VW Faces $17B Fine for Emissions Scam

It's an interesting market-based approach. The die-hard TDIClub posters who say you'll have to pry their unmodded TDIs from their cold dead fingers get to stick to their principles, the rest of us are well compensated not to be dogmatic fools and get these things off the road or clean them up, and VW pays for it all, as it should.

 

agreed, almost sounds too good to be true.

 

And when VW reliability finally wins, they can always get a diesel pickup:

All they need to make sure diesel fades into obscurity.

Bob Wilson

Today is the second deadline for the San Francisco court ordered 'bring me a solution.' There are lots of rumors which in 12 hours will be blown away by whatever is released (or delayed again.) However, at 3:00 PM (CDT), I will be web watching: VW Diesels: In Search of Solutions (Show #2009) on Autoline This Week

Synopsis
Todd Turner, Car Concepts; Jason Vines, Independent PR Consultant & Author; Lisa Whalen, Frost & Sullivan. Topic: VW Cheating Scandal.

Ever since the gas cap dropped on VW and its diesel shenanigans last fall, it seems that the company has been stuck in first gear. Not only has there been no resolution so far, but no one seems to know what’s going on. In addition, the company hasn’t engaged the media very effectively and its customers are still trying to figure out what’s up. Joining John to discuss where the company goes from here and what it needs to do now are Todd Turner, auto analyst from Car Concepts; Jason Vines, Independent PR consultant and author; and Lisa Whalen, auto analyst with Frost & Sullivan.​

Bob Wilson

Source: VW Will Buy Back Some Diesel Cars, Announcing A Deal With U.S. : The Two-Way : NPR

While the deal's terms weren't discussed in the hearing, Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer did say consumers deserve "substantial compensation." And the details that emerged bolster a report from Reuters earlier today, which said the owners of nearly 500,000 cars with 2.0-liter engines could receive an offer to buy back those Jettas, Beetles and other vehicles.

"Breyer ordered that the details of the agreement remain confidential until it is finalized — likely sometime this summer," NPR's John Ydstie reports for our Newscast unit. "The judge also said drivers who have leased the vehicles in question will be able to end those leases." ​

An agreement to buy back the cheat-diesels is one part. What that value will be per vehicle is another that we won't find out until later this year, "summer."

IMHO, this is an important first step as VW is admitting these cars can not be fixed. Regardless, we should have more details Friday morning as copies of the documents get released and published.

Bob Wilson

 

"the talks, which continued over the week, included all the government agencies, and lead plaintiffs attorneys, suing GM".

 

Ouch
.

 

@bisco and I have been discussing the "suing GM" part of this article:

I am sure this was a 'typo' as other variants of the story make no mention of "suing GM." But as I looked at similar stories found via Google, they mentioned Toyota and GM had been sued in the past and survived. My speculation is someone who is not very well informed made this mistake or someone type "GM" instead of "VW." Such goof-ups happen. But when I tried to find someone to contact and correct, I ran into their pay-wall. I began to wonder if this might be a 'honey trap' designed to identify leaks in their subscriber base.

GM plays no part in this purely VW problem. There may be attorneys who once sued GM but since I have no interest in a "Thank you for your correction but when did you subscribe?" ... we'll let that one lie. <grins>

Bob Wilson

ps. The reporter also writes for the Detroit News so I sent an e-mail describing the problem.

 

More technical details about the court case.

Source: Legal hurdles remain for Volkswagen in U.S. clean-diesel cases| Reuters

The proposal encompasses about 480,000 vehicles with 2.0 liter engines, and does not address about 90,000 additional vehicles with 3.0 liter engines, according to U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who is overseeing consolidated litigation over the vehicles in federal court in California.

Breyer said during Thursday's hearing he expected the parties would work together "expeditiously" to reach an agreement on those vehicles, as well as other fines and penalties.

For vehicles covered by the deal, it will take time to hammer out the details, said Elizabeth Cabraser, who was appointed to lead litigation on behalf of plaintiffs.

"We have a ways to go" on issues like notifying class members and filing formal court documents, Cabraser said during Thursday's hearing, "but we are now able to start on that way."

Breyer has asked the parties to submit a motion outlining the deal and formally requesting his preliminary approval by June 21, and has scheduled a July 26 hearing on the motion.

If it is preliminarily approved, plaintiffs' lawyers will then notify consumers about their legal options and set a deadline for their response. Once that process is complete, Breyer will decide whether to grant final approval.​

Bob Wilson

Late thoughts:

Feds Are Now Investigating Volkswagen Supplier Bosch Over Dieselgate
Bosch CEO: Call it VW-Gate, Not Dieselgate &middot; Handelsblatt Global Edition

The code that detects test mode was written by Bosch. VW used this diagnostic code to disable the emissions tables. It would be the same as if I had a cell tower diagnostic kit and used it to listen in on phone conversations. With two faces, it can be a powerful diagnostic tool or as VW demonstrated, turn off emissions controls.

Because of the risk, every Bosch controlled vehicle is suspect. VW got caught but we already know Mercedes also disables emissions controls in cold weather. Yet it is an important function.

Emissions controls have to be tuned for the specific vehicle and loads. For example, too much urea in an SCR system emits unwanted ammonia and leads to early urea fluid exhaustion. So you first need to measure the baseline without emissions and then calculate how much is needed. Then you measure how well it worked and adjust as necessary to achieve the best outcome.

This is not a trivial problem. In an ideal world, diagnostic code would only work if a specific "license key" is found. Without the key, the code would 'brick'. A simple I2C or other serial bus interface would be all that it takes and could be easily audited. There are other techniques but while these Bosch controllers are out there, there is a risk.

BTW, the same techniques need to be used to defeat the "rolling coal" hacks. In a perfect world, once sold, there would be no 'write' option to the control tables. In effect bricking the software in the engine controller.

Bob Wilson

 

Just want to point out your own typo. It is Mercedes, or M-B, that turns off emissions in the 'cold'.

 

Source: Volkswagen takes €16bn hit for diesel scandal as it makes €4bn loss | Business | The Guardian

The company more than doubled its provision for fixing diesel cars to €16.2bn, a day after announcing plans for the biggest car buyback in history in the US, affecting potentially almost 500,000 vehicles, as part of a deal with the State Department to halt more than 600 class action civil suits.

VW said the provision related to the emissions scandal was, “among other things, for pending technical modifications and customer-related measures as well as global legal risks”.​

Ok, this covers the biggest part of the buy-back. The rest is negotiable.

Source:
Mercedes-Benz maker probes diesel emissions

Daimler AG’s diesel-engine emissions came under scrutiny after the carmaker was asked by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the certification process of its cars.

The maker of Mercedes-Benz vehicles said it’s cooperating fully with authorities and that a U.S. class action lawsuit alleging some of its cars violated emissions standards, prompting the government’s request, is “baseless.” ...​

Everyone else is watching! The USA problem is barely 500k vehicles. The total is 11m vehicles.

OH MAN!!!! The telemarketing calls the TDI owners are going to get!!

Bob Wilson

 

I haven't owned a TDI for 6-7 years now and I'm still getting letters from the dealers wanting me to trade it in and lawyers wanting me to sue VW.

 

Now we have a diagnosis of why there is such a wholesale failure of the European diesels:
More Diesel Emissions Irregularities Uncovered By Real World Testing - Gas 2

Is there a common thread that links all these diesel emissions shenanigans? Apparently there is. The exhaust gas recirculation control systems used on all those engines were all manufactured by Bosch. At issue is whether those systems were programmed to shut off under certain conditions, especially at lower air temperatures. Reportedly, Mercedes programmed its system to turn itself off below 50 degrees F. The controls on Opel diesels were deactivated below 62 degrees F. Testing in the UK showed that diesel emissions were typically six times greater when the systems were deactivated.​

That would do it but turning off EGR??? Of all the possible ways to disable emissions, turning off the EGR makes the least sense unless they were trying to avoid condensation of carbon matter in the EGR valve and pipe. Yet it makes sense considering one Gen-3 Prius was found to have a blocking plate in the EGR tube.

The EGR block did not make a lick of sense for the Prius engine because it is critical to engine efficiency at high power. But if there is history of 'coked up' EGR valves is a common problem with EU diesels, putting in a blocking plate in a Gen-3 makes sense. So too does gutting the particle filter as recently found in the UK.

This suggests defeating diesel emissions is a common if 'outlaw' practice. So between the manufacturers and the rogue, individual disabling, there may be an ambivalent attitude to diesel emissions. Meanwhile, their air get worse.

BTW, this also relates to the next exhaust of the Gen-4 Prius that pulls the exhaust gas AFTER the catalytic converter. This provides carbon-free exhaust that won't coke-up the EGR valve and tube.

Further in the article:

When Toyota disrupted the automotive world with its innovative Prius hybrid technology, the European manufacturers collectively agreed that diesels could get just as good fuel economy but at lower cost. The status of diesels today is the result of industry-wide group think. Diesels have never been as popular in the US, where tougher emissions standards add thousands to the price of cars. Also, unlike in Europe, the price of diesel is often significantly higher than the price of gasoline.

There may have been no laws broken, as there were in the case ofVolkswagen, but the appeal of diesel power is waning. Perhaps it is time for European manufacturers to cease their love affair with compression ignition engines and get down to the hard work of building non-polluting automobiles.​

I remember reading a 2006 paper where some EU professors claimed the USA Toyota Prius success was just 'clever marketing.' They deluded themselves and tried to do the same in the USA with the "Portland-to-Portland" 'GreenHuman' stunt. They ignored fully data, EPA test data, EPA reported user data and their own user experience which not matter because they would not or could not see through their wishful thinking.

Bob Wilson

 

Now they should substitute that with diesel; clever marketing + a few auto shows brainwashing = a lot gullible people. In fact, most diesel diehards wouldn't even consider the dieselgate an issue, keep trumpeting the tech is the savour of the automotive world.

SM-G900I ?

 

Yes, but as someone who supports diesel engine technology, I'm equally dismayed by all of the coverage of the diesel NOx emissions issue, but essentially no coverage whatsoever of alarmingly high PM emissions from gasoline vehicles in certain conditions. For example, GDI vehicles have been shown to produce up to 8,000 times more particles at start-up than modern (DPF) diesels (Solid Particle Emissions from Vehicle Exhaust during Engine Start-Up ). This is especially significant for those vehicles with stop/start systems.

Both GDI and PFI gasoline vehicles produce very high black carbon (BC) emissions in very cold ambient temperatures (Tak W. Chan et al. (2014) "Black Carbon Emissions in Gasoline Exhaust and a Reduction Alternative with a Gasoline Particulate Filter." Environmental Science & Technology 48 (10), 6027-6034). Extrapolating the BC emissions to total PM, the emissions result in PM emissions being 10 to 25 times over the FTP regulatory limit (0.01 grams/mile) in those conditions. It appears that enrichment events produce high PM emissions.

There was a post elsewhere here on PC, I believe, of testing in Europe that measured CO emission from gasoline vehicles to exceed the regulatory limit in 65% of the vehicles tested in more realistic duty cycles than the NEDC.

I'm not convinced that these gasoline vehicle emission issues are of any less of an environmental concern than the diesel NOx emission issue.

 

maybe you should contact the people who discovered the vw cheat software.

 

Actually, I have, but it was about clarification of the percent of methane in the THC they measured.

No one, including EPA, seems to be interested in gasoline PM emissions since the SAE start-up particle emission paper was presented at an EPA conference in RTP, NC, last year.

 

that's unfortunate. cdc? who?

 

I contacted the lead author of the ICCT/WVU report (Thompson). It was the report that prompted the investigation into VW (per the EPA NOV).

(Thompson et al., "In-Use Emissions Testing of Light-Duty Diesel Vehicles in the United States." International Council on Clean Transportation Report, May 15, 2014)

 

politics as usual?

 

I think you may be right!

 

it's the conflict between science and funding.