SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
El Reg reports
Former engineer James Robert Liang took a plea deal with the US federal government to cooperate with its ongoing investigation of how the German car maker cheated American emissions tests and passed off its "clean diesel" engines as meeting state and government clean air standards.
While VW executives have claimed that the use of a defeat device to artificially limit emissions during tests was the work of a "couple of software engineers", Liang's plea deal shows that the conspiracy dates back roughly a decade and has roots in the team that designed the engines.
In other words, Liang claims the design team was in on it, not just a couple of bad apples.
Liang told the government that in 2006, engineers knew the EA 189 diesel engine would not be able to meet clean air emission standards on its own. Rather than attempt to redesign the engine, he and other members of the design team deliberately cheated the testing system.
[...] He said that the device was used to get the clean air certification on VW's "clean diesel" models from 2009 to 2016, and that the group continued to lie about the emissions output of the engines even after the US government began its investigation.
Previous: VW Engineer Pleads Guilty in Diesel Cheating Scandal
(Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Tuesday September 13 2016, @06:14PM
This is half-snarf and half-serious, how do you design an engine to not pollute? And why didn't we design them that way a long time ago? Maybe we could put restrictor plates in the carbs like NASCAR? Brilliant, burn less fuel and you pollute less.
So catalytic converters make an engine pollute less, but to me that is an added *part* not engine design. I guess if a design tweak was easy they'd have done it. But what is the op talking about there?
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
(Score: 3, Informative) by fraxinus-tree on Tuesday September 13 2016, @06:47PM
Engine polluting less is not only a catalytic converter or DPF attached. In diesels, it starts somewhere around the form of the combustion chamber and the flow of the air inside. EGR modes, phased injection, jet and flame front form - everything contributes to the clean (or not-so-clean) burning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:16PM
Well for designing the engine not to pollute:
1. remove use of liquid fuel
2. use self-lubricating materials for cylinder sleeves
3. use fully sealing ring sets
4. lean-burn but cool combustion chamber to prevent NOx formation
5. oxidizing or other catalyst in EGR flow
6. along with air filters, permeable membranes to only allow selected gases / vapors into air intake (Allow: Oxygen, CO2, Water vapor and reject Nitrogen)
7. direct injection of metered fuel into combustion chamber
8. air flow/mass metered per cylinder to control fuel per cylinder
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:28PM
Ironically- what VW DID is design the engine to burn less fuel; but less fuel burned != less polluting.
That's not to say that the total exhaust volume is less; but when you rank the 'value' of the actual exhaust there are some exhaust components that are more 'desirable' than others.
Example- a Harley Davidson engine (which achieved an exemption from US EPA requirements) burns a LOT of oil, so while they generally get 7l/100km the exhaust has a LOT more sulphur dioxide and other rich hydrocarbon burn effects then an efficient truck that gets 14l/100km. The 14l/100km truck does emit 2x the CO2, but it may emit hundreds of times less of other, arguably worse other pollutants.
A lot of this revolves around a device called an EGR (or Exhaust Gas Recirculator), which literally takes some of the exhaust gases and feeds them back into the combustion cylinders. This actually HURTS fuel economy, but reduces the concentration of those other reactive emissions.
EGRs in diesels are really hard on the engine (because compared to a petro engine the more complete combustion in a diesel engine is already quite air-starved, and replacing some of that air with already spent air radically reduces the effectiveness of the engine), and not only result in a very steep decrease in fuel economy, but also places a lot of gummy tar-like deposits on the intake manifold and cylinder walls, increasing wear on the cylinders and creating a clean/replace requirement for the intake manifold.
Further compounding the issue the EPA guidelines are decidedly unfair to diesels (my understanding is that even with the cheat removed they still meet EU guidelines)- they measure the particle emissions via a filter screen rather than by, say, spectrograph analysis of actual 'bagged' exhaust- Petro engines have no problem at all pounding their particle emissions down into very tiny nanoparticles that pass right through the filter, but for a diesel to achieve the same effect it needs to use more of the EGR, pushing more already burned fuel through the engine (further impacting fuel economy and engine life)- those same particles that failed the diesel engine are still there, they are just smaller so they don't get picked up by the filter.
Not wanting to gain a reputation for self-destructing engines with poor fuel economy VW made a calculated decision to change the logic of how 'open' that EGR is so that while on the test bench it is running at 100%, meets the EPA requirements, but when on regular roads its running at perhaps 20% (if at all)- this means that on regular roads, compared to on the test bench, the VW diesel is getting far superior fuel economy and emitting less total carbon dioxide AND prolonging engine life, BUT it is also emitting much larger particles and those particles are in a more reactive state.
My feeling on this is:
Is the EPAs test biased against diesels- yes, probably as a domestic vehicle protection measure
Is the EPAs test worse for the environment- I would argue yes, the increased CO2 and decreased vehicle life in my opinion adds up to more environmental impact than reduced reactive particle emissions- and a system of setting EFFICIENCY limits rather than specific chemical emissions would achieve clean burns
Did VW cheat- absolutely, there can be no argument on this
Did they do this with 'white motives'- NO; if they thought that the EPA test was terrible and biased against their cars they should have challenged it in a messy court battle, just refused to sell their cars in the US until the rules were changed, or applied for an exemption (ala Harley Davidson)
Are you as a driver of a VW better served by the cheat- categorically yes.
Are you as a citizen of the earth better served by the cheat- Yes, the reduced CO2 means less greenhouse gasses, and the reactive chemicals have a short in air life before they turn into something else
Are you as someone living in a big city better served by the cheat- probably not. The reactive chemicals take a few hours to dissipate, and while there is strong evidence that nanoparticles are more harmful that macroparticles (our lungs have been filtering out large particles for a long time, nano-sized stuff is relatively new), the reactive chemicals will build up in your city during the day and contribute to more breathing stress.