Volkswagen under investigation over illegal software that masks pollution

[hoi polloi]

Looks like the ECU has a different map for "limp home mode". So I'm guessing the creative engineers figured how to put the vehicle into a "limp home mode" ECU map on a dyno test - equivalent to how it would behave if limping home with a sensor failure.

Thanks for this - it actually makes sense given it's Bosch, not VW that make the ECU itself. Rather than find somewhere to add a specific cheat program VW just found a way to utilise the limp home mode every modern ECU has... I suggest it also would have made it easier to hide / harder to detect...

- Anthony

[Ryeman]

Thanks for this - it actually makes sense given it's Bosch, not VW that make the ECU itself. Rather than find somewhere to add a specific cheat program VW just found a way to utilise the limp home mode every modern ECU has... I suggest it also would have made it easier to hide / harder to detect...

- Anthony

I would have thought 'limp' would have been a bit too limp for any test rig.

[bluey]

I would have thought 'limp' would have been a bit too limp for any test rig.

I guess that depends on how exactly the "limp" is implemented for all the possible sensor failures, or if there is a single limp mode for all failures. But it would not be unreasonable to assume that when limping, the engine map might have to cope with EGR maxed out, which just happened be be how the map behaves when on emissions test with some parts of the vehicle non-functional (eg rear wheels not turning, steering not turning, no driver in seat, etc)

Found this easy to navigate guide to diesel emissions standards and fuel standards worldwide. Some pages need subscription.
DieselNet: Diesel Exhaust Emission Standards
Emission Standards: Australia: On-Road Vehicles and Engines

Mentions the euro diesel standard is 51 cetane from 2009.

Also found these Bosch documents by Jurgen Hammar on diesel technology for passenger cars (PC) and light duty vehicles (LDV). Interesting reading.
Aspects on Injection Pressure for Diesel and Gasoline DI Engines
Advanced Fuel Injection Equipment - Technology serving Future Diesel Powertrains
Advanced Diesel Fuel Injection Equipment – A never ending BOSCH story

[Eaglehawk]

EA288 now implicated...

VW made several defeat devices to cheat emissions tests: sources | Reuters

As usual...disclaimer...could be a typo...bad journalism...

[tigger73]

EA288 now implicated...

VW made several defeat devices to cheat emissions tests: sources | Reuters

As usual...disclaimer...could be a typo...bad journalism...

I believe the reason that the vehicles have been withdrawn in the US is that there is software in the ECU which has the potential to modify the emissions which hasn't been declared. Stuff like changing the mapping during cold starts until the engine is up to temp has the potential to change the emissions, however has been put into the car to protect it during cold starts... though may also help it to pass the emissions tests too.

[bluey]

EA288 now implicated...

From what I have seen, VW global has only officially mentioned EA189. Michael Horn mentioned three generations of vehicle in his testimony to US congress 1.5 wks ago - explained to be 2 generations of EA189 plus EA288. I understood the EA288 contained the suspect code but probably doesn't need it to pass testing, at least outside USA.

[Rawcpoppa]

Came across an interesting article. Took excerpts and bolded things that stood out to me. The full article can be found in the link.

How Could Volkswagen’s Top Engineers Not Have Known?

How Could Volkswagen’s Top Engineers Not Have Known? - Bloomberg Business

From February through April 2013, they tested three diesel cars: a Volkswagen Jetta, a Volkswagen Passat, and a BMW SUV. Besch took charge of the initial assessment, using the dynos, and he was impressed. The cars emitted almost nothing, prompting some crowing from Besch about European engineering. When Besch’s fellow investigator, Arvind Thiruvengadam, joined him to take the cars on the road, however, the results were different. The road tests captured a variety of conditions: high elevations up Mt. Baldy; stop-and-go urban errand-running in San Diego; freeway driving around Los Angeles. The two Volkswagens’ emissions exceeded standards by 5 to 35 times. The BMW’s didn’t.

First, they assumed the results were wrong, so the team recalibrated the instruments and kept on driving. Eventually they realized that, yes, they were seeing something noteworthy, if not exactly shocking. What comes out of a tailpipe on the road is always going to differ somewhat from regulatory targets met in tightly controlled environments. Speed, elevation, and temperature all affect the result. To isolate the cause, Besch pored over a two-part paper, published by Volkswagen’s top engineers in 2008, that described purportedly groundbreaking emissions control achieved by the new TDI 2.0 liter engine. And he pursued a theory related to the exhaust filtering system. He still couldn’t explain the full extent of the emissions.

“We thought the vehicles would be clean. We had no cause for suspicion.”

Volkswagen, at least, took note. Someone from VW got in touch with the team to get more details. Carder tried to get Volkswagen interested in a follow-up study with more cars, but it never happened. Early this year, engineers from VW’s Oxnard test facility called to discuss the routes WVU used. (Besch declined to provide names of the engineers.) And that was pretty much it. Which was normal—carmakers regularly learn of emissions problems from researchers and quietly make fixes. “We didn’t hear anything more from them, so we fully assumed that they had made some recalls,” says Carder. “We didn’t even talk to our friends at [California] ARB to follow up on it. That’s really how confident we were that they’d have fixed this, that it was going to be a nonissue.”

In 2008, VW brought its “clean diesel” to the U.S. with a publicity worthy of Barnum. It landed a Guinness World Record by providing a Jetta to a husband-and-wife team who drove the car through the contiguous 48 states and averaged 58.8 miles to the gallon—unprecedented for any car on that route. At the Los Angeles Auto Show, VW entered its 2009 Jetta TDI Clean Diesel in a Green Car of the Year contest whose jurors included Jay Leno and the executive director of the Sierra Club. The Jetta won, beating out hybrids. At a conference the same year on diesel emissions, in Dearborn, Mich., a VW executive boasted that the new engines had all the environmental benefits of a hybrid car, without any drag on performance. “You don’t have to sacrifice power to be environmentally conscious,” declared one of the slides.

While the idea of power without pollution took off among U.S. consumers, engineers familiar with the technology knew that such claims required magical thinking. “That is the story of Santa Claus,” says Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, director of the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen. Without the urea system, “it’s not possible to meet the standard.”

Who exactly is responsible for devising and allowing the VW cheat remains a mystery. One of the clearest explanations so far has come from VW board member Stephan Weil, head of Germany’s Lower Saxony state, which is VW’s second-biggest shareholder. He explained in an Oct. 13 speech to his state parliament how the new diesel engines couldn’t meet the U.S. requirements, and rather than addressing the issue, VW covered up with the software cheat. “In subsequent years there followed a use of this software in other models and other countries,” said Weil. Perhaps the engineers told themselves that the cheat was a stopgap, and they’d address it later. If so, they didn’t.

It’s not credible that top managers were unaware corners had been cut, says Dudenhöffer, who worked at Porsche and other carmakers before entering academia. In contrast to GM, where finance people have run the show for years, and Ford Motor, whose former CEO is a turnaround specialist from another industry, VW is a company where the engineers are in charge.

All U.S. regulators had to do was look across the pond to Europe to see evidence that “clean diesel” did not live up to its name...

The data from Europe had an unexpected result. Europeans weren’t about to give up their cheap-running diesels for hybrids. But maybe they could make some adjustments based on the presumably cleaner versions pioneered for the U.S. market. Looking to rehabilitate diesel as a more climate-friendly option, ICCT decided to gather evidence in the U.S., where diesel cars met even stricter standards than in Europe. Surely the American models really were running cleaner.

“We thought the vehicles would be clean,” says John German, U.S. co-director of ICCT. “We had no cause for suspicion.” That’s when the organization made its proposal for road tests in West Virginia.

With the West Virginia study as a launching pad, in May 2014 the California watchdog and the EPA opened an investigation into Volkswagen. Talks between the parties went on for months. The company said it had identified the reasons for the higher emissions and proposed a fix. That resulted in a recall of nearly 500,000 U.S. vehicles in December 2014 to implement a software patch.

At VW’s Oxnard facility, the level of paranoia was rising in July and August, according to a person who worked there. In one instance, a manager accused a low-level employee of being an EPA plant.

...And in a little-noticed announcement on Oct. 13, Volkswagen said that from now on, “Diesel vehicles will only be equipped with exhaust emissions systems that use the best environmental technology.” Which one? BlueTec, the system whose rejection started it all.

[bluey]

At least the Bloomberg article reports 5-35x emissions, instead of the headline grabbing 35 or 40x. ICCT research said average 7x for all diesels. Don't forget the WVU study has problems with badly designed exhaust system. Still hoping someone can test emissions on a vehicle with an extra 3m tailpipe added and see what it does.

One day a journo might actually report on fuel differences between USA (cetane 40) and europe (euro3 1999 standard cetane 51) and the effect of that on emissions.

[Transporter]

One day a journo might actually report on fuel differences between USA (cetane 40) and europe (euro3 1999 standard cetane 51) and the effect of that on emissions.

Ooh come on, who would be interested in that? It just doesn't get any attention.
Just don't allow any facts to get in the way of a good story.

[Rawcpoppa]

At least the Bloomberg article reports 5-35x emissions, instead of the headline grabbing 35 or 40x. ICCT research said average 7x for all diesels. Don't forget the WVU study has problems with badly designed exhaust system. Still hoping someone can test emissions on a vehicle with an extra 3m tailpipe added and see what it does.

One day a journo might actually report on fuel differences between USA (cetane 40) and europe (euro3 1999 standard cetane 51) and the effect of that on emissions.

Would you also say that the regulatory agencies messed up the testing too and thus VW admitted wrong doing prematurely?