Inside VW’s Campaign of Trickery | Hacker News Reader

Inside VW’s Campaign of Trickery

nytimes.com

112 pointsiamjeff54 comments

I am ashamed, that my government (the German one) has effectively helped to cover things up for decades now in the EU and they are still doing it.

They are still blocking realistic pollution regulations for cars in the EU and they help car manufacturers to come away with their manipulations in the EU without real sanctions.

In the US, buyers of such cars get a compensation. In Germany, they will never get a penny.

But what is worse, people get sick and die (+) because of air pollution in the EU and everybody knows it and they just ignore it or downplay the problem.

(+) the numbers of pollution related illnesses is on the rise and medical studies verify the fact that it is a problem.

In many cities now, we have regularly pollution values high above thresholds, but also here, the government and local authorities block effective countermeasures.

It is so bad, that (a newer study found out) cars which should be better in pollution because of EU regulations (so called EU5) are sometimes even worse than their predecessors (EU4), because the EU willingly puts a blind eye on real pollution values.

And it is all, because the German government wants to protect German car producers.

I hope, E-Mobility will kill German car manufacturers. And I know, that it will be bad for my Home-country, but they (the manufacturers) deserve it, since they did not care about real clean cars for so long.

„I hope, E-Mobility will kill German car manufacturers... they (the manufacturers) deserve it“

So the 500.000 people working for VW and their related families (probably clocking in at > 2 million) „deserve“ to loose their job and livelihood because 5 clowns at the top are pulling the strings the way they want?

Don't get me wrong...but the problem seems not to be with the manufacturers per se. More about regulating the very top of the ladder inside huge companies like in other sectors of the economy (banking, etc.)

Ignoring the argument for why or if VW should shutdown; if they shutdown tomorrow, wouldn't you expect other automakers to increase production to fill the gap left, and those automakers are going to need more people, and likely more facilities to increase their production. Someone with industry knowledge would probably be able to do good analysis, but the number of people ultimately out of work would be much less than the total number of current workers.

Other automakers have been investigated and almost all have been found to cheat on emission tests in one way or another and selling cars that are emitting pollutants way over the legal limits.

Besides, the car market has been oversaturated for decades and the car industry has been slowly agonizing for a while. We have way more cars around than we actually need while almost all cars spend over 90% of the time parked and waiting, at the same time most cars in big cities are running around in circles trying to find a place to park.

It's a strange point you're trying to make.

Are we supposed to continue polluting the air we breathe with all the consequences on overall economy so half a million people can continue spending (wasting?) their lives making cars ?

When the fridge got invented, people selling ice found themselves out of a job, well the car is a significant cause of the global issue we're all facing and as such it has to be fixed or removed.

Anyways Germany voted to ban internal combustion engine cars by 2030 and EU is about to put in motion its own plan to do the same by 2050, so jobs in the car industry do not have a bright future.

Let's not forget that it is quite possible that in the near future most jobs will be made obsolete and the remaining ones will mostly be related to weak AI.

The argument of E-Mobility fixing the problem is an argument for many local politicians as to why action is not necessary.

I've been involved in measuring NO2 in many German cities and talking to many journalists, and that is the usual argument. And of course they are all afraid to hurt their economy, especially the smaller companies and trades.

I don't think, that E-Mobility per se is fixing the problem. I just think, that many things could/should be done, but most opportunities just where wasted for decades now, because of pure short-term profit thinking.

The other thing is, because the Germans waited so long, they are about to loose there own possibilities. Now other countries are far ahead -- morally and technologically.

Does any of this matter when, people just don't care? In 2016 VW sold more cars than any of the years before, and surpassed Toyota as the world's largest automaker [1]. I understand that regulators could issue sale bans or fines or what not -- but these will be set in a small subset of countries only, and even there: "(VW) ...had continued to sell cars with illegal software, including 2015 models."

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/01/30/volkswa...

Yep, I absolutely don't care. Just give me a nice car at a good price.

VW has already spent 22 billion dollars on this mess, which is more than it would have cost to just build the cars with proper emissions equipment, which means they're likely to learn from the mistake. As long as I believe that the government will force a buyback or allow me to obtain fair compensation for this type of wrongdoing, then I'm less concerned about it.

I care.

My first car was a 1989 VW Golf GTI. Loved it. Second car was a Golf GL. Third car was a Jetta TDI. Ran all these cars close to 400K KM. Always loved the fact that VWs are built to last. Relatively cheap to maintain, and just the usual minor VW issues like leaky doors, seized door handles, rust spotting, but never any major drivetrain problems.

It was time for a new car this year, and I ended up purchasing a brand new Honda. I love it.

It will take some time for VW to earn back my trust, and I hope I'm not the only loyal customer that has expressed dissatisfaction by purchasing a competing brand.

There's no reason why I shouldn't have been a VW customer for life.

Another anecdote to share, I have purchased three new VW: a Golf 1.8t, a 2.0t GTI (for the mr), and a TDI (for the mrs). We will not be purchasing a new VW when we cash in the TDI. I will not be purchasing a new VW when the GTI dies.

I deduce that you don't live in Brazil, where they definitely do not offer the same quality they do in Europe. In fact, they continued offering the T1 here, while they were selling the T5 in Europe.

They big 4 (Fiat, VW, Ford, and GM) spent decades selling trash in Brazil, because they had no competition.

If all of the big 4 are selling trash in Brazil, lack of competition isn't the problem. If the old models are still legal to sell, they're likely cheaper to make, and have better parts availability than a new model (because of so many of the old model already in the country)

Looks like Honda is not that great either:

https://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/2016_09_...

I even tried coining the term "volkswagening" (v. t.to both bypass a law and deceive the inspection) in forums, at work or on 9Gag (no shame - any media is a media), hoping to make the shame last a little longer, but it didn't pick up.

Maybe try some wordplay/agitprop with "fahrvergnügen". If I come up with a good zinger, I'll let you know.

I had one of the VW diesels with the cheat. VW bought it back from me, and I bought another VW station wagon. To avoid VW, I would have had to purchase an SUV or CUV. VW is the only company selling a reasonably priced station wagon in the U.S.

Eh? I'm owner (EU) of 2012' Golf TDI, which has the defeat device. I was offered €50 voucher for accepting the stage 1 "fix" VW started implementing.

My Subaru Outback is technically a station wagon, even if it resembles a SUV. The significant differences are fuel economy (+3 MPG for the Outback), headroom (+0.6" for the Forester), cargo capacity (+1.4 cubic feet for the Forester), and size (+1.7" width/+8" length for the Outback). Surprisingly, the Outback can also tow a heavier trailer (2700 lbs).

I agree that it's disappointing to see people continue to buy VW-Audi cars. If it hadn't been for the scandal, I would have bought an Audi A3 TDI or eTron, but I'm not givtthem business now.

Similarly, though, people generally continue to buy cars with terrible gas mileage by the millions when we know we need to start making better choices.

I too recently bought a different brand. Loved everything about my Jetta while I owned it, but I just couldn't feel good about the brand anymore.

US people may not care (though I'm not convinced yet), but in Europe the sale of diesel car is falling both new and second hand, even in Germany, home country of VW, it's reported to be down by 19%.

The US is lucky to have strong and effective regulators like CARB and the EPA.

Europe's lack of effective emissions regulation (and enforcement) allowed VW and others to get away with selling polluting toxic vehicles for years.

In fact, despite all that's happened in the US, in Europe they're still getting away with it today.

> In fact, despite all that's happened in the US, in Europe they're still getting away with it today.

Is that a result of weak regulators, or weak regulation? Or both? (Genuine question, I know diesel is much more popular in Europe than in the US)

Here in Europe all or most of the major carmakers had been infringing the "Euro N" emission protocols set by the EU. The now current Euro 6 is however quite restrictive and is in effect since 2014/2015. Despite Euro 6 being twice as permissive as EPA-standards, diesel cars emissions are actually an order of magnitude higher than most current standards, so if they remain within Euro 6 boundaries that would be great news. Apparently that is the case now for new cars in the market since Sep/2015.

NOx wasn't taken too seriously in the EU by member states until recently and many countries were not fining or prosecuting carmakers [1]. This is probably a result of hard-fought car plant concessions each member state has to make to get these valuable blue-collar jobs from going somewhere else. The mindset is changing now due to raised awareness by VW-gate but also the continuous struggle some large cities such as Paris, Madrid, London, Athens and Rome are having to keep smog levels under control [2]. So, in general, we can say the EU, public and cities are putting pressure, but states are still very lenient and reluctant and are seeking long-term exemptions [3].

I believe the EU is too dependent on heavy NOx-emitting diesel cars to take drastic regulatory measures, so diesel is being pushed out by the cities with upcoming taxation and city-limits restrictions. If the trend follows, taxation, and not regulation, will be the NOx deterrent in the coming years [4].

[1] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-238_en.htm

[2] http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/paris-cuts-harmful-...

[3] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21714991-europe-should...

[4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/11018725/This-diese...

To decrease NOx emissions the engine temperature has to be decreased which is equal to lower engine efficiency. It means more fuel consumption and more COx emissions.

When will CO2 obsessed bureaucrats begin to care about fine particles emitted by gasoline direct injection engines?

In the EU, with Euro 5+6 particulate limits for gasoline engines have been imposed as well. The previous rationale was "no limits are required because particulates are a diesel issue", which is bonkers because if it were so, one could simply apply the same limits to both and the gasoline engines would have passed with flying colours. My guess is heavy lobbying from automakers managed to keep these unregulated for so long, since indeed direct injection (which seems to be the new norm) makes fuel economy better but particulates worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards#Em...

To decrease NOx emissions the engine temperature has to be decreased which is equal to lower engine efficiency.

There are other ways to reduce NOx emissions, such as selective catalytic reduction (SCR) with urea ("AdBlue") injection. This technology is pretty standard on modern HGVs, but rare on light diesels.

diesel cars emissions are actually an order of magnitude higher than most current standards, so if they remain within Euro 6 boundaries that would be great news. Apparently that is the case now for new cars in the market since Sep/2015.

Unfortunately many (most?) diesel cars being sold today still emit far in excess of the Euro 6 specification in real-world conditions.

The EQUA air quality index assigns ratings (A to H) to vehicles based on how they perform in real world conditions. The number of diesel models that are getting G or H grades (indicating they emit at least 12X more NOx than the Euro 6 specification allows) is quite alarming:

http://equaindex.com/equa-air-quality-index/

The German government, the traffic minister in particular, are disgracefully downplaying the problem and working hard to water down any new regulations to the point where they don't threaten the status quo.

However, cities may well reverse the government's efforts, because they have a duty to limit the (real, measured) inner city pollution. So cheating on the dyno won't help car makers.

The downside is that the cities' only regulatory approach is more heavy-handed: things like banning all diesel vehicles on particularly bad days, etc.

But it might sour diesels for citizens, so all the lobbying efforts may well have been for naught.

> The US is lucky to have the EPA

For how much longer?

But of course. The EU is Germany, France, Holland and some other 25 countries that don't really have a say, now that the UK is out. 40% of Germany's exports are vehicles and a hefty part of them are diesel. So don't be surprised if VW is getting away with it. I am glad they at least got busted in the US.

Fun facts germany has voted a law to ban all internal combustion engine cars starting in 2030[1], EU is working on a plan to ban all fossil fuel based cars by 2050[2], France has progressively started its own ban initiative in 2016[3], German sales of diesel cars have dropped 19%[4].

These paint a different picture than "getting away with it".

[1]: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/237320-germany-votes-to-...

and http://www.popsci.com/germany-signals-intent-to-ban-internal...

[2]: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/03/28/report-eu-working-to-ban-...

[3]: http://auto.ndtv.com/news/france-to-ban-diesel-cars-from-nex...

[4]: http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/92203288/German-diesel-...

>The US is lucky to have strong and effective regulators like CARB and the EPA.

The EPA isn't exactly an example of efficient bureaucracy but putting CARB on the same level is an insult to the EPA

Please it would be better for the overall discussion and HN quality if you would refrain from posting nonsense. Of course Europe has emissions regulations[1] and cars have to go through an approval process testing these before getting an authorization to hit the markets.

The difference is that NOx emission levels are stricter in the US while the CO emission levels are stricter in the EU, effectively making the US market favorable to petrol cars while the EU is more favorable to diesel.

The VW defeat device scandal in the US started what's been known as dieselgate in Europe, the investigation that first targeted VW was then applied to all car makers and they pretty much all been found guilty of cheating to pass test while actually polluting way more.

As there are different tax rates for different emission levels this sent the car makers into the realm of tax fraud and tax evasion.

The EU has launched legal proceedings against 7 countries (Germany, UK, Spain, Luxembourg, Lituania, Czech Republic and Greece) and more may follow for not respecting the 2007 law for approval of new vehicles and for the lack of sanctions delivered or deliverable.

EU initiated an investigation which preliminary proceedings unveiled that the cheating was known to a few countries since at least 2010 and that they engaged in attempt to delay adoption of better and stricter tests.

Large cities around Europe have enacted bans on diesel cars, second hand sales of diesel cars have fallen by 10% compared to the previous year which is unprecedented.

Some diesel models were cancelled and a few carmakers even started pivoting from diesel to hybrid cars.

This quick summary is the tip of the iceberg and contrasts deeply with your claim of "despite all that's happened in the US, in Europe they're still getting away with it today."

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards

Let's be clear, CARB and the EPA would have completely missed this. It was specifically the work by the students. I do wonder if it was pot luck they got hold of a VW Jetta.

In the EU you have a similar cover up going on around diesel in general. For over 20 years people have known how bad diesel is, but the EU pushed it's low carbon emissions agenda promoting diesel cars and has not stepped back from it. Even now governments have successfully lobbied to relax the EU emissions limits.

The realistic option is to ban the sale of diesel cars and require all other vehicles to be retrofitted with NOx filters.

> I do wonder if it was pot luck they got hold of a VW Jetta.

IIRC the grant they received came from a European air pollution advocacy group which wanted to prove to European regulators that the EPA's stricter diesel emissions standards could be easily and affordably met with existing technology. The VW diesel cars were the only ones in the US after the newer standards came into effect which didn't use an SCR device so they would definitely have been included in the study specifically for that reason. The group also tested a BMW X3 diesel which did meet the standards in the same test that the VW models failed.

> a European air pollution advocacy group

The international council on clean transportation[1]

> The group also tested a BMW X3 diesel which did meet the standards in the same test that the VW models failed. There was also a VW passat and the BMW was actually a BMW X5 that though had passed the CARB test and was at the legal limit in 4 out of 5 real conditions test cases went 10 times the legal limit on the test case that included downhill[2]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Council_on_Clean...

[2]: PDF report, BMW X5 is vehicle C http://www.eenews.net/assets/2015/09/21/document_cw_02.pdf

Thanks. I was on mobile at the time and didn't feel like looking all that up.

Yet in Australia, we've been told that the "fix" is in most cases a mere software update:

"The update for the majority of affected vehicles is an update to the vehicle software. This adjustment will be relatively quick and has been made possible with advances in diesel engine technology. Some vehicles will additionally be fitted with a minor hardware update." (1)

It just doesn't add up. If it was so minor, why do it in the first place? Or was it a case of Australia's emission regulations being so hopelessly behind the times that they were close to being in line at any rate? I can't wait for the diesel engine to die altogether - and that includes heavy trucks.

1) https://au.volkswagen.com.au/emission

That comes at the price of bad mileage, lower torque and acceleration.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/business/internatio...

Without getting into banal arguments about corporate personhood, there should be a "death sentence" for companies. Fines and regulations aren't always enough to punish the most egregious corporate abuses.

A corporate death sentence is a bit too abstract. It also punishes the shareholders much more than the actual transgressors.

The CEO and the Board of Directors have often been paying themselves exorbitant salaries and benefits. After they resign or get fired they still have generous pensions. So what if the company doesn't exist, they're still personally quite well off.

No, what's really needed is to take the CEO and the Board and send them to prison. Put them in a chain gang. Have them go out to the prison yard every morning, pick axes in hand. Have them start with big boulders. Have them make tiny little pebbles out of them. Have them do this six days a week (Sundays off of course) for about 10 years.

Put the whole thing on "reality TV".

Such public humiliation would have a salutary effect on all the other CEOs and boards out there.

Yeah, some might say "cruel and unusual punishment", but chain gangs were quite popular not too long ago. They passed constitutional muster then.

> A corporate death sentence is a bit too abstract.

Let's say the company has to be forfeited to the state effectively making it a public company. CEO and board of directors are fired, every dollar over the minimum pension of their pensions are seized and going to a fund to fix the wrong they did and prevention from such a thing to happen again.

Shareholders are part of the problem and to be punished, they've been profiting from the transgressions (looking the other way or not caring enough to look into is not an excuse). They could be made to pay back any profit they got from the shares while, their shares are either willingly sold to state at a low price or seized/invalidated.

The message would be clear: don't invest in companies that are not clean or you risk losing it all.

These may seem drastic propositions but they are effective. They do not require sending people to prison which is something I do not wish upon anyone, not even my worst enemy.

I still wonder if/how much the programmers knew about what they were writing. I've know a lot of programmers who never look beyond the story they are given to write, and those who are suspicious of everything.

I've been working with German OEMs for years. It was a well-known secret that the regulatory emission tests were a sham and would routinely be circumvented.

I personally wasn't aware they actively tried to cheat on the dyno -- the European regulatory tests were so obviously, deliberately weak I didn't expect it was necessary.

But, yeah, a lot of people would have had to know (or at least have heard the rumors) about this. Combustion process engineers, requirements engineers, programmers, testers.

They knew.

In Western Europe most of the people knew that diesel cars are major cause of pollution, that the whole shenanigans are a sham and that politics, car makers are in on it. It would be very surprising that the people actually making it happen did not know.

The dead giveaway was that the favoring of diesel cars over gasoline was supposed to lower air pollution, but the before and after measurements showed a significant increase in air pollution. A EU investigation exposed a few countries governments for being aware of this and trying to delay the EU efforts to reinforce tests and controls.

It's a shame it's not clear from the article why university students were testing emissions from a Jetta in the first place. Can anyone shed any light on this?

West Virginia University has the Center for Alternative Fuels Engines and Emissions as part of the engineering school, and they test lots of different vehicles and engine technologies. http://www.cafee.wvu.edu

There is also a NYT article focused on the researchers: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/business/vw-wvu-diesel...

They were commissioned by a European NGO, the international council on clean transportation (ICTT)[1]. The ICTT wanted to include diesel cars from the US market where regulation are stricter with intent to show that it was actually possible to have lower emission from diesel cars.

As stated at the beginning of their report[2]:

  The Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions
  (CAFEE) at West Virginia University (WVU) was contracted 
  by the International Council on Clean Transportation 
  (ICCT) to conduct in-use testing of three light-duty 
  diesel vehicles, using a portable emissions measurement 
  system (PEMS), over a variety of pre-defined test routes 
  exhibiting diverse driving conditions pertinent to major 
  United States population centers located in the state of 
  California.

You can also have a look at the ICTT report[3].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Council_on_Clean...

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

[3]: http://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT...

They could not have shot less flattering photos of the students, holy moly.[0]

[0]: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/05/07/business/07VW-EWI...

It's their standard style of photography recently. I don't even think it looks bad - just pretty opinionated

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