Thanks to Mercedes-Benz, that introduced AdBlue to North America, we can now buy clean Diesel cars. VW uses AdBlue in its larger engines but claims that its smaller engines (used in the Golf, Jetta, Beetle and A3) are clean enough to meet EPA regulations without SCR.
Mazda has tried to meet EPA regulations without SCR for its SkyActiv-D engine but has not been successful. Now it seems that VW has been cheating on its small engines.
09-22-15, 11:21 AM
#87
Lexus Champion
But that would likely restrict the engine, robbing it of what little power it already has and increase fuel consumption.
Adding an urea SCR system would require too many changes, to the engine and to the structure of the car itself. There would have to be engine plumbing changes to add an liquid urea SCR system, if this is even possible to retrofit to an engine. There would also have to be an urea tank added to the car, perhaps in the spare tire well and plumbing added to feed it to the engine.
Retro-fitting an SCR system to a Diesel engine may not even be possible.
Adding an urea SCR system would require too many changes, to the engine and to the structure of the car itself. There would have to be engine plumbing changes to add an liquid urea SCR system, if this is even possible to retrofit to an engine. There would also have to be an urea tank added to the car, perhaps in the spare tire well and plumbing added to feed it to the engine.
Retro-fitting an SCR system to a Diesel engine may not even be possible.
For SCR, many OEMs will install separate DPFs/DOCs and SCRs in the exhaust stream but the issues of having the DPF tank, pump/heater and piping exists. Not a hard thing to deal with in a truck or a bus(except for low-floor transit buses), but it does create a challenge in cars. BMW puts the DEF tank in the rear of the car, and you need to remove a trim cover to get to it, while Mercedes puts the DEF fill next to the fuel filler, and GM puts the DEF tank for the diesel Cruze where the spare tire would be.
As for retrofits, the only thing that can be done is a DPF retrofit for older engines but those are troublesome.
09-22-15, 11:27 AM
#88
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Anyway, I wonder if it will effect their MPG numbers.
This is going to open up the door for all different lawsuits if performance is effected by this. I can see similar class action suits like Hyundai's MPG claims.
Not a good look. I have friends that are buying VW stock right now for cheap. Im not sure how confident I would be in seeing VW bounce back, even in months time.
Last edited by TEXASMAJOR; 09-22-15 at 11:32 AM.
09-22-15, 11:53 AM
#89
Lead Lap
That's not what I said at all. Its in text. If that's how you interpret it, then lol at you.
Anyway, I wonder if it will effect their MPG numbers.
This is going to open up the door for all different lawsuits if performance is effected by this. I can see similar class action suits like Hyundai's MPG claims.
Not a good look. I have friends that are buying VW stock right now for cheap. Im not sure how confident I would be in seeing VW bounce back, even in months time.
Anyway, I wonder if it will effect their MPG numbers.
This is going to open up the door for all different lawsuits if performance is effected by this. I can see similar class action suits like Hyundai's MPG claims.
Not a good look. I have friends that are buying VW stock right now for cheap. Im not sure how confident I would be in seeing VW bounce back, even in months time.
