Stormwind

The greasy heads are starting to roll.

https://www.motor1.com/news/178064/v...er-dieselgate/

mmarshall

I won't doubt Liang's involvement in the issue, but, given (at the time) CEO Ferdinand Piech's notoriously dictatorial and heavy-handed style of management (i.e. ....giving orders to meet objectives in any way possible, legal or illegal), I suspect that not only Liang, but other Piech subordinates as well, were simply puppets carrying out Piech's agenda. I've posted in the past on Piech's style of management, and won't re-hash it again here....but how he himself has managed to avoid legal problems in this case beats me.

Stormwind

It is too bad we can't touch him as he is located in Germany and the German government won't prosecute one of the leaders of the diesel cartel (allegedly). Maybe the US gov can try one of the old tricks in the book by sending him a free cruise trip to the bahamas but they got to come by American territory for a little pit stop and as soon as he cross the border we can ****** him up for good.

riredale

Could someone tell me what the software changed when going into and out of test mode? How do you make a diesel more polluting? Timing? Injection quantity?

mmarshall

I'm not an engineer, but from what I understand, a number of factors could affect it....fuel mixture, timing (though diesels fire off the mixture by compression-heat, not with a spark plug), valve-action, catalytic-converter stage, and engine temperature, for starts. In general, though, even if a diesel engine is considered dirty by today's standards, with today's low-sulfur clean-burning diesel fuel, they still run MUCH cleaner than decades ago.

Sulu

VW's small diesel engines that had the software cheating device used a Lean NOx (Nitrogen oxides) Trap (LNT) rather than the ammonium-based diesel exhaust fluid. The LNT works to first trap the noxious NOx and then allow the reaction of the trapped NOx with unburned hydrocarbons to convert it into much less noxious nitrogen, water and carbon dioxide.

This is how it is supposed to work:

• The software controls the diesel engine to run very lean (less fuel in the air-fuel mixture). This saves fuel but burns very hot and hot engines generate a lot of NOx.
• This NOx is trapped in the special LNT catalytic converter.
• But the LNT can only trap a limited amount of NOx. The trapped NOx must be allowed to react with unburned hydrocarbons to convert it to less noxious substances, otherwise any NOx over the limit will simply be allowed into the exhaust.
• Every so often, the software controls the engine to run rich (more fuel in the air-fuel mixture), causing the engine to run cooler (and generating much less NOx) but including a lot of unburned diesel fuel (hydrocarbons) in the exhaust. (Unburned fuel in the exhaust would normally be exhausted as dirty black soot.) This unburned fuel reacts with the NOx trapped in the LNT to convert the NOx to nitrogen, water and carbon dioxide.

LNT is not as effective as diesel exhaust fluid. Mazda tried to certify their SkyActiv-D diesel engine for North America using the LNT technology but could not meet the stringent EPA and CARB exhaust emission standards.

This is how the software cheat device could work:

• The software controls the diesel engine to run very lean, saving fuel, but burning very hot and generating a lot of NOx.
• This NOx would be trapped in the special LNT catalytic converter until the trap is full.
• If the software detects a test cycle, the engine would, every so often, be allowed to run rich and allow the reaction of the trapped NOx with the unburned hydrocarbons in the rich-burning exhaust.
• If, however, the software does not detect a test cycle, the engine would be allowed to continue running lean, saving fuel but generating a lot of NOx. Any NOx that could no longer be trapped would be allowed into the exhaust.

Mr. Burns

Sounds like he's just an engineer following direction from his boss(es).

Aron9000

Man that's pretty damn steep, 40 months in prison. All those wall-street slime ***** involved in the sub-prime mortgage debacle that brought economy to its knees in 2008 got off scott free. They ****ed over A LOT more people than the engineers at VW, and in A LOT worse of a way, people's life savings were decimated, people put off retiring for YEARS, just for their simple greed.

rxonmymind

Damn, that sounds familiar.

mmarshall

Read what Bob Lutz, who has been at several different auto companies, had to say about Piech:

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cult...diesel-fiasco/

One Man Established the Culture That Led to VW's Emissions Scandal

A Diesel Dictatorship, according to Bob Lutz.

BY BOB LUTZ
NOV 4, 2015

2.7KFerdinand Piëch, the immensely powerful former chief of Volkswagen's supervisory board, is more than likely the root cause of the VW diesel-emissions scandal. Whether he specifically asked for, tacitly approved, or was even aware of the company's use of software to deliberately fudge EPA emissions testing is immaterial.

I sat next to him at an industry dinner in the Nineties, just after the fourth-generation Golf had debuted at the Frankfurt show. I told him, "I'd like to congratulate you on the new Golf. First of all, it's a nice-looking car, but God, those body fits!"

"Ah, you like those?"

"Yeah. I wish we could get close to that at Chrysler."

"I'll give you the recipe. I called all the body engineers, stamping people, manufacturing, and executives into my conference room. And I said, 'I am tired of all these lousy body fits. You have six weeks to achieve world-class body fits. I have all your names. If we do not have good body fits in six weeks, I will replace all of you. Thank you for your time today.' "

"That's how you did it?"

"Yes. And it worked."





That's the way he ran everything. It's what I call a reign of terror and a culture where performance was driven by fear and intimidation. He just says, "You will sell diesels in the U.S., and you will not fail. Do it, or I'll find somebody who will." The guy was absolutely brutal.

I imagine that at some point, the VW engineering team said to Piëch, "We don't know how to pass the emissions test with the hardware we have." The reply, in that culture, most likely was, "You will pass! I demand it! Or I'll find someone who can do it!"

In these situations, your choice was immediate dismissal or find a way to pass the test and pay the consequences later. Human nature being what it is—if it's lose your job today for sure or lose your job maybe a year from now, we always pick maybe a year from now.

That management style gets short-term results, but it's a culture that's extremely dangerous. Look at dictators. Dictators invariably wind up destroying the very countries they thought their omniscience and omnipotence would make great. It's fast and it's efficient, but at huge risk.

VOLKSWAGEN

This diesel fiasco is immeasurable in terms of damages—so much worse than Toyota acceleration, Ford Firestone tires, or GM ignition switches. In all those cases, tragically, people died, but it wasn't premeditated. You settle with the victims' families, pay the fine, put in the new parts, and for $1.5 billion, it can all be contained. But this Volkswagen mess is like the disaster that keeps on giving.

To make the cars legal in the U.S., VW will need to program them with the software that passes the test, in which case, performance is down and fuel consumption is up, and every VW TDI owner is part of a class-action suit against Volkswagen. To retrofit a urea system is basically a nonstarter, as it would require far too much change.

There is no easy fix. But you can probably rely on the German government to do what is necessary to pull Volkswagen out of this crisis.

In terms of marketing cars in the U.S., Volkswagen will need a radically new array of products that are much closer to mainstream American tastes than what it has. The whole Clean Diesel campaign, as the foundation of the VW brand, cannot be resurrected. It's history.

Johnhav430

Maybe 45 will come forward and say Liang will be just fine....

As far as how things are run, has anyone heard the stories about the economic advisor and how he behaved at GS? He would do something and ask traders how the market was doing. It's the real world, unfortunately...

Stormwind

Former Volkswagen engine development boss Wolfgang Hatz arrested for Dieselgate questioning.

Making progress. Hopefully he will start squeeling and eventually lead up to arrest and jail of the former ceo.

Johnhav430

Too light of a sentence, but that's me. This is a rhetorical question, when was the last time you committed a crime at work, that affected many people?

LeX2K

Well I know friends that worked at McDonald's when they were growing up.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

i don't think ANYONE was really affected and this sentence is ludicrously harsh. i smell appeal.

EXACTLY... i don't think ANYONE went to jail for the lying, corrupt, scam that stole trillions.