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from the that's-a-lot-of-rogue-engineers dept.
Four More Companies Caught Cheating Emissions Standards
From The Guardian :
Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi have joined the growing list of manufacturers whose diesel cars are known to emit significantly more pollution on the road than in regulatory tests, according to data obtained by the Guardian.
In more realistic on-road tests, some Honda models emitted six times the regulatory limit of NOx pollution while some unnamed 4x4 models had 20 times the NOx limit coming out of their exhaust pipes.
"The issue is a systemic one" across the industry, said Nick Molden, whose company Emissions Analytics tested the cars. The Guardian revealed last week that diesel cars from Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo and Jeep all pumped out significantly more NOx in more realistic driving conditions. NOx pollution is at illegal levels in many parts of the UK and is believed to have caused many thousands of premature deaths and billions of pounds in health costs.
The article goes on to state that the toxic emissions levels are anywhere from 1.5 to 6 times higher in road use than in the lab tests. Of the 200 cars tested only five had emissions levels that matched their test results. This is a rather distressing fact. It seems that we the public have been lied to (again) for many years now. The "clean diesel" might just be a myth.
Given that these manufacturers come from all over the world, how is it possible that this is an accident? Is there so much incest in the automobile industry that the code from one manufacturer has permeated the industry and the rest of the manufacturers are just waiting to get caught?
VW Says Rogue Engineers, Not Executives, Responsible for Emissions Scandal
Volkswagen's US CEO testified Thursday that the decision to use emissions cheating software was not made at the corporate level. Instead, it was "software engineers who put this in for whatever reason," Michael Horn told a congressional panel that is investigating the scandal.
What's more, Horn told US lawmakers that the German automaker was withdrawing its application to sell 2016 autos with 2.0-liter diesel engines because they don't comply with US emissions standards. Horn testified that the 2016 vehicles were equipped with the same type of software that allowed millions of VW diesel vehicles to cheat pollution tests. "As a result, we have withdrawn the application for certification of our model year 2016 vehicles. We are working with the agencies to continue the certification process," Horn told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
The timing is perfect to throw the engineers under the bus.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday October 12 2015, @09:59AM
"software engineers who put this in for whatever reason"
Whatever reason? How about: because they were told to. The question is: by whom?
Pardon my ignorance, but: why is the EPA only re-testing diesels? If faked emissions results are a problem for diesels, sure it is also likely a problem for gasoline engines?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dublet on Monday October 12 2015, @10:18AM
Because it's NOx particles in particular that are the problem. While there is some gap in CO2 emissions for petrol based cars, it's not that big and petrol burns much cleaner in comparison [air-quality.org.uk].
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome. [dublet.org]"
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Monday October 12 2015, @11:42AM
Technically petrol is much filthier but all gasoline.
Much like there is no "the gasoline molecule" there is no "the catalytic converter" and the chemical environment of diesel exhaust vs gasoline exhaust is very interesting and requires different engineering solutions. It turns out that "perfect" cat converters are really easy for gasoline engines due to the rich HC exhaust. Diesel is not so simple.
Even just 30 years ago "everybody knew" that diesel particulate filters were of course impossible, yet here they are being shipped. Ditto "everyone knows" low sulfur, almost sulfur free diesel is impossible, yet here we are. Where we're stuck right now is there exist some really cool catalysts that given raw diesel emissions they devour residual HC and last forever, but no one has a really good chemistry solution for NOx in a lean exhaust stream other than squirting an ammonia source into the exhaust, the ammonia "naturally" eats the NOx, at least at exhaust temps.
Basically the 50000 foot pix is the EPA is intentionally legislating diesel out of existence. "You must get rid of your NOx" "There is no scientific way to do that" "OK then stop making diesels". The previous hurdles have been understood but too much of an engineering PITA... the current hurdle, the NOx output, is just a scientific question mark. Its not a matter of taking an off the shelf DPF design and toughening it up to survive 3000 automatic cleaning cycles so it'll make it to 10 years. Or having the will to convert the entire fuel distribution system from like 1% sulfur to basically zero. Off the top of my head I can't think of a good lean NOx catalyst, there just aint no such thing on this universe for some semi-interesting thermodynamic reasons. This is no problem for petrol engines but it means diesel production will basically have to cease.
In the end, in terms of energy and human effort spent vs motive power generated, its probably a lot more straightforward to refine diesel into syngas than to make a clean diesel engine. Or put the effort into lithium batteries, mass transit, railroads, etc.
Technologies can die out. More than a century ago there were steam automobiles. Think of the vacuum tube.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 12 2015, @08:50PM
And conveniently, diesel is one fuel we might have been able to grow enough of to displace fossil fuels (assuming the whole algae based biodiesel wasn't just a boondoggle.)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 13 2015, @12:00AM
A couple of points:
Technologies can die out. More than a century ago there were steam automobiles. Think of the vacuum tube.
Those technologies died out because they were greatly inferior to newer technologies that replaced them, not because of any legislation that prevented them from being used. Steam cars were terribly inefficient, and vacuum tubes were terribly unreliable, power-consuming, and large.
For diesel, what's the problem with just using ammonia, as you mentioned? If that solves the problem, why not just do that for all diesel engines? Obviously it's a bit of a PITA because now you have another tank to fill, but from what little I've read about the urea-injection systems, a tank lasts a long time, like thousands of miles I think (I guess it doesn't take much to deal with the NOx in the exhaust), so that doesn't seem like such an onerous burden for diesel drivers.
Eliminating diesel altogether seems completely impractical at this time. For small cars, sure, gasoline works well enough (today's latest cars are getting fantastic fuel economy figures), but for 18-wheelers, trains, construction equipment, etc., that isn't going to work so well. There's a reason big engines which need lots of torque always use diesel, and never gasoline. I guess you could deal with that using gearing, but still that's probably going to result in much worse fuel economy. Not to mention how many such engines are in use now.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 12 2015, @10:37AM
My thought as well. My brother is an engineer at Ford and tells me they use CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency) standards, which are supposed to drive companies to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles, to punk the system and produce more gas guzzlers. So what they do is, they produce a couple of hybrid models and maybe a full EV model. They say to the EPA, "See how green we are, Mr. Govt. Official? We are make 3 kind of green green carz!" Then they proceed to make exactly 100 of each and sell them at one dealership in, say, Oklahoma, where the dealer parks them in the back corner under the weeping willow where all the birds nest and drop crap on the cars below them, because people in Oklahoma want to buy F150s and the dealer wants to sell them those F150s with their hefty price tag.
Cheating and breaking laws is what companies do, and the government rewards them for it. Us, not so much.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday October 12 2015, @12:23PM
I test-drove a hybrid Taurus the last time I was looking, and I can tell you exactly why I didn't buy it:
1. It was about 4 times the price of a used Prius I was also considering.
2. It got 35 mpg versus the Prius' 48 mpg. 35 mpg is not much better than a regular sedan.
3. I was not entirely convinced it was actually a hybrid, because it sure didn't act like one. The gas engine kicked on when going 3-5 mph around the dealer's lot.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday October 12 2015, @01:42PM
Yes, that sounds about right. I test drove the C-Max hybrid and had a similar experience. Of course, I had my brother the Ford engineer sitting next to me pointing out all the flaws and filling in the back-story for each one. I said, "Dude, it is abundantly obvious you're not in sales."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by TheReaperD on Monday October 12 2015, @02:33PM
This is probably why the CEO stepped down before the investigation. Now, the person answering the questions was not the CEO at the time of the cheating and can claim ignorance while the person that would have to plead the 5th (in the US) is no longer with the company and can hide behind lawyers more easily.
If I was in congress when the new CEO said it was the engineers, I would have had a hard time not to yell out "BULLSHIT!"
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday October 12 2015, @05:13PM
I honestly doubt that the CEO knew that anything illegal was going on. Maybe in a startup the CEO would know, but for established companies, this is seldom the case. The law [wikipedia.org] says the CEO has to understand and be (criminally, if necessary) responsible for the financial statements. The rest is just PowerPoint slides.
I doubt that anyone in the C-suite knew anything inappropriate was going on either. In my experience, even if they once worked in the field, the best a C-Suitor can hope for is to mentor some up-and-comers and read reports. Hell, even if they really believe [youtube.com] in what their employees do, even if it's the core business, they won't have time to read and map and test every code package. In the case of a car company, code is not the core business. Maybe the PHB that managed the coders reported to someone in the C suite...
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @12:36AM
Like dublet wrote, it's about NOx. Current cat doesn't neutralize it so you need something else like urea injection.
There were lean-burning (like diesel) gas engines that give high mileage, but the same problem of high NOx emission stalled their development.