What really happened at Volkswagen | Hacker News Reader

What really happened at Volkswagen

economist.com

75 pointstormeh41 comments

Regarding the other comments here: this is a book review, not a general analysis of emissions cheating.

I am about halfway through the book right now (so far, very highly recommended).

There is a lot more in the book than is captured in this review. VW's history is extremely interesting, and the company has unique organizational aspects (even by German standards).

And related, an excellent, detailed technical summary of cheating implementations, including the historical evolution across manufacturers: https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~klevchen/diesel-sp17.pdf

"Unique" is very right: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Act

The "autocratic" management style seems to be the biggest cause of this issue. I'd be surprised if members of upper management didn't have a sense of what's going on.

It reminds me of the events leading NASA Challenger disaster. The engineers and lower management employees were totally ignored by upper management in that scenario.

Though, I should mention, I haven't read any books about the VW scandal yet.

The "autocratic" management style seems to be the biggest cause of this issue.

Unclear. The author of the book takes that position. The author seems to be hostile to worker ownership or state ownership.

Companies with multiple classes of stock to deprive the stockholders of voting control can have a much worse autocratic leader problem. Google and Facebook are set up that way, of course. Here's the list of the 28 S&P 500 companies with restricted voting rights.[1] As a group, they underperform the full S&P 500. Some of those companies that aren't doing well face shareholder litigation. Viacom's minority shareholders did manage to get rid of Sumner Redstone, but he was 93 and really had to go.

For many decades, no big company did this, because the NYSE didn't allow such companies to be listed. (Except for Ford and Hershey, which predated that rule; they were grandfathered in.) It's still rare, but now companies can get away with it.

[1] https://s.thestreet.com/files/tsc/v2008/photos/contrib/uploa...

I wonder if there is a dropoff in returns for companies with voting control. Google and FB have been pretty good in their early years so far.

I thought the same thing with the groupthink at NASA.

It's hard to put in perspective just how badly NASA management screwed up though--probably much moreso than here.

I would bet 90%+ of HN user's great grandmothers would not make the same mistake. Of course they wouldn't--it takes a special case of narcissistic manager who can both get himself to the top and also tell his engineers no because he cant admit a mistake and would rather risk blowing up a space shuttle (and it happened).

Like VW is the only company that cheated on emissions? Fiat Chrysler, Daimler, GM, Mitsubishi, Renault, and the list keeps growing. The interesting story is why the whole industry is allowed to get away with cheating. And it's got nothing to do with Hitler.

In fairness, the violations in the other cases I've seen (and I admit I haven't paid all that close attention) seem to be much more marginal.

There was a program on national French TV almost a full year before VW case blew up, they tested PSA, Renault and Fiat cars and _every single one_ was several times above the norm.

also http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/24/reuters-america-update-1-fren...

> And it's got nothing to do with Hitler.

What?

TFA starts by mentioning VW's origins in Hitler's creation of a group to create a "people's car", and cites a significant part of that as being an organization created and sheltered from outside influence, which apparently set up the conditions for a very autocratic CEO to create the internal culture that led to the cheating/fraud several decades later. It's a really weird, weak connection.

The first couple paragraphs is light-on-facts shade throwing. I didn't read the rest. My first impression was not one of even-handed journalism.

I especially dig the necessity to bring up Adolf Hitler. As if that has any relevance AT ALL.

Especially when we know that the problem isn't even specific to VW, with many manufacturers accused of the same thing.

If anyone really wants to learn more about what happened here, I can't recommend more the 33c3 talk "Software Defined Emissions," which tells you a ton more than this clickbait hack journalism could ever.

> I can't recommend more the 33c3 talk "Software Defined Emissions," which tells you a ton more than this clickbait hack journalism could ever.

https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-7904-software_defined_emissions

The technical details of Dieselgate in 32C3 talk [0]. Highly recommended. At around 3260 secs. the famous acoustic function is revealed.

[0] https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7331-the_exhaust_emissions_scand...

I hope Silicon Valley or Mr Robot steals "acoustic function" for use as a plot device of hiding something nefarious in your codebase.

The entire article could be summarised to 'Autocratic executives of VW got away with wilful cheating, by throwing middle management under the bus'

It's a short summary of what's in a recently published book. As it says on the third line.

Exactly my thoughts. I read almost all these articles published over the last one year and none of them revealed anything new. Same story writing in different way with same headlines.

what the hell is "throwing shade"? I've seen this expression crop up everywhere but literally only in the past few months. Is it new? Recent surge in popularity? What is this.

Gimlet Media's "Reply All" podcast has a fascinating episode partially devoted to the etymology of "yass", "throwing shade" and other phrases: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/69-disappeared/

thanks. I listened to the relevant part.

I've heard it for a while with the younger set, but it's definitely gaining traction in the general population.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=throw%20shade

Urban dictionary has a entry dating back to 2006.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=throw%20shad...

Would not surprise me if it is a msm fueled resurgence, akin to whataboutism.

It's ironic that you expect "even-handed journalism" without even fully reading the piece you're commenting on.

When I first heard about the cheating I saw VW engineers (both management and practitioners) as totally at fault. I thought they were directly detecting that the vehicle was undergoing a test and modifying the engine computer in response. I later found out they were changing the computer algorithm only when the inputs to the throttle and gearshift matched the test protocol. To me this seems like a legitimate way to "cheat." They are using TDD and are passing the test. The test writers should have thrown in a secret or random test as well as the pre-defined tests.

Laws don't work that way

In this case the law is written precisely like a unit test:

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTP-75

The problem with the testing is that it also followed the exact same unit test. I have not read the law, but they certainly violated the spirit of the law if not also the letter.

If the law worked the way you think, they wouldn't need a test.

Part of the problem is that the old analog systems were never expected to match the tests in the real world either -- that's the origin of the YMMV phrase. But I suppose the tests were sufficient to keep them within some bound.

Why do you want to encourage a race to the bottom?

I fully agree with the regulations that is why I was at first appalled when I thought they cheated in an un-interesting way. I thought maybe they exploited the fact that only the drive wheels were turning during the test and used that information to switch modes. I regard that as simply breaking the rules.

What VW did do was more interesting and could be interpreted as exploiting a loophole in the law. They very precisely met the requirements of the emissions test as it was written in the law. I see this as a regulation failure and should be used to inform future emission laws and testing.

This whole video is interesting but at least watch starting at this point to see how clever VW engineers are:

https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7331-the_exhaust_emissions_scand...

If there had not been such a public outcry VW might have pushed back saying they are in compliance with the law as written.

FTA :

>>> He delves into VW’s origins, when Adolf Hitler ordered the construction of a “people’s car”, or Volkswagen in German. VW set up shop in the German countryside. Wolfsburg bred a “headquarters mentality” that insulated the firm from outside influence. Unprecedented union power, handed over in the 1960s as the price the federal government paid for floating the firm on the stockmarket, and the sway of the state of Lower Saxony, which retained a 20% voting stake in the company, gave outside shareholders little say.

So basically, union power and government involvement (and lack of private investors) lead to cheating ?

come on...

no, it's in your quote, Hitler did it /s

that's just some comtext blurb, you're extrapolating too much out of it

>>>> Unprecedented union power, handed over in the 1960s as the price the federal government paid for floating the firm on the stockmarket

Unless I'm missing something, this is roughly 15 years after Hitler disappeared. Or my english skills are truly fading away :-(

Oh no, another VW hit piece, attacking the biggest US competitor.

It is definitely NOT what really happened with the emissions scandal, as it omits the most important facts, how this cheating scandals began, and how it spread out.

The first emission cheating scandals happened with US carmakers, then the US and EU emission testing laws deviated, allowing the US to cheat with their drivers, giving national carmakers the advantage, whilst EU and Asia committed to reproducible tests. But only on one model out of R&D, and not every single engine coming out of production. And then of course the tricks began to detect the tests, probably at Audi (certainly not VW), with Bosch being the one who needs to take the blame. They implemented it. Then many others detected the same tricks, and either used the sophisticated cycle detection in the Bosch ECU or used simplier timers. In the last list I saw 50% of all tested engines cheated with the NOx emissions, and VW was not even at the top of the numbers.

Hello! Just the other day I argued that the EU's new antitrust case against Google isn't economic nationalism, so allow me to even the score :)

VW's conduct both in implementing these cheats, as well as resisting the investigations into them (to this day!) was obviously, morally indefensible, and totally stupid. Health statistics put the most likely number of premature deaths caused by it somewhere in the 4-digits, in the US alone.

The absolute amount of the fine must have punitive component large enough to make it obvious that such crimes don't pay. At the same time, it wold have been unconscientious to level a fine that would bankrupt VW. I believe the US did a pretty good job.

It also shows a deep misunderstanding of the processes by which the Federal Government works. These fines are not determined by some Trump-like egomaniac impulsively acting on his emotions. Nor is the EPA known to be a fan club of US car manufacturers.

Why only VW? It's quite easy: these manipulations are really only relevant to Diesel engines, which for some reason became a fetish for manufacturers in Germany only. VW sells more Diesel cars in the US than all other companies together.

Whow, so many mistakes.

"VW's conduct both in implementing these cheats": No Bosch implemented these cheats. If there was help or demand from outside, it was Audi, not VW.

"Why only VW? VW sells more Diesel cars in the US than all other companies together."

The fines should be on all manifacturers of the cheaters. From the list of the affected engines I see not a single one being targeted. The relevant VW engines are all manifactured by Audi, the relevant cheats were manifactured by Bosch, the other relevant cheaters involve everyone: Audi, Daimler, BMW, Skoda, Volvo, VW, Jaguar, Land Rover, Citroen, Mazda, Peugeot, Hyundai, KIA, Toyota, Ssangyong, Infinity, Fiat, Ford, Mitshubishi, Seat, Vauxhall, Chevrolet, Dacia, Honda, Nissan, MG, Porsche, Renault, ... you name it. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/apr/23/diesel-cars...

Only those 7 diesel cars meet the Euro 6 NOx limits, the other 97% not.

  * Audi	A5	2014
  * BMW	3 Series	2013
  * Skoda	Superb	2016
  * Volkswagen	Golf SV	2015
  * Volkswagen	Passat	2016
  * Volkswagen	Scirocco 2015
  * Volkswagen	Touran	2016

Note that this mostly consists of VW cars meeting the limits, all others not. A good technical overview is summarized here: http://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT...

That's an alternative view I haven't seen before, thanks. Do you have some links for further reading on this?

https://youtu.be/7t4paclIwuU

Yes, to me it really looks like those kind of things go well beyond VW, it seems it's mostly about national economic interests.

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