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from the Copies-Everything-Including-Cheating dept.
The US Justice Department (DOJ) on Thursday announced a $305 million civil settlement between Fiat Chrysler and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a lawsuit over illegal software found on certain diesel Dodge Ram models and diesel Jeep Grand Cherokee models.
[...] The settlement comes two years after the EPA accused Fiat Chrysler of installing undisclosed and illegal software on 104,000 vehicles, including 3.0L diesel Dodge Ram 1500 trucks and diesel Jeep Grand Cherokees between model years 2014 and 2016. The EPA claimed the software would sense when the vehicle was being tested under laboratory conditions and implement the full emissions control system so that the car could pass the EPA's emissions tests.
I guess the Volkswagen cheating was considered a feature by the Chrysler engineers, and they were just copying what the customers demanded?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @08:28AM (2 children)
We can pass a law to require fuel economy of 1234 MPG, or to require that exhaust gas be entirely Helium-3, or to require that regenerative brakes be 100% efficient, or that PI is 3.2 exactly.
Lawmakers do this kind of stuff. They don't have to live with the problem of compliance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @08:49AM
This would be a more compelling argument if the dozens of other automakers didn't comply just fine despite operating at just as large a scale as Fiat/Chrysler (and VW). If you gotta, maliciously comply like General Motors did with their Impact electric vehicle back in the 90's when California mandated zero emissions. But no, showing the politicians the errors in practice wasn't enough, 2 out of dozens of automakers had to let the promise of obscene profits from an unfair advantage take over their thinking and cheat their way to the resulting oversized share of the market. Yacht payments were made on the backs of the dead bodies left in the wake of extra-regulatory pollution.
I don't have a problem with profit and capitalism but if rules are laid down and every member of society agrees to abide by them then the allure of money doesn't allow you to carve out your own little unilateral exception. And this isn't some harmless prank, people will die and these executives knew it. It was willful. But because while these deaths are a statistical certainty*, humans don't have the cognitive wiring to make the leap necessary to follow through connection the proper punishment to the crime. So it will keep happening. What do you do when you get away with murder? And said murder pays a king's ransom? You do the math.
*yes, I know but the probability nears 1
(Score: 1) by noelhenson on Friday January 11 2019, @09:40AM
To back that up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Pi_Bill [wikipedia.org]