VW Accused Of Using Software To Fool Emissions Tests: Welcome To The Internet Of Cheating Things
from the is-that-domestic-appliance-lying-to-you? dept
There have been a number of stories on Techdirt recently about the increasing use of software in cars, and the issues that this raises. For example, back in April, Mike wrote about GM asserting that while you may own the car, the company still owns the software that runs it. You might expect GM to come out against allowing you to modify that software, but very recently we reported that it had received support from a surprising quarter: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA had a particular concern that engine control software might be tampered with, causing cars to breach emissions regulations. We've just found out that the EPA was right to worry about this, but not for the reason it mentioned, as the The New York Times explains:
The Environmental Protection Agency issued [the German car manufacturer Volkswagen] a notice of violation and accused the company of breaking the law by installing software known as a "defeat device" in 4-cylinder Volkswagen and Audi vehicles from model years 2009-15. The device is programmed to detect when the car is undergoing official emissions testing, and to only turn on full emissions control systems during that testing. Those controls are turned off during normal driving situations, when the vehicles pollute far more heavily than reported by the manufacturer, the E.P.A. said.
So, just as the EPA feared, software that regulates the emissions control system was indeed tampered with, though not by reckless users, but by the cars' manufacturer, Volkswagen (VW), which must now recall nearly half a million cars, and faces the prospect of some pretty big fines -- Reuters speaks of "up to $18 billion". The EPA's Notice Of Violation (pdf) spells out the details of what it calls the software "switch":
The "switch" senses whether the vehicle is being tested or not based on various inputs including the position of the steering wheel, vehicle speed, the duration of the engine's operation, and barometric pressure. These inputs precisely track the parameters of the federal test procedure used for emission testing for EPA certification purposes. During EPA emission testing, the vehicles' ECM [electronic control module] ran software which produced compliant emission results under an ECM calibration that VW referred to as the "dyno calibration" (referring to the equipment used in emission testing, called a dynamometer). At all other times during normal vehicle operation, the "switch" was activated and the vehicle ECM software ran a separate "road calibration" which reduced the effectiveness of the emission control system (specifically the selective catalytic reduction or the lean NOx [nitrous oxides] trap.) As a result, emission of NOx increased by a factor of 10 to 40 times above the EPA compliant levels, depending on the type of drive cycle (e.g. city, highway).
That trick was discovered by the West Virginia University's Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines & Emissions when studying the VW vehicles. Initially, VW claimed that the increased emissions were due to "technical issues" and "unexpected in-use conditions." But further tests confirmed the problem, and eventually VW admitted "it had designed and installed a defeat device in these vehicles in the form of a sophisticated software algorithm that detected when a vehicle was undergoing emissions testing."
It's significant that the trick was discovered through extensive mechanical testing. Assuming some form of DRM was employed, it would not have been possible to spot the cheating algorithm of the emissions control code because it would have been illegal to circumvent the software protection. This emphasizes once more the folly of allowing the DMCA to apply to such systems, where problems could be found much earlier by inspecting the software, rather than waiting for them to emerge in use, possibly years later.
The revelation about VW's behavior once more concerns code in cars, but there is a much larger issue here. As software starts to appear routinely in an ever-wider range of everyday objects, so the possibility arises for them to exhibit different behaviors in different situations. Thanks to programming, these objects no longer have a single, fixed set of features, but are malleable, which makes checking their conformance to legal standards much more problematic. When the VW story broke last week, Zeynep Tufekci, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, tweeted that this was an example of "The Internet of cheating things." I'm not sure whether she coined that phrase -- I'd not seen it before – but it encapsulates neatly a key feature of the world we are beginning to enter.
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Filed Under: dmca, emissions, epa, hacking, recall, software
Companies: volkswagen, vw
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Also makes one wonder how many other cars are using the cheat.
Guess the EPA has its hands full now.
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Is it in fact illegal, or just immoral?
As an example, GM has been famous for their "forced shift" manuals that go from 1st to 4th gear under the exact loading conditions for the EPA test, thus improving fuel mileage and reducing some emissions as a result. The resulting difference in fuel mileage was enough to save cars like the Corvette from paying a gas guzzler tax.
Further, since the EPA test is a well know set of steps, speeds, and operations, other car companies have done similar things to meet the various standards, often by playing games with throttle position settings, fuel mix, and the like under certain types of loads. While they don't disable these things when not in test mode, the average consumer is also very unlikely to ever drive in a manner by which they would be using such engine maps.
VW's only difference in reality is that they were blatant about it, having software which actively loads a different set of engine maps and controls only during testing. Since the car pasts the test, the EPA may have to be careful how hard they push on the subject. It could easily be turned to show that their easily replicated testing encourages such behavior.
http://www.news24.com/Green/News/Hyundai-Kia-100m-fine-for-fake-fuel-economy-20141103
Just an example... you can easily find stories all the way back to the 90s on the same subjects.
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Re: #2
However, the difference is that the vehicle would maintain that characteristic; in this case the performance is choked solely for the testing.
It reminds me somewhat of the trick air restrictor on the 1995 Toyota Celica rally cars - although that was a strictly mechanical device - the same jubilee clips that held the air restrictor in place also held open an illegal bypass channel; when a scrutineer loosened the clips to remove the restrictor for inspection, the bypass channel would close, making the restrictor appear to be compliant.
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From what it sounds like, the system is designed specifically to spot when it's being put through emissions testing, and to change how it operates in order to pass testing. Not only that, but the difference between 'testing' mode and 'regular driving' mode is apparently huge, to the tune of '10 to 40 times above the EPA compliant levels', far in excess of the limits the EPA set for vehicles to be road-legal, making it clear that the vehicles would never pass testing if running normally during it.
Designing the system to give fraudulent info during a required test, with the result of massively more emissions than allowed? Yeah, illegal and immoral sounds about right.
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fraudulent info
As soon as you unplug the OBDII connector, the computer shifts from "test mode" to "driving mode", which (apparently, with that 10-40x increase) does *not* meet EPA requirements.
Basically, they're forcing the system to perform to meet spec *only* when it's under testing conditions.
Immoral? Maybe. Illegal? I'd have to read the actual law, but I suspect it's not illegal.
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Re: fraudulent info
The system is set up to give data that is not representative of how it operates during normal driving, and since the testing is intended to find out how the car performs in general, not just under testing conditions, I'd consider the data produced to be not only fraudulent, but intentionally so. It's set up to give data that does not represent real-world running conditions, solely in order to trick the testing equipment into thinking that it runs differently than it actually does when in use.
If something like that isn't illegal, then it not only should be, but until it is, then emissions tests, and any similar tests, are completely and utterly useless. If you can game the test in order to provide passing results, even if those results have nothing to do with what the results would have been had the test been honest, then there's no point in even having the test.
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Re: Re: fraudulent info
Do you apply Intent against Letter of the Law on *all* matters?
I haven't read the law, so I can't quote Letter, but I suspect this is a loophole, fully legal.
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Re: Re: Re: fraudulent info
If the intent of a law differs significantly from the letter of the law, and/or how the law is applied in practice, then that's a sign of either a poorly written law or someone basically making up laws as they go along via 'creative interpretation'.
In this case however I somehow doubt that the intent was simply to see how the vehicles performed under testing conditions, with no interest in how they performed under real-world use conditions. No, the intent was to make sure that the vehicles would meet certain standards during use, and the tests were simply the way of determining that. Gaming the test with bogus data that does not accurately represent how the vehicle operates during real use is not meeting the intent, and if it does meet the letter, then the law clearly needs to be fine-tuned.
I haven't read the law, so I can't quote Letter, but I suspect this is a loophole, fully legal.
Legal loopholes do not result in multi-billion dollar fines, and half a million recalled vehicles, so I'm thinking no, it almost certainly isn't legal.
As I noted above, if it is indeed a legal loophole, then the testing is completely and utterly useless and needs to be tossed out as a waste of time and money for all involved. Drop the charade that cars need to be able to pass emissions testing to be street legal and save everyone a lot of work.
If companies are allowed to fine-tune their product to give one result when under testing that is vastly different than the result under normal use, then any testing related to the product is meaningless, because it's only determining how well the product does when being tested, not how it does when in use.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: fraudulent info
It just depends on which type of Judge you have. People have been screwed over by both the letter and the intent of the law. And yes some people have been released by the same as well.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: fraudulent info
Neither has this. No jury has rendered a verdict, no judge has ruled. As far as I can tell no charges or case has been filed with any court yet. All we have is legal d**ck waving by the EPA making press releases. Sure they might be right, but at least wait until we have a court filing detailing the crimes/breeches and the requested penalties first.
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Re: fraudulent info
Immmoral: No
This is one of those instances where the moral compass and legal compass go the opposite way. It is illegal, but it is not immoral.
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Re: Re: fraudulent info
It's not immoral to break the rules in a way that advantages you over your competitors and shifts costs from your customers onto the entire society? You have a strange morality.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: fraudulent info
This is really small potatoes from a national perspective though. The U.S. will need 3 times the heavy rail we currently have in 50 years to remain competitive on the world stage. It will take 50 years to build it. The steel mills in Detroit SHOULD be running 3 shifts right now. Instead you've got an aristocratic mo-town CEO pimp-fest whining to the EPA that VW cheated, so they can fight over the same declining market.
Economically this is like the slow death of the textiles industry in England. You can't extend a market with corruption and exploitation indefinately. Obviously they plan on trying though.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: fraudulent info
I think you're mistaken; the 2009 Nobel prize in economics was awarded for research on the subject. Unless by "modern" you mean "in the past five years", in which case I would like to see a reference.
There is no tragedy of the commons, in that the commons are now have spread sheets and can do the math themselves in fairly short order.
Huh??
The "tragedy", is now a calculable number in almost every industrialized field.
Just because the harms can be quantified doesn't mean it isn't a real phenomenon. If that's what you're trying to say, which I'm not at all sure it is.
I have no idea what railroads and steel production have to do with VW's emissions testing.
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I'm more interested in this question when applied to the car owners: Many will try to refuse the performance-reducing software update, ordering the dealer not to apply it during future maintenance. Illegal, or just immoral?
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So, yes, it would be illegal and immoral. The question is would they catch you doing it. Probably not as the garage would have to check software version numbers and they more than likely don't have that ability.
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Those cars do that all the time, not just when it's being tested, and it isn't just "under the exact loading conditions for the EPA test", it's pretty much any light throttle acceleration. Naturally this means that if you want to enjoy driving your car, you'll open the throttle way up to avoid the lockout, thus resulting in worse fuel consumption and emissions than if the feature were absent.
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Unless of course the cars cannot handle having the emissions reduced all the time. Which could be called out as false advertising of a faulty product by hiding the fact it does not do what it is sold as.
Pretty sure there are laws against that.
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This case is so blatant I figure we're not hearing the whole story. Gigantic multinational companies don't admit wrongdoing so easily. Either things are not what they seem, or the company believed what they were doing was legal through some loophole.
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Response to: james on Sep 21st, 2015 @ 4:25am
The American market wants gas power, horse power and acceleration like they are driving mosport.
Look at a more competitive and regulated market like the EU and then ask yourself, while already knowing the answer, why things are different there.
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Re: Response to: james on Sep 21st, 2015 @ 4:25am
..... is exclusive to the American market. Our diesel is not much removed from bunker sea crude in comparison to what is mandated as fuel oil in other parts of the world.
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Re: Response to: james on Sep 21st, 2015 @ 4:25am
Apparently fuel-efficiency != lower emissions in every case
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Re: Re: Response to: james on Sep 21st, 2015 @ 4:25am
When you're talking about NOx and particulates and such, true. For carbon, I think it's pretty much one-to-one with fuel consumption.
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Re: Re: Re: Response to: james on Sep 21st, 2015 @ 4:25am
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Response to: james on Sep 21st, 2015 @ 4:25am
Exactly. And consumers can't tell they're emitting too much NOx but they can certainly tell how much fuel the car is using, so if the tradeoff was fuel efficiency vs. NOx emissions it's clear why they did it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Response to: james on Sep 21st, 2015 @ 4:25am
On the other hand, I wonder which is actually worse for the environment - higher CO2 (and soot), or higher NOx.
I'd probably err on higher CO2 myself - proving your point.
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You'll produce more CO2 walking than sitting. Far less than your car of course.
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Human breathing moves gaseous CO2 around, but does not actually add any carbon to the atmosphere; fossil fuel combustion releases CO2 into the atmosphere from stable, non-gaseous states. Different things.
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That food humans burn? Carbon dioxide taken from the air to build biomass by primary producers in our food chains. We don't just create carbon ex nihilo. We aren't adding anything to the system by respiring.
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In other words, with each breathe, more CO2 comes out than went in. Which is why you will die if you put a plastic bag over your head and seal it closed.
Now without the use of fossil fuels in the production of food, the whole cycle would be "carbon neutral", with the CO2 being converted back to "fuel" and oxygen by plants. But we're not talking about the whole cycle, just respiration.
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That gasoline cars burn? Carbon dioxide taken from the air to build biomass by primary producers in ancient food chains. We don't just create carbon ex nihilo. We aren't adding anything to the system by driving.
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Walking is not a big CO2 producer.
Motorized traffic is the biggest categorical producer of greenhouse gasses, usually attributed to tourism and motorized freight. Combustion engines are hungry, hungry beasts.
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Re: Walking is not a big CO2 producer.
If I was fit enough, and could actually run at that speed (64km/h), how much CO2 would I emit in running ~32km in 30 minutes? How would that compare to the amount of CO2 my motorbike releases?
I am genuinely curious.
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Walking vs. Motorbiking.
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Re: Walking vs. Motorbiking.
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Re: Walking vs. Motorbiking.
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Pollution control devices eat a lot of horsepower.
VW bugs disappeared in the US for about 30 years. They were still being made in South America, and were very popular everywhere except the US. Because to reduce their emissions to meet EPA regs made the cars stall out. The same goes for a lot of the super-high-efficiency European cars - they're practically small lawnmower engines, and if you add the anti-pollution devices required by the EPA, the engines can't even start, much less run.
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Now it comes out that a major manufacturer is tweaking their software to cheat the consumer, environment, and the government. Not only do I question their motives behind not allowing people to tweak the software in their own cars, I would go so far as to say the main reason for them doing so is to hide the fact that they want to game the system without the worry of Joe-backyard-mechanic catching and outing them.
I worry very little about some kid blowing his motor on the highway and causing an accident. I worry quite a bit about being able to breath and clean drinking water. I think the small amount of risk involved with a few backyard mechanics tweaking their software is not worth the loss of freedoms. The real focus should be on the manufacturers who can impact hundreds of thousands of automobiles and have real financial gains in mind when doing so.
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/05/20/general-motors-says-owns-your-car-software/
http://gas2.org/201 5/04/24/automakers-want-to-make-home-car-repair-illegal/
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To invert an old analogy of Neal Stephenson's: if you have an expensive, sleek high-performance coupe that won't let you put the hood up, you might as well drive a Mac.
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Well, it seems that the most dangerous subject that can fiddle with the software of the car is the aforementioned "owner" or the software of the car.
Just as a note: if they cheat EPA with the emissions, just think about the ways they are cheating their customers. Such as, for example, software that gives wrong diagnostics or software that is configured so the car gets broken easier?
Could that be possible?
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Someone near or at the top of VW had to approve this
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yesseree, bob, bring on them self-driving wonderments. we know how well this will be implemented.
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Seems like the only way this is gonna get better, is for it to get so much worse, that the average joe cant ignore it or s'plain it away lucy
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Oh yes, we should get rid of stability control and antilock brakes, and go back to carburetors. That would be much better.
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When it comes down to it - unless it's a pre-80s carbureted engine, the computer-controlled fuel-injection cars tend to be a hell of a lot easier to diagnose and repair as long as the computer itself is not screwed up and you have the parts available to you.
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Man, what a cup of cold, left over the weekend with a cigarette in it, coffee this is to start the week with.
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Re: Man, what a cup of cold, left over the weekend with a cigarette in it, coffee this is to start the week with.
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Simple really
#2: Had the testing involved the software, and had the software been infected with DRM, no testing could have taken place.
#3: Assuming the 'flaw' hadn't been discovered via mechanical means, as was the case here, no testing would have meant no discovery of the flaw.
#4: As #1 demonstrates, if people don't know about it, it's not a problem.
Conclusion: Therefore, keeping people from being able to modify and examine the code related to their vehicles keeps them from knowing about the 'flaws' such as this, and therefor keeps them from creating problems that weren't there before(because no-one knew about them).
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Re: Man, what a cup of cold, left over the weekend with a cigarette in it, coffee this is to start the week with.
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Re: Man, what a cup of cold, left over the weekend with a cigarette in it, coffee this is to start the week with.
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Re: Man, what a cup of cold, left over the weekend with a cigarette in it, coffee this is to start the week with.
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Re: Man, what a cup of cold, left over the weekend with a cigarette in it, coffee this is to start the week with.
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Fear Razor and Ink
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http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/news/2015/09/statement_ceo_of_vo lkswagen_ag.html
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Keep everybody but the manufacturer out
controls the transmitter in devices in preventing abuses.
Open source mandates would expose those cheats quickly and no question of guilt.
Copyright does not insist on secrecy so each would own copyright on their own code.
Complaints about "trade secrets" and such would be answered with
"Everybody must, stay out of the market if you don't like it."
If company A copies source code from company B then it is easier for
everybody to see.
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Re: Keep everybody but the manufacturer out
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Re: Re: Keep everybody but the manufacturer out
Heretic! Communist!
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Apology straight from the top
I ask for your forgiveness and pledge that in the future we will not get caught doing anything like this ever again.
I am deeply sorry that bad judgment and poor choices of actions resulted in personal embarrassment for myself and those who assisted in committing these terrible crimes. We will cooperate with investigators to determine what low level person to blame this on.
I take full responsibility for my negligence and lack of diligent care to ensure that we would not get caught. You have my personal assurance that all of us at VW will be more careful next time.
To all of those who were harmed by our deceptive, selfish and thoughtless actions I would like to humbly offer my sincerest indifference.
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Re: Apology straight from the top
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something smells - it must be freedom once again
They cut down consumers choices on what you can buy in the states and reduced that even further for the Canadian market.
Try and import a US or even worse a European built model and see just how bad they will screw you.
I have learned that if you can't get a good answer is to skip the (censored) US office and speak with the real head office. It will do wonders.
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CFAA Violation
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Nothing to do with OBDII, but rather no changes to the controls, with probably the steering wheel being the prime input, as it the car sits on a rolling road.
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The car detects it is being tested because devices such as the anti-collision systems have to be turned off when it is in the laboratory.
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I just think it's funny
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Re: I just think it's funny
No kidding. Here's the transcript of messages between EPA & VW:
EPA2VW: Achtung! We've been discovered by some nerds in WV (they have engineers in WV??). Even though we helped you construct this "cheat", EPA can't handle a scandal right now, so you guys are going to have to take the fall.
VW2EPA: But *everyone* is doing it -- GM, Ford, BMW!
EPA2VW: Yes, but we're coming down on diesels, because the US carcos don't make diesels any more. Better get your fall guys/gals ready for orange jumpsuits.
Also, don't act surprised when nearly every other carco comes out with a firmware "update" in the next several weeks. That will have *nothing* to do with your scandal.
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It's a great idea, and a great cost-saver compared to forcing owners to re-chip their car's ECU, at a cost of hundreds of dollars, in order to get better performance.
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I doubt it was an $18 billion idea. Presumably future VW buyers will be footing the bill.
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Perhaps not:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gold_King_Mine_waste_water_spill
The 2015 Gold King Mine waste water spill is a 2015 environmental disaster at the Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colorado.
The EPA has taken responsibility for the incident.
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Honestly, it's rare enough that a government agency takes responsibility for a screw-up. All this points out is that they're more willing to face up to their screw-ups than, say, the DOJ, ATF, FBI...
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Annual state emissions testing
States should consider modifying their inspection process to detect such "cheating" vehicles.
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A test is not
What AC said. We're going to have to create more comprehensive tests, especially for products that include software that might detect for test conditions and modify their performance accordingly.
For cars that are marketed to environmentally-minded hipsters, a car that monitored and logged its own output would be a sweet thing, even if it's just for the driver's peace of mind, though it could also detect symptoms of some kinds of engine trouble. But that would be a good step towards battling non-point-source-pollution.
Pretty much non-point-source-anything is doomed to make for a tragic commons.
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Reminds me of what the the GPU manufacturers got up to...
http://www.geek.com/games/futuremark-confirms-nvidia-is-cheating-in-benchmark-553361/
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No, it shows that Europe is choosing to have more smog than the US.
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Maybe you don't have Los Angeles.
I, for one, lived in the foothills and really had to hike home from school. I suppose if it were in the unpopulated rurals, such a daily trek might have been good for me. Not in LA. When the smog was thick and hung low and brown and stank in the air, I had to wheeze my way up that infernal hill anyway.
So I say we should abolish cars that run on fossil fuels instead Myself, I'd rather be able to breathe.
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Are the Bad Ones Still Available
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Re: Are the Bad Ones Still Available
Yeah screw emissions controls, let's go back to the 60s when cars polluted more when they were parked than cars do now when they're driving! I mean what's the worst that could happen?
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Re: Are the Bad Ones Still Available
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VW emissions cheating
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Re: VW emissions cheating
VW is the one who gamed the test to give bogus data, not the EPA. While it's unfortunate that this will affect those that bought from VW, the proper entity to go after is not the EPA, it's the one that sold you cars that aren't actually road-legal.
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Re: VW emissions cheating
Since VW defrauded you by misrepresenting the car's characteristics, I think you have an excellent case for a lawsuit against them to recover your damages. I'm not sure how the amount would be computed, but if it's a low enough amount ($3,000-$15,000, depending on your state) you could even do it in small claims court.
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Just another shake down
The fine will probably be funneled into GM by way of a DOE grant so GM can use VW's money to develop a competing product. Either that or GM will use VW's money to corrupt domestic officials into passing anti-diesel legislation.
This isn't unprecedented. See the documentary: "Who Killed the Electric Car?"
So the unholy trinity of propaganda is dutifully fulfilling it familial obligations to the Detroit mob. And everybody is falling for it. Again. Just like they do once a decade, every decade, like clockwork.
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VW cars are getting slammed so bad,
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Isn't the EPA cheating too?
- They pull numbers out of hats for the new standards without regard to how expensive it will be to meet those goals.
- They believe in climate change without any proof (except the temperature measurements that can't be used to prove the existence of global warming).
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Climate change without proof?
Not sure if troll.
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VW emissions cheating
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