sotired said..

Surely the power and fuel economy values affect how many people buy their cars, so they have been lying. Period.

It's called a 'full-stop' in Australia. Do we really want to propagate this Americanism?

Kamikuza said..

sotired said..

Macroscien said..

sotired said..

How long does it take you to go through 60 litres of petrol in your mower or auger?

I am sure that my gargen power tools like mower and augers do not exceed norms 40 times but 4000x fold that poor VW.I one weekend mowing or auger drilling we could assimilate more toxins that driving whole week on the road.All this once enjoying "healthy" work around garden or home.

How are you sure of that?

Do you have petrol power tools or diesel ones?

Again, one hour of mowing probably uses a couple of litres of fuel, and a couple of hours of driving probably uses 20 litres of fuel. I drive a lot more each week than I mow.

Regardless, defending VW is silly. The rules were there for all to meet, and they had a choice to meet them or not. Not a choice to defeat the testing mechanism. Surely the power and fuel economy values affect how many people buy their cars, so they have been lying. Period.

Even if you burn 20 litres of diesel in a bonfire every afternoon, you still can't get away from the fact that they lied and competed with other suppliers on an un-level playing field.

I wonder what the response would be if it was Holden that was found to do this. There would be outrage!

Mythbusters did "motorbikes are greener than cars"... Nope. Bikes get better mileage but put out more nasties...

Outrage only from Ford drivers...

Yeah, but how many times do you drive a mower on the highway for it to be a meaningful comparison to a VW on the basis of emissions?

The VW owners I know will defend the brand, no matter what the situation. I think they could be burning puppies in the engine bay, and other VW owners would say it is acceptable. Not for their beloved German brand which has 'special German engineering'.

FormulaNova said...

Kamikuza said..

sotired said..

Macroscien said..

sotired said..

How long does it take you to go through 60 litres of petrol in your mower or auger?

I am sure that my gargen power tools like mower and augers do not exceed norms 40 times but 4000x fold that poor VW.I one weekend mowing or auger drilling we could assimilate more toxins that driving whole week on the road.All this once enjoying "healthy" work around garden or home.

How are you sure of that?

Do you have petrol power tools or diesel ones?

Again, one hour of mowing probably uses a couple of litres of fuel, and a couple of hours of driving probably uses 20 litres of fuel. I drive a lot more each week than I mow.

Regardless, defending VW is silly. The rules were there for all to meet, and they had a choice to meet them or not. Not a choice to defeat the testing mechanism. Surely the power and fuel economy values affect how many people buy their cars, so they have been lying. Period.

Even if you burn 20 litres of diesel in a bonfire every afternoon, you still can't get away from the fact that they lied and competed with other suppliers on an un-level playing field.

I wonder what the response would be if it was Holden that was found to do this. There would be outrage!

Mythbusters did "motorbikes are greener than cars"... Nope. Bikes get better mileage but put out more nasties...

Outrage only from Ford drivers...

Yeah, but how many times do you drive a mower on the highway for it to be a meaningful comparison to a VW on the basis of emissions?

The VW owners I know will defend the brand, no matter what the situation. I think they could be burning puppies in the engine bay, and other VW owners would say it is acceptable. Not for their beloved German brand which has 'special German engineering'.

Bro, I love my vw. Such an awesome car, but they faarked up. I'm not going to defend that. But in it makes sense why it's so much more powerful then other cars in its class.

It's a disgrace. It's indefensible.

It's also the work of some group of individuals, and those responsible should be held to account and punished accordingly.

It is not the fault of the other tens of thousands of employees of VW, nor the millions of shareholders - and it is concerning these are the people who will be punished by the likelihood of billions in fines and other costs. If the company gets hit with massive fines but those who did the dirty work get off scott free (as has been the case with banking scandals), that is a gross miscarriage of justice.

Kamikuza said..
Never. But add up all the mowers...

Its like 50cc scooters. Great mileage but all that oil they burn! Now multiply that by, like, all of the people in ****ing Asia... Makes your V8 look positively green.

I think you are missing the point I am trying to make.

The fuel you use in mowing your lawn is going to be about a litre a week or fortnight. The fuel you use in your car is probably going to be much more than that, and in my case, at least a 100 times that. If there are multiple cars in that household, or residents in that unit block, then the number of litres used by the residents is much higher than the fuel used in mowing the lawn.

In Australia at one stage recently they were going to ban 2-stroke mowers and whipper snippers. They apparently changed their minds.

Sure, scooters used all the time are a different conversation. Having said that, are modern scooters all that bad? Are they fuel injected? If they are 2-stroke I guess they are burning more oil, but otherwise, maybe not.

Volkswagen lies good whipper snipper bad

We're buying low emission cars because the govt is making the manufacturers build low emission cars (VW excluded at this point). The same way we are forced to buy safe cars, that was initiated by govt as well. Manufacturers were forced to provide seatbelts etc way back when. Since then they've just evolved to market it as their own idea.

And volcanoes are good for global warming, all that ash reflects solar energy back into space :)

A good day for photochemical smog. Here you can see the NOX emissions from the VW Golf diesels tootling around Sydney drifting along the horizon at Wollongong.
Glad to be not immersed in it up there in Sydney.

Some one has done a back of the envelope calculation proportioning a certain percentage of pollution induced death on the VW illegalities.

www.vox.com/2015/9/23/9383641/volkswagen-scandal-pollution

"
Using these figures, the extra pollution from Volkswagen's US cars can be expected to lead to an additional 5 to 27 premature deaths per year. If we extrapolated worldwide to all 11 million vehicles, that would come to somewhere between 74 and 404 premature deaths each year.***"

This guy can be entertaining and insightful.

petermac33 said..
Two big reasons why Volkswagen got busted:1. They produced the world's most fuel efficient cars, and when the XL1 hit production, represented a huge threat to the climate change scam. Think about it - if all of a sudden fuel economy increased even 5x, (rather than the 10X the XL1 did) it would destroy the entire notion of us destroying the planet by driving.

Consider this: The biggest threat the climate hoaxers claim is CO2. Volkswagen cut that in half with the TDI, in part by breaking the emission system rules that would make it impossible to do if followed. Volkswagen proved the emission standards and systems are a scam that is feeding the climate change hoax. How would a powerful elite climate hoaxer respond to being exposed?2. They were about to release an electric car, at full production levels, that would destroy the Tesla with a cheaper price, better range, and lower operating cost.

Additionally, they evidently had a way to do a 15 minute full charge and an infrastructure plan to deliver it. That would cost what? $15 - 20 billion to do, approximately the amount of that fine? BINGO: Volkswagen was about to invest $22 billion Euros into electric car manufacturing in China! That's way too close to the amount of that fine! DING DING DING! Now all the news reports are saying how much the scandal benefited the electric car future, but if Volkswagen gets bashed into oblivion the moment they were about to bring it forward, what does that really say? MORE CO2 FOR EVERYONE, CARBON TAX PLEASE!


http://82.221.129.208/ah7index.html

Right...... Maybe you can add in 'they had a car designed to run on water' and keep a few more myths alive.

Of course, they couldn't have just fu#ked up and tried to get away with something, it was obviously a setup. Uh huh.

I guess one thing VW would have learned from this is that lots of people like them. They have (had?) a good image, so its hard to tarnish it, even with this problem.

I worked in the car industry in engine management for a long time. This sort of thing is not uncommon, and I have no issues with what VW did. The truth is that the US laws for many years have been aimed at favouring US built cars with larger inefficient engines. Most emissions limits are based on % of total exhaust output. So if one car uses 10L/100km and produces an emission output of 0.9% and another car uses 5L/100km with an output of 1.1%, the first car passes a 1% limit, but the second car puts out almost half as much emissions into the atmosphere (for the same journey) and fails. They produce huge utes they call trucks with diesel engines that are like 8L capacity and spew heaps of NOx into the atmosphere but they keep the percentage of the total output below the limit and therefore they can keep selling them. They even use air pumps to pump air into the exhaust to dilute the percentage of emissions while putting the same amount of output!!

VW were required to pass a ridiculous emissions test which they did. They used some tricks to pass the test like many others do and they passed what they were required to pass deceptively, but they are paying the price more than others. If all the cars in the US were replaced with these failing VWs, the air would be much cleaner than it is now. This is more about politics and business than the safety of people. The problem is the requirements, but if they make them the way they should be half the US made cars will not be able to be sold which is not good for the US automotive industry.

The same thing happened years ago in Australia and is probably still happening. Our emission cycle test lasts for a few minutes. THe large Commodore V8s had a lean cruise mode to save fuel on long freeway trips, but it ran much leaner causing hotter combustion (which is where the efficiency comes from) which cause more Nox output. Therefore they could not start this lean cruise mode until the emissions cycle had finished after 5-10 minutes. The Nox ouptut was a bit higher and above limits, but fuel usage down, CO2 and many other outputs down. Customer happier as they get better fuel economy. Did anyone really lose?

vosadrian said..
I worked in the car industry in engine management for a long time. This sort of thing is not uncommon, and I have no issues with what VW did. The truth is that the US laws for many years have been aimed at favouring US built cars with larger inefficient engines. Most emissions limits are based on % of total exhaust output. So if one car uses 10L/100km and produces an emission output of 0.9% and another car uses 5L/100km with an output of 1.1%, the first car passes a 1% limit, but the second car puts out almost half as much emissions into the atmosphere (for the same journey) and fails.

Thumbs up for attempting to start a new conspiracy.

However, both CARB and the US BIN/Tier Federal NOx emissions are in grams per mile (g/mi):

CARB: dieselnet.com/standards/us/ld_ca.php
Federal: www.dieselnet.com/standards/us/ld_t2.php

Oh, I remembered I also worked in the German car industry many years ago. Embedded software development for engine management systems. First job, in fact. Not at VW, but I fully understand the PRESSURE that the engineers were placed under to make a hopeless engine deliver the goods. Embedded software in VW is very colourful lately: DSG software - plain dangerous; initial Tuareg CAN software - tested by the customers; TDI control software - fraudulent; ABS software that fully releases the braking pressure when one wheel gets lifted by tiny ramps on the road - oops, sorry this story hasn't broken yet, and I don't want to be the first to receive a lawyers letter from VW.

I've been out of the auto industry for about 10 years now, and I don't know all the exact details of what VW did and whether it is more deceptive than air pumps and lean cruise mode, but I can say that manufacturers have been doing this (either obviously or deceptively) for years and there are a lot more than VW doing it now. They have to pass a test to sell a car. There is no requirement that cars are tested in other conditions other than the specified test. Any engineer is going to concentrate their efforts on passing the prescribed test. I am an electrical engineer in another regulated industry now. I engineer my products to pass my regulation tests (among many other things).... outside of the test ranges, I do not put any engineering effort in. I don't try to make them bad outside of testing, but people want products as cheap as possible so why would I spend more money and increase product cost to do more than required. I realise VW have knowingly made more emissions outside of test conditions, and I can see why people feel deceived, but I am questioning the relevancy of the test to real world environmental problems.

My main point was that people are going on about how they have been deceived and how irresponsible this is as it will result in deaths and added polution and yada yada. These VWs that fail these tests are VERY clean emissions vehicles even outside the limits. If you were to replace all of the most popular vehicle in the US over the last few years with these VWs, the overall emissions would be much reduced. So my issue is that people call VW evil because of what it has done, yet people do not see the hypocrisy in the rules that allow millions of cars that are far more damaging to be sold responsibly with no issue.

How about we compare the emissions output of the most popular diesel vehicle sold in the USA to these VWs and see which is more dangerous for the environment and our health?

For the record, I am no VW fan. I owned an Audi and vowed never to buy a VW subsidiary product again. I just see that this issue is being misrepresented in the actual real world effect, and lots of manufacturers of far worse cars (in terms of emissions) will be the prime beneficiaries and the environment will be worse because of it. I don't care about the legal deception. Many other popular models are doing the same and it is just not public knowledge. Happens all the time in many industries and does not change the real world in any way. I do have a bit of an issue with large wasteful engines that are low on technology but the rules are made to enable them to keep selling them as the market wants them and that is what the major suppliers know how to make best.

kk said..
I keep reading this thread because I find it funny how easily people become outraged.

Such a first world debate........

I keep reading this thread out of amazement at how many people have no concept of the difference between legal and illegal! Arguments to the effect that if the regulation is flawed it's OK to flaunt it!

As to the first world. There's a few theories as to the most critical step in us getting to the first world. Was it sewerage? Was it the scientists and engineers, the industrial revolution, was it slavery, was it the extraction of fossil fuel energy, or was it the establishment of laws, regulations and a means of enforcing them? I'd put the last right up there. And it doesn't really matter that the laws aren't perfect, the main thing is that, faults and all, they are adhered to or enforced.

But I suppose nothing unusual about most of us thinking this way. That's why first world countries have the better Police forces. That's why it's a first world debate. Just wait till the legal eagles get wound up. VW will pay. It's going to be interesting.

vosadrian said..
I've been out of the auto industry for about 10 years now, and I don't know all the exact details of what VW did and whether it is more deceptive than air pumps and lean cruise mode, but I can say that manufacturers have been doing this (either obviously or deceptively) for years and there are a lot more than VW doing it now. They have to pass a test to sell a car. There is no requirement that cars are tested in other conditions other than the specified test. Any engineer is going to concentrate their efforts on passing the prescribed test. I am an electrical engineer in another regulated industry now. I engineer my products to pass my regulation tests (among many other things).... outside of the test ranges, I do not put any engineering effort in.

You make your viewpoint clear, but here is how someone else might see it.

As a Professional Engineer here, one is bound to the Engineers Australia Code of Ethics ( https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au//sites/default/files/shado/About%20Us/Overview/Governance/codeofethics2010.pdf )

It's only one page long and only contains 4 main headings. Heading 4 reads:

4. Promote sustainability
4.1 Engage responsibly with the community and other stakeholders
4.2 Practise engineering to foster the health, safety and wellbeing of the community and the environment
4.3 Balance the needs of the present with the needs of future generations

So perhaps it is a good idea, for a Professional Engineer, to put a bit of extra effort besides just meeting the test KPIs. And due to this, VW's behaviour was extremely unprofessional. I used to drive their cars too, but their poor quality software over the last few years, combined with complete lack of engineering ethics, have broken the trust. And no, it is not an industry-wide problem - other diesel-promoting manufacturers saw the dead end and chose the "unpopular" SCR over the "easy" VW diesel-flush NOx adsorber.

PS, extract from the massive German Engineering Ethics code, no need to translate, reads the same as EA's paragraph above:

Ingenieurinnen und Ingenieure sind sich der Einbettung technischer Systeme in gesellschaftliche, ökonomische und ökologische Zusammenhänge bewußt und berücksichtigen entsprechende Kriterien bei der Technikgestaltung, die auch die Handlungsbedingungen künftiger Generationen achtet: Funktionsfähigkeit, Wirtschaftlichkeit, Wohlstand, Sicherheit, Gesundheit, Umweltqualität, Persönlichkeits-entfaltung und Gesellschaftsqualität (VDI 3780).