WOW. Either Volkswagen Group is full of people with huge balls or they're full of people with very tiny brains. How the hell someone ok'd this design and let it go to production is beyond me.After EPA and CARB announced they would not certify 2016 model year diesel vehicles, VW admitted “it had designed and installed a defeat device in these vehicles in the form of a sophisticated software algorithm that detected when a vehicle was undergoing emissions testing.”
Like, I know, right? It's the kind of thing that makes you look at the macro just to try and make sense of it. Here's what I got: 1) Diesel is vastly more popular in Europe. Popular Mechanics put it at 50% marketshare in 2009. Diesel is cheaper in Europe, too, because the taxes are lower. Diesel engines are more expensive. They require more refinement. Quite okay if you're making the savings at the pump but in the US, you ain't. VW sold 10m cars in 2013, of which 400,000 were sold in the US. Remember - when we're talking American-spec diesel cars, we're talking basically 100k cars a year - literally 1 percent of VW's output. 2) Diesel emissions are measured very differently in Europe. Check out Euro 6 then check out Bin 160 - they're in the weeds for me, but Europe seems to be much more stringent about carbon monoxide but a factor of ten or more less stringent about everything else; Europe doesn't even require particulate emissions be tested while the US limits it to 3mg per mile. 3) If I understand things correctly, Volkswagen basically adhered to the letter of the law in diesel testing, not the spirit. In other words, they probably had a clever lawyer prepare them a background briefing that convinced them that for that 2% of their diesel fleet bound for the US, they were covered from liability for less than the cost of building specialty cars for a market that hated them. 4) As b_b and I have discussed before, the Germans are in an enviable export position right now. The Euro is stupid weak, which makes exports stupid cheap. A 2015 VW Golf is $18k. A 2008 VW GTi - essentially the same car - was $25k. That doesn't cost VW any less, it just gives them a $7k price advantage against anybody else. And aside from one Chevy, one Ford and one Chrysler, every single diesel passenger vehicle for sale in the US is German. ...and I'll bet the American cars meet American emissions standards. I'll bet it was a calculated risk, just like Chevy and their fatal ignition switches. And I'll bet when Chevy felt the burn from those fatal ignition switches, they raised unholy hellfire with the DOT about those filthy krauts. So on the one hand, oh holy shit. On the other hand, this trade war? It's ONNNN.
A bunch of years ago my brother told me he read something similar about a refrigerator. I've long since forgotten the specifics, but it was something like they tweaked the operation to maximize efficiency for the specific conditions of the Energy Star test, but otherwise the efficiency was terrible. It didn't occur to me until reading this Volkswagen thing that it probably happens all the time. Engineers are good at solving problems. The solution to "pass this test" is different from "meet the conditions of this test under routine operation."Volkswagen basically adhered to the letter of the law in diesel testing, not the spirit.
And "this test" is very different from "every test." My uncle worked for Rocket Science Corporation back in the '60s and '70s. They were doing a rocket burn test on something extremely nasty - some exotic flavor of hydrazine or the like - and knew they were creating all sorts of horrific carcinogenic byproducts. What can I say - Edwards Dry Lake, and it was the '60s. EPA shows up. Announces they're going to emissions test the rocket. Everyone's eyes bug out, but it's not like they can stop. And of course, they're all in moon suits because, you know, hydrazine. And the EPA guy gets his probe ready, and they all sorta shake their heads because a fine is a fine is a fine, and they light the candle and the EPA guy goes "okay great, thanks," and drives away. He was testing for CO, and only CO. He didn't give a rat's ass that RSC was burning something so screamingly toxic that people were walking around like Homer Simpson in the reactor chamber, he just wanted to make sure the CO emissions weren't violating CO standards. Germans and Americans don't agree about what's toxic in diesel emissions. The United States only decided diesel particulate was a carcinogen like 10 years ago; Germany hasn't followed suit. Thus, I'm sure VW AG feels even more secure in their decision.
I'm stuck on my phone right now, so I can't get as in depth in my responses as I would like. That said, I wonder how hard VW will get hit. In the case of GM, they were horribly, deliberately negligent. They found themselves in a bad spot and decided to just keep going instead of fixing things. Volkswagen Group, on the other hand, we're horribly and deliberately deceptive. It was intentional. They knew what they were doing was wrong from moment one.