EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations | Hacker News Reader

EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations

epa.gov

116 pointsdenzil_correa129 comments

Note: they mean exceeding in the bad direction, not the good direction. At first I thought this was some kind of spoof article, or Chrysler marketing effort. It should probably read "exceeding limits" not "exceeding standards".

EDIT: actually the press release doesn't even say that really. It says Fiat Chrysler installed software that could impact emissions testing but didn't tell the EPA about it, which is considered a violation of the Clean Air Act. It doesn't say the software cheats on tests.

FTA:

"This testing revealed that the FCA vehicle models in question produce increased NOx emissions under conditions that would be encountered in normal operation and use."

Still seems like they go out of their way to not say that the increase in emissions exceeded any limits. The violation is specifically that the specific software was not disclosed.

Wow. Someone needs to tell the EPA about the inverted pyramid.

You can't blame me for missing that when they bury the lede in the very last paragraph.

That aside, the headline here still says the opposite of what it means to say. Exceeding the standard is a good thing. Exceeding the emissions limit is a bad thing.

This is the subtitle of the article:

    > FCA allegedly installed and failed to disclose software
    > that increases air pollution from vehicles

Second sentence of the first paragraph:

    > The undisclosed software results in increased
    > emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the vehicles.

What more do you want?

I need more random people on the internet to tell me how stupid and illiterate I am, I guess. Thanks, that's really helpful.

For automotive scandals like e.g this one and Dieselgate it's always surprising how much outrage people muster.

If an automaker sells N cars exceeding some emissions limit by 100%, people get out the pitchforks.

But if that same automaker sells 2N conforming cars, it's widely heralded as a Good Thing.

However, to a first approximation, the environmental impact is equivalent in each case (or arguably worse in the latter case, because of increased energy and materials consumption).

But... but! If you sell N cars exceeding the limit, someone else will sell the other N cars of the 2N in your "2N conforming cars" in the other possibility, and they'd emit, too! Or does selling N cars exceeding the limit somehow eliminates the demand for the other N?

I mean you can say that the limit is too low, but I don't understand this N/2N argument at all.

Also, I dunno about pitchforks, but if I park illegally, I'll get a ticket, even though maybe the parking restrictions are wrong in some important sense, and I'd sorta like it if law applied to corporations. If that's a pitchfork then it's a pitchfork to fine me for how I park my car.

I think the outrage is justified; how can we possibly coordinate an effort to reduce our environmental impact without respecting the relevant regulations? To extend your example, suppose new regulations are introduced that reduce emissions limits by 50%. An automaker that respects the regulations would likely modify their products in order to remain in compliance, thereby reducing their environmental impact by 50%. On the other hand, an automaker that disregards the regulations would likely take no action and the environmental damage would continue.

schwarrrtz is right on. But also, you have to consider that the new, conforming cars are very likely to be replacing cars that were much more harmful in terms of pollution.

You can argue about the balance of increased energy and materials consumption of a new car vs continued operation of a more polluting older car, but given the march of time, the older car's replacement is inevitable. So then it's a question of WHICH new car is going to replace the shitty old one-- is it going to be an (a) efficient, compliant vehicle, (b) a gas-guzzler and pollutant emitter, or (c) a car that pretends to be compliant but is a horrible emitter.

The outrage comes when people think they're replacing their crappy old car with (a) but end up with (c).

Seconded, the headline is misleading

We reverted the submission title to that of the article from “E.P.A. Accuses Fiat Chrysler of Secretly Exceeding Emissions Standards”.

Someone "accuses" you of wrongdoing (negative direction). Exceeding standards usually means better than the standard (positive direction). I agree with you. Title needs an update.

Exceeding the speed limit is illegal, but I understand what you're saying.

I have a feeling this is just the first in a long line of violations that are going to surface due to the VW scandal.

If you've ever been near a major automaker's test engineering lab, you quickly realize that ~all of them are doing shady things to hit their numbers.

This is a result of the cold hard engineering fact that our current level of technology is insufficient to hit the numbers without raising costs significantly. But once one automaker starts to fudge the numbers at a given price point, all the others must do the same thing or they fall behind. Being honest might add hundreds or thousands of dollars to the dealer cost of a family sedan, which is an absolute dealbreaker when your rivals are getting the same benefit by just lying.

There's a spectrum from shady-but-nearly-defensible to absolute lies, and different manufacturers fall on the spectrum at different points.

One that comes to mind is Mitsubishi [0], but there have been others. And as you suggest, there will be plenty more in the future.

[0] http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/26/news/companies/mitsubishi-ch...

"This is a result of the cold hard engineering fact that our current level of technology is insufficient to hit the numbers without raising costs significantly. But once one automaker starts to fudge the numbers at a given price point, all the others must do the same thing or they fall behind."

I'm going to have to remember to bring this up as an example whenever people claim private industry can police/regulate themselves. It's perfect.

> I'm going to have to remember to bring this up as an example whenever people claim private industry can police/regulate themselves.

Do people actually claim that? That's insane.

The natural state of all groups with the same interest is collusion. Self-policing only happens if there is a viable threat of even worse external policing. (Example: the Hays' code for films, which was only voluntarily established because of the looming threat of outright legal censorship of the film industry.)

Likewise, competition only emerges when:

* Parties are in a zero sum game where they lose little from cooperation.

* They lack the means to communicate and collude efficiently.

* They are forcibly prevented from colluding (anti-trust laws, etc.).

In the modern world where private communication is cheap and easy and where almost all market interactions are non-zero sum, the only thing preventing giant mega-cartels is the threat of legal action.

And even that's not working well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9

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

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

> The natural state of all groups with the same interest is collusion.

Once you reach marginal gains in engineering, you don't need collusion to have all the engineers doing the same things.

A good example is power consumption in microprocessors. For a given technology node, you will burn a certain amount of power for a certain size of chip. Period. You can be much worse than everybody else, but it's really hard to be much better.

>Do people actually claim that? That's insane.

Agreed. And yet, here in the United States that claim is a central plank in the Republican platform.

Well, the problem here is also in a way with the EPA's testing methodology. I think you have to go into it thinking that someone will try to cheat so the tests need to be designed differently (eg; don't just accept whatever comes through the ODB2 port as true).

So instead we overregulate to the point where affordable car's can't exist furthering the divide between the rich and the poor. Wonderful.

What evidence do you have to make such a claim?

These diesel vehicles were not truly "affordable" to start with, they are a very costly upgrade (> $4000) over the base engines. A truck that starts at over $37,000 and an SUV start at over $40,000. While these are obviously vehicles the average middle-income person might be able to afford, it's a far cry from the $27,000 starting price of the RAM and these aren't leaving the lot without being almost $10k more than the average new car.

How about blaming the execs or the other people actually responsible. GM, BMW, MB, and Ford among others have been able sell diesel vehicles in the US without (afaik) cheating.

>> "GM, BMW, MB, and Ford"

GP here. My whole point is that ~everyone is cheating to various degrees, it's just that not everyone has been caught yet.

Based on?

>If you've ever been near a major automaker's test engineering lab

I think the op is claiming industry experience.

>So instead we overregulate to the point where affordable car's can't exist furthering the divide between the rich and the poor.

affordable car doesn't have to be that big, luxury and that powerful. These years i'm driving Prius. Before that it was a large powerful RWD luxury sedan for many years. I've been enjoying both and both have been working fine for me.

well a lot of issues arise because of conflicting and unclear regulation. this certainly isn't limited to the auto industry or environmental concerns.

industries as whole do a great job of self regulation because its not profitable to be caught and everyone gets caught. the trouble is that with conflicting agencies involved you can even with the best intents get caught between two.

there are also times when someone who is responsible for passing something up the chain forgets and no one follows up. that is a process failure and again these things get fixed because its not profitable to be fined, investigated, etc

there'd be no incentive to lie if the EPA wasn't forcing these "standards" on them.

Now, there's no reason to innovate because someone spends big bucks to actually do what everyone else is lying about.

This isn't damming of private industry - it's damming of the regulation.

(Er, to me. Obviously you might come to a different conclusion. Just wanted to throw in how this article can be read both ways.)

If standards weren't forced on them we'd be living in smog-choked cities. Markets can't efficiently deal with tragedy-of-the-commons situations because the air belongs to everyone and there is no way to do price discovery. Even a manufacturer could advertise based on being eco-friendly the effects would be minuscule thus consumers would have little reason to prioritize such features.

You're essentially claiming we should abolish all regulations period because some people will cheat. The actual solution is to heavily punish cheaters. We don't have to guess and argue about this; go visit China then come back here and regale us about how horrible the EPA is and how we should eliminate pollution regulations.

The technology may not exist yet but government standards can be a forcing function that makes manufacturers invest in creating it and bringing the cost down.

In fact government has had a huge hand in many forms of innovation; the trans-continental railroad was only made possible by government backing. The internet could not have been created by private companies from scratch, but government investment made bootstrapping possible.

I feel like there are more differences between China and the USA than just the EPA, and that's not at all what I was arguing.

What did you read my argument as? Can you restate my argument? Either I spoke unclearly, or you read poorly. So, let me figure this out.

>Now, there's no reason to innovate because someone spends big bucks to actually do what everyone else is lying about.

This statement just doesn't make sense. If we punish actors who cheat the incentive is to innovate towards meeting the goal. If there's no mandate, and no punishment then there's no reason to innovate in a direction that protects the commons. There's simply no market mechanism for protecting the commons that works in practice.

Without the regulation they wouldn't be doing anything, because any attempt at limiting emissions is more expensive than none at all. Regulations aren't perfect, but perfect is the enemy of good enough.

The standards escalated way too fast though. They were asking for essentially multiple orders of magnitude improvement in a single generation.

Even the dirtiest of the cheating VWs would have passed the previous standards (from not that many years ago) with flying colors.

>>The standards escalated way too fast though.

Um, no. The EPA didn't pull the numbers out of their asses. They worked with the auto industry to come up with requirements that were stringent but realistic.

Government agencies are commonly criticized for regulating industries that they have no expertise in. In reality though, things don't work that way. Either the regulators themselves have industry experience (what is commonly referred to as "revolving doors") or they consult experts.

The 2025 CAFE standards seem to be a dramatic rise in requirement in a short time period wherein the industry attempted to provide alternative advise and was soundly rebuffed, even outright ignored. The EPA may have once listened, but they don't seem to anymore.

If you can provide hard evidence that support your perception, I'd be interested in looking at it.

The urea injected Diesel engines meet the standards.

No, they don't. I own one that's about to get bought back.

which one is that?

(serious question because I feel like the one thing I've noticed is that the companies getting nailed are the ones not using DEF)

2015 Golf TDI.

The technology to meet and even exceed EPA regulations already exists: hybrid cars. At this point there should not be a single gas only new car on the market, all models and all trim levels should be hybrid as a starting point. If they did this, mass production would reduce the current extra hybrid cost to nothing. Instead they are lying on emissions tests and want to maximize profit off hybrids. EPA must punish such behavior.

Yep, no one talks about this but hybrids are far less polluting than non hybrids. It isn't even close.

I'd say it's more damning of the enforcement of the regulations than the regulations themselves. If car manufacturers fudging numbers were quickly discovered and made to pay hefty fines to the regulator and refunds to customers, and potentially prison time for executives (depending on how serious the violation is, of course), you can bet the manufacturers would quickly learn it makes prudent business sense to be honest.

We'd all have health problems and shortened lifespans from air pollution, but hey, at least automakers wouldn't be lying to us.

I would've thought there might be more incentive then for manufacturers to spend a few bucks to test and rat out the models of other manufacturers then; guess not.

iirc the original (college) study which found VW emissions were way higher than they should've been also found that a BMW diesel produced the book figure

Edit: Ah - "Vehicle C was fitted with a 3.0L turbocharged in-line six-cylinder engine in conjunction with an aqueous urea-SCR system and DPF for NOx and PM control, respectively" from here[0] page 25

[0]http://www.eenews.net/assets/2015/09/21/document_cw_02.pdf

Another reason to think it's nearly industry-wide is that ECUs, ECU firmware frameworks, sensors, and interface firmware come from a small set of common suppliers. Anyone not hitting a competitor's' numbers knows their competitors are using the same hardware and much of the same software.

These organizations are obsessive about IP and they definitely don't share engine management code on a regular basis, even if they use the same ECU and the result is largely similar code.

It's only that the result is functionally similar, it's that much of the code is identical, provided by the hardware supplier, and much of what differs is declarative.

As someone who manufactures automotive test equipment, please apply a bit of Occam's razor. A lot of the "shady" stuff they're doing is just reducing and simplifying the cost of testing.

It would always be nice to run a more accurate, more real-world test. Certain Ford specs, for example, require multi-axis robot arms with independently mobile manikin forms to apply loads to the seats. Old Ford specs, and some current competitor specs, just have a hemispherical indenter that moves through a sinusoidal profile on a straight line at a fixed speed by an electric motor.

Hardware for the "realistic" test costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, plus about a man-year of expert engineering time by the test lab or a systems integrator to turn the robot arm into standards-compliant, turn-key test equipment. We're talking high-speed data aquisition, 3D modeling, CNC machining, user studies, and all that fun stuff. Checking that it works correctly requires high-speed cameras, pressure mats, and a lot of work.

The old-style test requires bit of steel, a few bearings, an on/off switch, an electrical counter or timer (that even an ME can wire up, and that's saying something!) and an electric motor for cost a few thousand dollars, and can be built by anybody with a welder and a few wrenches, maybe a machinist lathe and old Bridgeport mill if they want to get fancy. You can verify the correct operation with a pair of calipers, a stopwatch, and a gentle kick to make sure the bearings are still tight.

Or there are multi-million-dollar sled systems that throw assembled prototype vehicles at barriers to see how they break. I don't even want to get into the complexities of those. And a lot of what you measure there can be tested by chaining sub-components to a hydraulic ram and slowly tearing them apart to see what maximum force they can take.

The two systems produce roughly the same test results. In rare cases, there's an effect that the simple system misses that would be caught by the complex one. In my realm, thankfully, it would be difficult and pointless to design it to pass only the simple test. In many cases, it's not about honesty, it's about pragmatism. In this case, the fault lies not with the technology but with the intentional effort that the manufacturer went through to cheat the test.

It's not just automakers. I have seen things in heavy industry that not only push the envelope but could be called outright cheating.

Yeah like the French company that's been falsifying tests on heavy steel forgings that are used for nuke plants. In that case worryingly the carbon distribution isn't uniform. Which puts the parts at risk for brittle fracture[1].

[1] If steel is ductile (lower carbon) it'll absorb an enormous amount of energy before failing. Brittle, think glass.

Yeah, there's no way it was just VW. All the other companies making diesel engines must have known, or at least suspected, what was going on with the VW TDIs. There are pretty fundamental reasons why diesel engines have to choose between efficiency and emissions, and when VW announced that they built an efficient engine without a urea device everyone else must've scrambled to find out their "secret", until they realized there wasn't one. The fact that they didn't blow the whistle is pretty compelling evidence that they're up to the same stuff.

The Notice of Violation (NOV) [0] is worth checking out if you're interested in the nitty gritty details of regulatory enforcement. It's quite readable and paints a clear picture that EPA believes FCA violated the Clean Air Act. Specifically that they have software/code (AECDs) which were "neither described nor justified". Also interesting that they already set up a short URL for this particular issue. [1]

[0] https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-01/documents...

[1] https://www.epa.gov/fca

Volkswagen, a German company, admitted wrongdoing, is paying $4.3bn in fines and will see its executives, domestic and overseas, jailed by the U.S. government [1]. Curious if Fiat Chrysler will see those checkboxes--admission of wrongdoing, material fines and jailed executives--filled.

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/US/volkswagen-pleads-guilty-pays-43-bi...

>admitted wrongdoing

"VW was concealing the facts from EPA, the state of California and consumers," EPA enforcement official Cynthia Giles says. "We expected better from VW."[1]

They may have EVENTUALLY admitted wrongdoing, but it was only after being caught red-handed, lying about what they were caught doing, and then follow up testing [2].

1. http://www.autonews.com/section/vw-timeline

2. 'Volkswagen tells regulators that the differences amount to technical issues and "unexpected" test conditions' Read more at https://www.cars.com/articles/vw-diesel-crisis-timeline-of-e...

I personally don't think that jail for simply emitting NOx above limits is worth it

It's less about emitting NOx, or an individual Chrysler owner being deceived about how much emissions their car produces. It's not even about a public policy requirement that aims to limit NOx emission, reducing smog and acid rain, which are bad.

In the end, it's about FCA lying to the government: claiming to meet the requirement while secretly working around it.

An estimated 60 people have died because of these excess emissions.

What penalty would you consider appropriate for someone breaking the law, resulting in 60 deaths?

Should it matter what law was broken, or how those deaths were caused?

> Should it matter what law was broken, or how those deaths were caused?

Yes, always. We don't jail people for doing immoral things. We jail them for doing illegal things. This is a big part of rule of law.

Are you saying that 60 people died because of excess FCA NoX emissions?

No. That is the estimate of the number who died from the Volkswagon emissions.

60 people was just an estimate from statistics, and NOx emissions are not a new problem either.

NOx emissions are not a new problem, and our ability to estimate its effects are pretty good. The exact number is an estimate, but the real number is very unlikely to be off by more than a factor of 2.

If you randomly shoot 30 people, what is the appropriate penalty? What if you were shooting blindfolded and couldn't see when or who you killed? What if you were being paid money to take shots?

That is an exact analogy to what Volkswagon did when it sold cars that exceeded regulatory limits.

I mean in the sense that the emissions before the EPA was created was far worse.

Ok, so in your example 120 people were killed by emissions vs. the ~60 that died today. That's an improvement for everyone except for the people who still died.

Arguing that killing less people than could have in the past doesn't feel like it's the best way to frame a position, unless the new number is zero.

Isn't this like saying that shooting deaths were a much bigger problem in the Old West, so it's not fair to jail someone just for shooting a few people? The crucial fact is that you're breaking the law and killing people in the process, not that you would have killed even more people if the law hadn't been there.

And murders were worse 10 years ago too.

How on earth is that related to giving someone a pass for a murder now?

The law does give a pass for murder now. Just half the number it gave until a few years ago. So it's really hard to argue that a company in this situation is morally responsible for the murder of some number of people. As that would be equivalent to saying that the government has decided how many people you can murder, perfectly legally, every year. So unless you accept this, it's not murder.

Yes. See https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning... for estimates of things like how many hundreds of thousands of deaths per year worse we used to be.

But that is irrelevant to the question of what the consequences of Volkswagen's actions were. That's like justifying calling a black person a nigger on the basis of that being better than the lynchings that they used to have to put up with.

That it's an estimate doesn't change the basic moral argument unless you're suggesting it's quite likely the estimate could be so off that the actual amount is 0. If it's even 1, and the outcome could reasonably have been predicted, the argument holds.

If they wrote software that does something wrong, then there is so much premeditation in this that jail time is a must.

> I personally don't think that jail for simply emitting NOx above limits is worth it

The violation doesn't actually state the increased NOx emissions were above any limits, just that the software responsible for the increase wasn't disclosed.

We tested their engine back in 2013, it had an offset and a timer for the coolant temperature. So if you waited long enough between the test cycles the timer would run out and the actual coolant would be relayed to the ECU which would then run a different calibration. Its a joke but diesels unless they have major after-treatment systems just cant run that clean - as they become hotter (read: more efficient) they produce more NOx.

Actual title: "EPA Notifies Fiat Chrysler of Clean Air Act Violations"

When the EPA fines a company (e.g., $4.3Bn for VW), where exactly does that money go?

http://www.sfgate.com/business/networth/article/When-governm...

The US Treasury

I've been expecting revelations like this. If the other manufacturers were legit in these measures I would have expected them to e.g. run full page ads poking fun at VW to curry favour. They've been curiously silent.

The most interesting thing about the arrest of a senior VW manager and this is that, evidently, software isn't too hard to investigate. It's probably not easy, but if a white-enough-box test of the ECU shows it cheats by detecting a dynamometer using a simple expedient that has no practical use on the road, then you have evidence that will stand up in court.

Why don't they just do emissions tests by attaching a probe to exhaust and taking the car on a normal drive. Harder to fake results when you're not performing them in the same lab conditions.

What is a normal drive?

It's easier to standardize and precisely specify the test cycle on a dyno.

It makes it impossible to compare between models or even between model years.

Since a key use of the information of for a consumer to compare between two cars to decide which they should purchase based on emissions and fuel economy, a repeatable test is a key requirement.

Then put the car on rollers for a fixed speed/acceleration/time profile

That's exactly what they do now. Volkswagen and Chrysler (and probably everyone else) have ECU firmware that watches for those profiles and adjusts the engine tuning for emissions differently compared to normal operation.

They need profiles that are more difficult to identify and more of them to solve this technically. Or the EPA and other regulatory agencies can bring down the hammer when they catch cheating like this.

Or else they rewrite the legislation to say "You can't ever exceed X on emissions". Then they do two tests, one for the legislation, which is a random drive over a period of time from a randomly sampled vehicle, and a second which is the dyno test for consumer information.

Oh, I didn't know that. I thought they just waited til the tech entered the "this is an emissions test" code in the ECU.

The testing process is required to pass a gauge reproducibility and reliability study. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOVA_gauge_R%26R.

Essentially, the goal is to analyze the results when a given vehicle is tested in different conditions. In your scenario, each of three operators might take a dozen different makes and models of vehicles on a "normal drive" on each of three consecutive days, resulting in 3 operators x 3 measurements x 12 vehicles = 108 NOx numbers. They would then analyze the results statistically, checking the average value and standard deviation. This should prove that each of the three operators produces the same result ("reproducibility"), and that each day produces the same result ("reliability").

There will be some variation - the vehicle may change a little from one run to another, even if the control inputs are identical. And the inaccuracy of the probe will also produce some small random variation. Those can't be helped - though they should be known. But if you use different operators, lead-foot Larry needs to produce test results that are indistingushable from when slow Sam runs the test, and they both need to produce the same values on windy days and snowy days.

This is easy if the only function of the operator is to strap the vehicle to a dynamo, check the HVAC, tire pressure, and so on, plug the control cable into the OBDII port (or wherever it goes), and push the "start" button on the tester.

Perhaps the best solution is to collect data on hundreds of actual, reasonable, human drivers and feed those noisy, difficult to distinguish profiles into the test system. But that means expensive dynamos, and lots of hours of testing.

I'm sure that would be more expensive. And there are union work rules.

Oh, oh, let me guess: it's the fault of a single rogue engineer, and does not in any way implicate company upper management.

I am assuming your comment is referencing Volkswagen's emissions controversy? It doesn't really fit considering six executives have been charged [1] over the incident.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/business/volkswagen-diese...

I suspect the parent comment is referring to the way VW attempted to deflect blame from management / executives to claiming initially that it was rogue engineers. (rather than referring to who has or hasn't been charged by the government)

That's nice. I was referring to this: http://www.reuters.com/article/volkswagen-emissions-congress...

Looks like the engine in question is the 3L L630 which is made by the Fiat-owned VM Motori

You think they would've done something after the Volkswagon disaster... this is either extreme ignorance (we don't really know what our code does) or malicious intent (let's hope we don't get caught like them).

The release doesn't actually state that they violated emissions standards. It just says that they failed to notify the EPA of the presence of software that can alter the vehicle's emissions profile.

Do trucks and SUVs in the US even have emissions standards? I know they're exempt from emissions tests in many states which is part of the reason for their popularity.

That's not why they're popular. They're popular because the average American thinks bigger is better and they also want a bigger car for when they have an accident, they can kill the other person instead of themselves.

Though I see a slight grayish tint to your comment indicating some down votes, you're spot on. Does anyone really think someone's automotive buying decision goes something like, "yeah, it's hard to park and the mileage sucks, but at least I don't have to take 30 minutes out of my day once every few years to go get emissions tested. That'll make the rough ride and the hundreds of extra dollars in fuel expenses worth it."? No, no one has ever thought that when buying a car.

There was a subsidy relating to "business" vehicles weighing over 3 tons. It was supposed to target commercial equipment but lots of small business owners just started buying huge SUVs. http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2008/07/high... It's been toned down a bit recently. http://www.section179.org/section_179_deduction.html

Big cars were always popular in the US. Until the mid 1970s when fuel economy standards and an oil crisis or two changed the market. The oil crisis passed, but the economy standards did not.

Trucks weren't held to the same standards as cars, so manufacturers started making more carlike trucks to meet consumer demand for larger vehicles. The improved visibility and image of toughness and independence also helps drive truck and SUV sales.

The visibility is modified, not improved. Far away objects are more visible and very nearby objects (like curbs or children) are less visible.

Bad drivers driving huge cars through dense places are scary...

Consumers with this preference perceive that their visibility is better. Don't confuse them with facts.

I think it's mostly related to the percentage of other vehicles that they can see over.

It's more that their different classification makes them cheaper. If SUVs had to play by the same fuel economy standards as cars, they'd be a lot more expensive than they are. I don't know if they actually have different emissions standards, but if they did then the same thing would apply there.

Consumer demands are a big part of it. I doubt they would have too many issues meeting emission specs if passenger cars were limited to the 40-50kW they realistically need.

Have you ever driven in a snowstorm? They're popular in areas with snow because the drivetrain handles better in the snow, and the higher ground clearance means that they can handle unplowed roads.

All you really need is FWD and snow tires. Sure AWD and extra height will save you some shoveling that one time you will park a little too far in a snow bank, but it's not worth the extra cost and weight.

The only thing you absolutely don't want in snow is RWD.

An awd sedan works great on the unplowed roads in Colorado.

May have been a bad decision, but I drove a Toyota Solara (2-door Camry) through years of winters in (properly) upstate NY. Knowing when/how to drive in snow goes a long way further than AWD or ground clearance.

> Do trucks and SUVs in the US even have emissions standards? I know they're exempt from emissions tests in many states which is part of the reason for their popularity.

In 1999, California enacted its LEV (low emissions vehicle) II regulations, which moved most pickup trucks and SUVs into the same regulatory scheme as passenger vehicles: https://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/levprog/levii/factsht.pdf

I recall that, Ford had to purchase a bunch of Honda V6 engines for their trucks because they didn't have an engine that could meet the standards.

Diesels are required to have a particulate filter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_particulate_filter

Which is usually used with exhaust fluid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid

DEF (AdBlue) can significantly reduce NOx emissions. It's now standard in modern heavy diesel trucks, busses, etc. However, it's very rare to find it in light diesels such as cars and SUVs which often have real-world NOx emissions far in excess of what emissions standards allow.

DPFs remove visible soot from diesel emissions, but their actual benefit for health is less clear. They don't trap the ultra-fine, PM2.5 invisible sooty particles which are the most dangerous because they can penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream. These particles are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

DPFs also tend to break down after a few years of use. Often, they end up being (illegally) removed by owners who don't want to pay for an expensive replacement.

DEF isn't that rare in passenger vehicles anymore. Ford's new line of diesels tend to use it, BMW and Mercedes use it, and I feel a couple of other 'new' small diesels are using it as well. It used to be rare, but I think enough people realized they can't meet standards without it and now they are all moving towards it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most regular consumer vehicles aren't required to have a urea/DEF system, but all the big trucks and commercial vehicles tend to.

Somebody was blaming this on trucks, but I'm thinking this might be the opposite - their small cars as it was with VW because they don't have these sorts of systems in place.

You're right. It's now light diesel vehicles that are the primary problem with regard to excessive NOx emissions. At least in Europe, where there are a huge number of light diesel vehicles on the roads.

But there are, of course, a lot of old pre-DEF heavy vehicles on the roads too that would not comply with modern emissions standards.

The engine in question did have a DEF system though...

Every passenger vehicle in the US has to meet emissions standards. Testing whether they actually meet those standards in everyday practice is up to the states. If you roll coal in rural Montana it's up to individual police officers whether to pull you over or not.

It's all out in the field, and fixing the problem in the field would be devilishly hard. VW's cheat enabled them to sell diesels without urea injection. Retrofitting that without admitting guilt or drawing attention isn't practical.

If you buy a vehicle, is it unreasonable to receive the source code so you can later fix it if necessary?

Donald Trump was celebrating just a few days ago that Chrysler was going to open a new plant in Michigan instead of in Mexico[1][2]. Could this be a political move by the EPA?

[1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/81846086267555840...

[2] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/81846146776682496...

Given how much he wants to gut the EPA, maybe they figured this was their last chance to get the news out.

It could be, but it almost certainly is not.

Yeah, I mean I don't think he's complained about the EPA busting emissions violators, has he? He at least seemed to be pushing a "clean air and water" thing, which something like this should certainly fall under, even if you don't want to police carbon emissions aggressively as some would like to.

I think problems like this deserve investigation effort and aren't particularly political - probably an easy play to your average citizen.

Why wouldn't they have done the same thing to Ford months ago?

It could be due to the fact that they were caught in Germany a few months ago doing the same thing.... Or that another major automaker was just caught, bringing greater attention to it. I'd say those are both more likely.

This is all happening because at some point the car companies had this choice to make:

1) Deprecate/shutdown gas-only car factories, build hybrid factories with an upgrade roadmap to plugin-hybrid and eventually EV. Then make all models and all trim levels (from base to premium) hybrid as a starting point

2) Continue using gas-only car factories to get more ROI and profit, use shady tactics that either secretly violate EPA regulations or at best comply with the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. Make a few hybrid factories to profit from the eco-friendly market.

Look at the new car market today, it's clear which option the car companies picked.

This is a curious statement given that both this and the VW violations pertain to diesel-powered vehicles, not gasoline ones (hybrid or not).

This is 'all happening' with diesel engines, which are a tiny percentage of gas-only engines sold in the US. Your choices above seem to ignore option 3 - stop making diesel engines and only sell gasoline engines.

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