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Comment by dayjah | Hacker News Reader

When I last bought a VW (2008) I was concerned due to a clunking noise after first starting it up and driving a few miles; I called the VW service dept and they explained that there was a compressor which captured exhaust fumes and released them at a lower rate for the first few miles of each journey -- to help them meet EPA emissions standards. I was assured there was nothing to worry about.

While this is a different case, it struck me then that the emissions guidelines were being gamed by manufacturers. We're regularly reminded that barriers will be circumvented; what is the correct approach here? Like performance enhancing drugs in sports, too stiff of a fine and manufacturers are encouraged to find more subtle ways to beat the system, unenforced you leave a polluting industry to destroy our environment..

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Perhaps the noise was poorly explained. What they describe is likely the Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaust_gas_recirculation ). This isn't a system to game emissions, it's an active component in real emissions reduction.

Still I get your point: manufacturers are clearly going to optimize based on the measured metrics. How do we know those metrics are meaningful in the overall system.

ERG is just a pipe from the exhaust to the intake with a valve. Compressing and carefully releasing would be much more complicated and very much a not normal way of lowering exhaust temperature to reduce emissions.

Yes, on second thought, they probably confused secondary air injection ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_air_injection ) with EGR. It's very possible they were explaining secondary air, which doesn't compress exhaust gas, but does inject air into the exhaust gas to help burn more efficiently (not clear on the mechanism, I always thought it was a method to improve catalytic converter efficiency at startup).

The usual failure mode is that it sounds like a loud vacuum cleaner for ~90 seconds after cold start up.. not sure about clunking.

I owned an RX-8 which had an air pump (secondary air injection) which would come on for about 30 seconds on a cold start. When the pump started going out, it would make a metal grinding sound. Drove like that for a few years until it quit working, and didn't think anything of it until SMOG time - $600 for an air pump which works for ~30 seconds...

Exactly. Cheverolet Trailblazers are well known for this (I owned one and had to replace said air injector)

I think the idea is that cold engines run rich, so injecting air into the exhaust gives the unburnt fuel a chance to combust in the exhaust pipe before getting to the catalyst. This is good for two reasons, first, it heats the catalyst up faster, which is good, and it also reduces the amount of unburned hydrocarbons.

There is a more charitable interpretation.

When engines are colder, they burn less efficiently and produce "worse" emissions. A system that treats the warmup period differently than the steady-state of running a hot engine is potentially quite reasonable.

If you output those same emissions at a different time you haven't really done a lot for environment (except if they're cycled through catalyc converter or DPF filter which are usually less effective on cold start) - you're just gaming the system to get better eco ratings.

If you're recirculating exhaust back into the engine, you're able to attempt to reburn any fuel that wasn't burned on the first pass, while also exposing any emissions to higher temperatures on the second pass (higher temperatures = easier to break down when those emissions reach the emissions control system).

If you're recirculating exhaust back into the engine, you're able to attempt to reburn any fuel that wasn't burned on the first pass

That's not what EGRs do.

EGRs take exhaust, which is relatively inert (combustion having already taken place) and injects it into the combustion chamber to lower combustion temperatures. The reason you want low temperatures is that NOx (nitrogen oxides) form at high temperatures.

It appears I was mistaken!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaust_gas_recirculation

"In internal combustion engines, exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is a nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions reduction technique used in petrol/gasoline and diesel engines. EGR works by recirculating a portion of an engine's exhaust gas back to the engine cylinders. This dilutes the O2 in the incoming air stream and provides gases inert to combustion to act as absorbents of combustion heat to reduce peak in-cylinder temperatures. NOx is produced in a narrow band of high cylinder temperatures and pressures.

In a gasoline engine, this inert exhaust displaces the amount of combustible matter in the cylinder. In a diesel engine, the exhaust gas replaces some of the excess oxygen in the pre-combustion mixture.[1] Because NOx forms primarily when a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen is subjected to high temperature, the lower combustion chamber temperatures caused by EGR reduces the amount of NOx the combustion generates (though at some loss of engine efficiency).[2] Gasses re-introduced from EGR systems will also contain near equilibrium concentrations of NOx and CO; the small fraction initially within the combustion chamber inhibits the total net production of these and other pollutants when sampled on a time average. Most modern engines now require exhaust gas recirculation to meet emissions standards."

That's traditional "external" egr. Many newer engines have an "internal" egr implementation, which just changes valve timing so that some amount of the combustion products are never evacuated from the cylinder in the first place. With cam phasing becoming commonplace, internal egr can be implemented without adding any additional parts, and is thus cheaper. So the "recirculation" part of egr is becoming more and more of a misnomer.

Personally I like internal egr because external egr systems have a tendency to clog in either the passageways or the solenoid controlled valve. EGR valve sticking is a common cause of cars stalling when slowing to a stop after cruising at medium-high speed. And even without the stalling egr is a common cause for check engine lights and smog test failures.

Car makers work hard to get emissions to be as stable as possible in all running states. For instance, cars have an air injection pump for the purpose of getting the CC to do its job sooner by increasing the temperature of the exhaust gas. It starts at a high RPM when you first cold start the engine.

Just because they used various tools to attempt to meet EPA standards doesn't mean any or all of those tools are illegal. What you're describing sounds like either a smog pump and/or a charcoal canister. Both are legal and widely used means of controlling emissions.

The emissions guidelines, in your case, likely weren't being "gamed" so much as the manufacturers were just coming up with innovative and cheap ways of reducing emissions. Start/stop features on some newer cars are a way of doing this but this doesn't sound like someone "gaming" the system. If you're not very automotive savvy then you may have misunderstood what the technician was explaining or the logic/purpose behind the system.

What VW did though is completely different with regards to the software although not necessarily illegal until we have all the facts. Based on what the article says, it sounds like they developed a special "emissions mode" which went outside the normal operating parameters with the ultimate goal of reducing the emissions. That in and of itself is not illegal since it passed emissions that way. The illegal part probably comes from when it switch back into normal mode where it never would have passed emissions that way.

We can assume for one reason or another that the "emissions mode" is unsustainable for regular driving (for one reason or another) which is why it was only used when absolutely necessary to pass emissions.

Huh? They disable "emissions mode" during all driving either because a) it was bad for sales - perhaps one is unable to reach race car speeds in < 10 seconds; or b) they purposely chose not to build a compliant emissions reduction system and covered it up by specifically making the cars pass only during examination.

There is no apology to be made for them. Manufacturers are required to build sustainable systems, it's not optional. Unless the initial facts turn out to be wrong, this is clearly inexcusable.

I see what part of what I said made you confused. The "unsustainable" part of what I meant was that it caused some sort of undesired effect be it affecting performance or causing accelerated wear on components that could be costly to replace under warranty or some other condition.

Either way, I agree, VW did this intentionally and there is no question as to their motives behind it. I'm sure they'll be severely punished for it.

That sounds more like a Diesel Particulate Filter and regenerator ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter#Rege... ), which is pretty much the opposite of gaming. To keep the black clouds of soot that have sullied the name of diesel from forming, most modern diesels are designed to capture the soot until the engine gets warm enough to burn off the soot, at which point said soot is passed back through the engine and incinerated. Or, there's some mix of heater and catalyst to burn off the soot in the regenerator itself. You're basically holding onto the waste until you can efficiently deal with it in an environmentally clean manner.

Some models of the Yamaha R1 have an intentional flat spot in their fuel maps which happens to be right at the spot where testing happens, too.

In a similar vein, the Aprilia RSV4 kind of cheats at noise testing: in neutral, there is a baffle which flips down to dampen the exhaust note a bit. :)

Almost all supersport bikes coming into the US utilize both of these strategies. :)

I own a Ducati 999 that was lemonlawed because it would stall at stop lights. Super common and happened because of how lean the bikes had to run to pass US emissions.

Google said "random stalls" were kind of endemic to Ducatis. :P Didn't know it was related to the fuel mapping! I had a 1098 which would occasionally (maybe once per month) randomly stall at 0% throttle when braking to a stop. I had a full Termignoni system + race ECU, though. California doesn't do emissions testing on bikes, surprisingly!

I had to put a Power Commander on my R1 because of the aforementioned lean spot. The engine would "chug" at about 37mph (5.2k rpm in 1st gear), which unfortunately happened to be a very common cruising speed. Google showed lots of complaints for other years as well.

I can assure you that the engine on the R1 doesn't chug along at sport bike speeds though ;)

Yes, certainly not. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSsP-itS8qI

I commuted to work in San Francisco on literbikes, but on weekends I would head south and open them up.

>the emissions guidelines were being gamed by manufacturers

Not necessarily gamed - the measuring just needs to factor it in. e.g. (Rather anecdotal) I know there are cars programmed to capture emissions in a filter & then automatically clear that when the car reaches high speeds (freeway). Makes sense in a way...you'd rather have the car expelling the crap on the freeway than city center. That mechanism is apparently a big problem here - I live in a place where the cars never reach freeway speed so they keep clogging (so I'm told).

I believe you mean the EVAP system where excess gasoline vapor is condensed in a charcoal canister, this canister is purged generally in a freeway with a high engine vacuum going on. the highest vacuum is achieved when you engine brake

Just like sports, even stiffer fine and ruined reputation on being caught cheating.

Just like sports, even stiffer fine and ruined reputation on being caught cheating.

Just like sports, companies will still cheat. When punishment doesn't work, the answer is rarely more punishment.

Caveat: if the punishment does not exceed the profit from cheating, it's not a punishment it's a cost of doing business.

See: Johnson & Johnson w/ their drug risperdal: $2 billion in penalties... $30 billion in sales.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/opinion/nicholas-kristof-w...

That's a poor comparison. Not all of the $30B in sales were fraudulent.

Actually, in order to come up with the $2B penalty, the gov't determines the number of fraudulent Rxs, then hits the manufacturer with triple damages (this is typical).

J&J would have been better off financially had they never committed the fraud they did.

You need to account for the probability of being caught. It's quite likely to be significantly lower than 1/3, so they might still have come out ahead.

Even if they're just breaking even, it's a kind of loan - they had the gain a long time ago, and pay the costs much later. If you're a risky business, that's potentially worth a lot, since investors might be hard to find.

And if you account for that you need to account for the asymmetry of risk due to bankruptcy protections - even if the average payout is negative, fines are effectively capped at what the firm can pay, so the effective expected payout may still be positive. (Assuming those making this decision escape personal liability).

You forgot to multiply the cost if caught by the chance to be caught.

Of course it is. Companies usually behave rationally with regards to regulation and punishment. If the cost of breaking the rules is lower than the cost of following them, companies will break the rules. If you increase the cost of breaking the rules such that the situation is reversed, then companies will follow the rules.

How about a temporarily sales ban? Not a fine, just telling them "No new VW are going to be accepted into traffic for the next 12 months."

Cruel, but I bet it's effective.

That's not a good idea. If you ban a large auto maker, you might create a shortage of vehicles, driving prices up for consumers. Also, the affected auto maker would surely try to mitigate the damage by cutting costs, closing down factories, firing workers. Dealerships would have to close as well.

In other words, you would cause a lot of collateral damage instead of taking it directly from shareholders via a large fine.

Every time you arrest a parent for committing a crime, you destroy a part of their child's life. Using collateral as justification to avoid punishment results in a system where entities can become to important to punish at all.

We're talking about how to punish not if. If you can punish a parent in a way that does not affect the child, surely that has to be preferred way of doing it.

So we accept differential treatment based on one's having kids? What happens if the better punishment from the kid's perspective is actually worse for the parent?

I think that courts do take individual circumstances into account and must be allowed to do so. I don't deny at all that it can be unfair, but I don't think inflexible rules like three-strikes sort of laws or draconian minimum sentences that take away the judge's wiggle room are any fairer.

A prison sentence for a parent is not just hurting the kid more, it's also much harsher on the parent. You're not only taking away their freedom, you're also taking away their kid. In effect, that is differential treatment as well. But I will admit that I'm not comfortable with this line of argument either.

The case of auto makers breaching environmental rules is much simpler though as a large fine that does not cause factory and dealership closures or price hikes is better in every imaginable way.

>I don't deny at all that it can be unfair, but I don't think inflexible rules like three-strikes sort of laws or draconian minimum sentences that take away the judge's wiggle room are any fairer.

So what happens when punishments begin to show an even stronger racial bias. For example, the argument that a white offender is safe to release because they are more likely to get a job which reduces their chance of committing a crime. Never mind that they are more likely to get a job because of institutionalize racism in our society.

>You're not only taking away their freedom, you're also taking away their kid.

A prison sentence for a rich individual hurts their income far more (and they are less likely to engage in crime once they are out due to higher education and better ability to find employment), so rich people should only be given a fraction of the sentence... the conclusion using this line of reasoning do seem to end poorly.

>The case of auto makers breaching environmental rules is much simpler though as a large fine

Except it attached a price tag to breaking the law, which fundamentally changes how businesses approach the law. Imagine what would happen if every crime was fined a fraction of what it earned you.

>So what happens when punishments begin to show an even stronger racial bias. For example, the argument that a white offender is safe to release because they are more likely to get a job which reduces their chance of committing a crime

That is but one possible argument of many. A judge could also make the case that locking up hugely more members of one racial group than of others destroys the social fabric of society, creates even more crime in the next generation and is ultimately worse for everyone.

So yes, you could ask many questions of that sort and you are right that giving judges room to weigh individual circumstances can go both ways. In my opinion, not having that wiggle room is cruel and relies on a completely unjustified confidence in the ability of law makers to forsee all the situations that might come up.

>Except it attached a price tag to breaking the law, which fundamentally changes how businesses approach the law. Imagine what would happen if every crime was fined a fraction of what it earned you.

Banning an auto maker for 12 months in one particular country has a price tag too. Every punishment of a corporation can be distilled down to a mere price tag. Whether or not the price tag of a ban is higher or lower than any fine depends on the amount fined.

There are many problems with outright bans. It is a very inflexible and crude tool. It does not allow for a gradual and measured punishment that fits the extent of the violation. It does not bring money into government coffers or into victims pockets. It cannot be applied equally to every company in the same way if at all. You cannot simply shut down banks, utilities or OS vendors without destroying the entire economy. We do need some degree of pragmatism that limits collateral damage.

Also, we have to acknowledge that corporations are not people after all. The corporation doesn't take the decision to violate some law. Executives do. So if you want to go beyond a price tag for certain kinds of violations then you need criminal prosecution of individual executives on top of fines.

Why should you discriminate?

My argument is that you shouldn't. Time in prison should be equal, regardless if you are a poor homeless guy who committed the crime or a filthy rich mutual fund manager whose fund will lose massive amounts of value.

You just have to make sure that the fines are not tax deductible...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/04/business/when-a-company-is...

> That's not a good idea.

Agreed. If auto makers face the risk of significant fines and/or penalties they will have to spend more on compliance. The worst thing for innovation is to create an environment where engineers are effectively being managed by lawyers and accountants.

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