VW Rogue Software Engineers... Yeah Right

It is quite possible for those SW engineers to be the most knowledgeable on the internal operation of the program.

Apparently it is a program that adjusts engine parameters to reduce emissions under a number of scenarios.

It may well be that a process of optimization occurs when operated at a steady state - as in testing?? and it acts to reduce emissions.

That said, there should be archived versions of this program over the many years it was developed and optimized that would debag this particular cat...

So management should perform this examination....all gone you say?

GA times 10.

Actually, they are faulting it as the Heisenbug Uncertainty Principle.

That will teach 'em a lesson. Don't release a dirty piece of firmware like that unless you make it sophisticated enough to hide itself properly like everybody else's does. Those arrogant Germans... (LOL) S.M.

Great post, good laugh this morning.

Odds are the core group that writes the base software added the functionality for parameters to be modified based on various conditions, as any good software that is responsible for controlling a dynamic system should be... accommodation for required I/O +10% extra. But a separate, smaller, or even outsourced group assigned the specifics to the spare I/O later one.

I just find it hard to believe that it was part of the base spec, or even done by those creating the base platform... too many people, too much inter-departmental communications, too hard to keep secret.... n(n-1)/2

It's like a guy who invents a rocket to explore space, but the rocket is rather used for missiles; is the inventor culpable - or the person(s) that decided to apply the capability differently?

Bwahahah!

√ PASS

_ FAIL

Of course, Slashdot also belives them - NOT

VW Exec: "Get me a name off the list of patsy's"

Assistant: " Günther Aldinger"

VW Exec: "That will do. "

This problem may spell the demise of VW. It will also dramatically affect Germany's financial future for some time to come. It is wrong what they did, but who did it first? Nobody knows for sure!!

But the USA noticed that certain trucks in the 90's were spewing out NOX when on the road and not on a test bed, so why were all the tests for all diesels not toughened up?

Furthermore, it appears that several other companies are also applying the same/similar ideas with their Diesel engines. Some are even US companies!!!

It also appears that these companies maybe use Bosch as a supplier of such "knowledge"....

(Text in BOLD is quoted from online sources available to anyone with Google or similar?)

These types of vehicles (diesel cars) have proved increasingly popular in the United States, even if they still represent far less than 1 percent of the market.

That is not just VW by the way! (BUT NOT ONLY!!)

Volkswagen isn't the first company to cheat on its emission tests. As Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch pointed out to me, the EPA caught a number of truck manufacturers, including Caterpillar and Volvo, (BUT NOT ONLY!!) doing something similar back in 1998 - programming their diesel trucks to emit fewer pollutants in lab tests than they did on the road. (The trucks would slowly emit more and more NOx as they traveled longer distances at constant speed, something that labs couldn't catch.)

Starting with model year 2017 vehicles, European regulators are going to start requiring automakers to test their passenger cars on the road in addition to laboratory tests. That sort of regime would've made it harder for Volkswagen to pull its little stunt. But it's also unlikely this is the last time we'll see an automaker come up with a fiendishly clever way to cheat.

It is wrong what VW has been doing, as several other companies are also doing, companies like:-

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.

But if you look at the US market as a whole (other markets too!) the percentage of very old cars and trucks is far higher than these manipulated vehicles.....eg. these are causing more pollution....

The most recent study on the age of vehicles in the USA that I could find was from 2001 said:-

In the year 2001, the National Automobile Dealers Association conducted a study revealing the average age of vehicles in operation in the US. The study found that of vehicles in operation in the US, 38.3% were older than ten years, 22.3% were between seven and ten years old, 25.8% were between three and six years old and 13.5% were less than two years old. According to this study the majority of vehicles, 60.6%, of vehicles were older than seven years in 2001.

Getting these older cars (and trucks!) off the road would have a significantly greater affect on clean air, than these non compliant VW cars would. Other countries are probably at a similar levels of old vehicles....

There is a large amount of hysteria here, generated by the media, to sell more newsprint and the like. Rather like when Janet Jackson showed "part" (the nipple was COVERED!) of her breast on public TV in the USA some years ago.

A part of the human body that most babies get shoved in their mouths at a very early age!!!

Its again simply media hysteria!!!

Think back say 70 years or more, when large industry was belching out huge amounts of dangerous chemicals from tall chimneys, all over the world......that has in many countries been overcome and cleaned up, but not all. The far east is still WAY behind on that score.....

One has to look at the BIG PICTURE, not microscopically examine and hysterically discuss what are in the big scheme of things, tiny effects.....now known and soon to be fixed.....

Everyone should calm down and be logical about this problem, leave the hysterics for other people to have......

Try getting China to clean up its act, that may take a century or more!!!

VW have handled the management issue badly. They appointed the head of Porsche as the new chief executive the day before they announced that Porsche has the same software patch. If he knew he is as big a rogue as his predecessor and so should not get the job, if he didn't know he is incompetent and so should not get the job. Catch 22 (on the test bed, catch 24200 on the road).

I believe the problems is, people put the fault on the companies such as VW.

And companies do not run themselves people do. The current laws to a degree isolate these men who run the companies from the companies actions. When in fact it's these men who actually break the laws.

There has to be more responsibility put on these individuals for punishment and not just fines to the company. This will have an effect to the stockholders and board of these companies on selecting the people who run these companies

Don't get so dramatic Andy, VW will manage just fine. Actually I think this incident, trying to cheat an absurd and also fraudulent system of emission limits decisions made by boards of international thieves, is WAY LESS "DISHONEST" than for example the globally accepted as good practice of programmed obsolescence, on which VAG of course has become another faithful membed a number of years ago. you know my views on the subject. On the TDI engines, I have a personal opinion, I think they were more than 10 years ahead of their time when came out (first on Audi, the 1.9), and while at the time no serious emission rules were enforced, that engine was on a class of its own on consumption, emissions and reliability. Still have one of those working -no plates of course- but you just wouldn't believe its mileage (nobody does), so I won't tell you. (LOL). S.M.

You sound like a politician. Dishonesty is dishonesty because it's an absolute. There is no degree of limits One can not be more dishonest than someone else.

When you're dishonest, you're dishonest, period.

Maybe you didn't mean it the way it sounded, but what you said does apply only in fairy tails and Hollywood, you know, the good guys and the bad guys etc. Everything black or white. Of course there are levels in dishonesty, as are levels in most everything in real life. It can be scaled by its consequences and the public feelings it triggers among other things, and lack of universally accepted criteria doesn't change that. It's either that or we are ALL dishonest as we (must) have done something in our lives that someone else with stiffer criteria finds dishonest. And don't know about you but I'm no saint. S.M.

I understand nothing is black and white. But when it comes to honesty you are or you aren't.

Now don't get this confused with other things. I had an OEM designing new process equipment, there were times I took on new projects where I had to reinforce the customers confidence with a new process where there was enough information that directed that it could be done, I didn't know the details on how exactly I could make it happen, I did know there was enough information to make it happen.

What I do not care for, is today's politicians justifying their dishonesty because others got away with it..

On the financial knock on effects we will have to wait and see. Better brains than mine are pretty sure its going to be a rough road for all concerned.

Why did you not mention something about the other companies that are doing the same?

A taxi firm I used to use in Vienna, sold their Skoda diesel taxis at between 500,000 and 600,000 KMs. The cars ran beautifully still......

I do believe that with proper oil and changes including filter, you could get 1,000,000 KMs or more from a TDI motor!!

Mechanical the cars built today are durable. The weakness in them though are oxidation. On the frame as well as critical area such as brake lines.

Depending on what comes of the VW scandal, perhaps I'll be able to find out. (that is if I live long enough!) I'll keep you posted. Currently nearing 24kmi.

I have retired from the company which had German investment and know how. I have worked with the German engineers and found that such practice of cheating the customer was never in their blood in old times. May be new generation with aggressive thinking has made the blunder.It is temporary phase and VW will be back in the saddle soon.

The media hysteria isn't necessarilly about the actual effect, it's about the dishonesty.

If they can make it pass an emission test they why doesn't it run the same on the road? Let's have the explanation of what is compromised, if they'd be totally open and honest about what is effected and why the patch is there then we'd maybe more sympathetic.
All this classic management pettyfogging just leaves people baying for blood.

It's always the same, the people at the top blame everyone else while stuffing their pockets even if they resign. I'm sure any outgoing exec' will have a pension package worth more per year than I'll ever see.

Del

I expect they can make it run within emission limits - as they have said already, but they also state that performance in terms of HP and efficiency will be reduced = large class action lawsuits to pay several thousand $$ per vehicle - or even 100% refunds, as people will say they would never have made that purchase - truth be known.

The other makers that bought these VW engines for use in their cars - did they know enough to spot this problem on their own? or were they quietly unaware until the trick was revealed and they started sniffing? Will a finger pointing exercise ensue?

The question is:- Can VW afford to give the demanded refunds and remain a viable company? Will it exit the USA, and stiff all the USA buyers and their pesky lawyers to keep the parent alive.?

You're right, there is something else going on here.

I've been meaning to post this for some time now. I guess this is as good a place as any.

I have one of those 2014 Passatt TDIs, and overall have been very happy with it. I have suspected that the Passatts could be made legal with a firmware update, since they already have the "AdBlue" Urea injection system installed, while the other models do not. An article I read this morning seemed to confirm that. I wouldn't be surprised if I had to add the blue stuff more frequently after the "fix".

In a possibly related item, I've kept fairly good records of my fuel consumption and mileage. Here's a graph of my average mileage over the time I've had the car:

The vast majority of the miles have been accrued on short trips of around 100 miles each, with 2100 feet of altitude loss and then gain, and a large fraction of them have been with the A/C running. The hump during the winter and spring may well be due to no A/C use.

My main question is whether the graph is typical. I would have expected the initial mileage to gradually increase as the engine "wore in", then be steady for a while, and eventually go back down as it "wore out". Is there possibly a connection between the graph and the controlling software? I'd appreciate any insight/ experience form others.

I'm surprised they got away with this for so long. They obviously keep better secrets than our government. I realize they stated the reason for the deceit was performance and efficiency. To me efficiency means greater MPG KMLtr etc. Why would anyone market a poor performing low efficient vehicle? Here in the territories, we too have emissions testing. It is truly a magical instrument, they run a hose into the tailpipe and can tell the number of cylinders and engine speed. They don't bother with silly things like brake inspections, tire wear, faulty lights, illegal add on HID's etc. Costs 11 bucks and you get this nice certificate. They don't even bother to check if the CEL, ABS, and Seat belt lamps are installed, let alone operational

There is NO CHANCE that executive leadership in VW were not fully aware of the deceit in the engine programming. They did it to compete and sound like they were among the first out of the gate with "clean diesel".

Before going back into engineering, my wife and I were over-the-road truck drivers for FedEx, from 2007 to 2014. What you see here with VW is the same game and problems with diesel that Freightliner, Kenworth, Peterbilt, Mack, Volvo, (Caterpillar/Detroit Diesel/Cummins/Mack/Volvo engines) and International (International engines) dealt with. International, like VW, got caught with their pants down. The other truck/engine makers were more concerned with performance, and so chose the Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR+Diesel Exhaust Fluid) route, where they after-treat exhaust, instead of chasing the elusive and oh-so-tricky and precise EGR "reduce it in the engine" route. International promised all its customers and stock holders that they could meet the NOX/particulate/horsepower requirements by controlling the engine and burn, without after-treatment of exhaust. They failed miserably, and fines/warranty issues nearly bankrupted the entire corporation. They wound up putting Detroit Diesel engines in their own trucks along with SCR systems just to stop the financial bleeding until they could make a retrofit. (How's that for advanced engineering??!) Yup, further digging uncovered deceit all the way up the ranks at International--trying to buy time until they could get caught up in technology with the competition.

There is just no way VW execs didn't know what was going on.....