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Volkswagen has issued a statement regarding the emissions cheating incident:
Discrepancies relate to vehicles with Type EA 189 engines, involving some eleven million vehicles worldwide. A noticeable deviation between bench test results and actual road use was established solely for this type of engine. Volkswagen is working intensely to eliminate these deviations through technical measures. The company is therefore in contact with the relevant authorities and the German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA – Kraftfahrtbundesamt).
To cover the necessary service measures and other efforts to win back the trust of our customers, Volkswagen plans to set aside a provision of some 6.5 billion EUR recognized in the profit and loss statement in the third quarter of the current fiscal year. Due to the ongoing investigations the amounts estimated may be subject to revaluation. Earnings targets for the Group for 2015 will be adjusted accordingly.
Volkswagen does not tolerate any kind of violation of laws whatsoever. It is and remains the top priority of the Board of Management to win back lost trust and to avert damage to our customers. The Group will inform the public on the further progress of the investigations constantly and transparently.
From The Register:
To put that in perspective, Volkswagen's profits for the last financial year were €10.85bn (US$12.1bn), so the firm is banking on having to pay out at least half of its profits, and possibly a lot more. The EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) has already said that the company could be liable for up to $18bn in fine and fix costs, and that was when only half a million cars were thought to be dodgy. As a result, the wheels have fallen off the company's stock price. Shares have nearly halved in value since the firm admitted using the emission-control software, and they are likely to fall further as the scandal unfolds.
Volkswagen's CEO Martin Winterkorn has already issued a public apology for his firm's conduct, and his position is looking increasingly untenable. Rumors of his forced retirement are already circulating, although these are being denied at present.
The case could also have an interesting knock-on effect in the software field. Technically, Volkswagen's software was covered under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, meaning tinkerers couldn't have examined and altered the code. The EPA has been lobbying with car companies to make sure the DMCA continues to make engine management software off limits to tinkerers. But based on its experience with Volkswagen, the agency may be changing that stance.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been quick to pounce on the DMCA connection.
The BBC reports that this affects 11 million vehicles worldwide, although many of those have passed local emission controls satisfactorily. Neverthless, the same or similar software is believed to be fitted in all those vehicles. The EPA found the "defeat device", the device that allowed VW cars to emit less during tests than they would while driving normally, in diesel cars including the Audi A3 and the VW Jetta, Beetle, Golf and Passat models.
Update: Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn resigns.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday September 23 2015, @07:25PM
4xrThere is a simple type of bike rack with which some straps clip onto the trunk on the sides towards the read window, also under the bumper or some such. I don't clearly recall but I once owned such a rack and it worked just fine, it was quite inexpensive and easy to use.
Instead of a bike, mount a portable emissions tester. It just samples the gas from the tailpipe, how hard can that be?
Then take the car out for a drive.
By now we have already got the vast majority of gross polluters off the road. Even without the h4x0r3d engine firmware, to detect out-of-spec emissions really one must test the software automobiles in the same configuration as employed by users drivers.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @08:11PM
VW has installed software that detects when the OBDII connector has been connected to emissions test equipment. All you have to do to test them is use a dynamometer and tailpipe sniffer, but don't connect to the OBDII port.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Wednesday September 23 2015, @08:36PM
That's not what the EPA claimed. They claimed VW was detecting it was on a dynamometer based on speed, steering wheel position etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @09:42PM
They still plug into the OBDII port.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Thursday September 24 2015, @12:12AM
They still plug into the OBDII port.
Thats just for a read out of actual engine conditions.
Some cars are so reliable in their data read outs that you don't even have to put them on the dyno. You drive in, the emmissions guy hooks up to your OBDII port and reads your emissions over the last X hundred miles right out of the computer. Matches the tail pipe ever time.
It will be a long time before they trust VW to cough up those numbers.
(Score: 2) by Username on Thursday September 24 2015, @02:37AM
Just need put tap on the wires coming from the O2 sensors under the hood. No need for the bike rack.