Opel Dealers Accused of Modyfing the Software of Polluting Cars (deredactie.be) 147
An anonymous reader writes: Belgian public broadcasting station VRT has discovered that GM Opel dealerships in Belgium seem to be updating engine management code when Zafira cars equipped with the 1.6 litre CDTI diesel engine are brought in for service. After the software change, the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions drop sharply, at the cost of reduced power output. Bern University of Applied Sciences and environmental lobby club DUH previously found this model to pass European emissions standards only when the rear wheels are not rotating. When the rear wheels are made to spin along, NOx emissions increase to several times the limit set by European regulations. General Motors denied using defeat devices as well as the update program that seems to be taking place. However, an anonymous mechanic at an Opel dealership states that GM started pushing updates shortly after the Dieselgate scandal broke.
I'm somehow not surprised. (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect that the majority of brands do the same thing more or less, so I'm not surprised.
It's back to the drawing board for those that sets up the conditions for tests and the emissions limits to get figures that better reflects reality. And this is not only diesels that are circumventing the regulations, I expect everyone of doing similar regardless of fuel type.
There's no surprise to customers that the fuel consumption figures provided by car manufacturers are almost impossible to achieve in reality, no matter what the gauges in the cars says.
Re:I'm somehow not surprised. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem wasn't the laws or the tests, the EU regulators knew the tests were being cheat on, the regulations already forbid defeat devices in plain language. They could have thrown the book at them at any point they want, but all the diesel manufacturers have factories in Europe, so it didn't and won't happen. VW got cocky and thought they could do the same thing in the US, where political considerations offered them no protection. Fucking them over has no impact on the US economy, so they got proper fucked.
Now public pressure is forcing the EU manufacturers to fix their shit, but the economic impact of trying to fix it fast and the clear evidence of regulatory capture and corruption ensures it's all kept outside of public view as much as possible.
Business as usual.
This story is from october 2015 (Score:2)
It was in the financial times and reuters and many others last october. not news.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0... [ft.com]
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It can't have *no* impact on the US economy. VW sells higher-quality cars at lower prices, meaning every American can buy a car and SOME OTHER STUFF, which puts more purchasing power into the hands of Americans. This spreads employment (creates jobs).
That's a global consideration, of course. It may create more jobs in other nations at the expense of other domestic jobs. The consideration at hand locally is the fluctuation of domestic job proportions: are we 90% local and 10% export, or 80% local 20%
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That, and US auto manufacturers aren't interested in selling diesel cars to US residents, so they have no incentive to cheat.
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Except "cheating" other wise known as optimizing for the test is almost certainly taking place for all fuels.
Re:I'm somehow not surprised. (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspected as much myself. Other manufacturers must have tested the VWs and found out about the cheating -- so why did the cheating stay secret for so long? Probably because everyone was doing the same.
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I suspected as much myself. Other manufacturers must have tested the VWs and found out about the cheating -- so why did the cheating stay secret for so long? Probably because everyone was doing the same.
Anyone with the slightest knowledge of how diesel engines worked was almost completely certain of it.
Diesel engines are dirty, they aren't efficient either. You only use them in applications where a petrol engine is unsuitable (I.E. things like heavy haulage, where pulling power is more important than any other consideration). You simply cant make a clean diesel, you can only try to make it less polluting.
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Fortunately if Nissan cheated on my emissions, an 20 x 0 is still 0 from my EV :-)
I really hope owners sue over this. Reduced performance now, and excessive health-damaging pollution in the past. Health providers should sue too.
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I suspect that the majority of brands do the same thing more or less, so I'm not surprised.
Yep. When Dieselgate broke I was modded down for pointing out that what we're likely to see is basically everyone get busted, because basically everyone has always been doing this. I don't want a medal, I just want Slashdotters to wake the fuck up to corporate malfeasance. It is the normal state of affairs, not the exception.
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The funny thing is it's still a non-issue. People aren't toxicologists, and they look at a 0.0012ppm increase in an atmosphere with 0.023ppm NOx and go, "OMG TEH CARZ WILL R KILL UZ ALL!" and talk about how poisonous these emissions are. This doesn't even account for either that *everyone* is doing this (you're not going to suddenly see tons of shit pumped into the atmosphere), that we have long-term atmospheric measurements (so it *hasn't* caused a problem), or that the concentration of NOx around the car
Reader Accused of Modyfing Title of Slashdot Post (Score:2)
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If it's not one fing, it's another.
the stories don't exactly match (Score:2)
One says the cars were modified outside the factory before to increase power. The other implies they have always been this way and now are being modified to be lower emissions.
So which is it?
I hope there is further investigation but this seems like more than coincidence.
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if the cars were "chipped" then most certainly the opel dealerships would not be altering the software. they probably would not touch it even.
In the states it is fine to fudge diesel facts (Score:1)
The chip mod industry is booming so that big rig wannabe monster truck diesels can pollute with impunity. Step across the border into Arizona or Nevada and bingo it is fine to pollute the air. What really pisses me off is that the industry is a farce, here we are complaining about "euroweany' diesels that get stellar fuel economy and the same time brag about monster hunks of shit that rip up the environment and send a shit load of carbon in the form of soot and CO2 into the atmosphere. Americans are becomin
Re: In the states it is fine to fudge diesel facts (Score:4, Interesting)
CO1 is inherently unstable and will bond with oxygen to form CO2 fairly rapidly. That's why we don't have a major CO1 air polution problem - CO1 is basically the past tense of CO2. It's also why carbon monoxide is more toxic than CO2. CO2 will choke you but at least it doesn't accelerate the process by absorbing the oxygen you breathed in with it before you can.
Re: In the states it is fine to fudge diesel facts (Score:5, Informative)
CO is even worse than that - it binds to haemoglobin and doesn't let go which means the O2 in your lungs can't. Thats why it only takes a relatively small amount of CO to poison you.
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_____gate (Score:2)
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scandalgate or controversygate... so hard to choose...
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OK, but what if the center of the scandalgate is Bill Gates?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Volvo messed too (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you explain 15% more fuel usage other than trying to cover up software 'flaws'?
A fucked up service by an apprentice who didn't know what they were doing?
15% is a low number in the scheme of assembling something incorrectly. I'm not saying they didn't do what you claim, but do watch your cause and effect conclusions.
Volvo have screwed themselves (Score:4, Insightful)
They're new engine line up consists of ONE engine - a 2.0L 4 cyl in various stages of tune and turbocharging (presumably to save development costs). Good luck to them getting decent NOx figures out of that in the high power versions, not to mention longevity. There does seem to be an obsession with shriking engines below what is reasonable (3 cyl 1.0L in a Mondeo?? Hello Ford!) simply to meet CO2 emissions targets. Thats all well and good but you don't get something for nothing and high pressure small engines just don't last so you will probably find the car scrapped years earlier than otherwise and so completely negating any CO2 benefit accrued by the engine. Short term thinking at its finest.
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I'm not convinced this is that big a deal for most people. UK average mileage was 7900 miles in 2014. Even if you say the engine goes pop at 120k miles, that's still 15 average years of driving. Let's be honest, somebody buying the 1.0L Mondeo is probably going to drive fewer miles than average, so I don't see that being a bother for anyone, even if it does suffer reduced engine longevity. Any slight bump in an old car turns it into an insurance write off anyway. Average age of a car in the UK is 8 yea
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"Let's be honest, somebody buying the 1.0L Mondeo is probably going to drive fewer miles than average,"
I disagree. Not many private buyers are going to buy a big car like a Mondeo with that miserable little engine. Its almost certainly aimed at the bottom end of the fleet market and they will do a lot of miles.
"General torque curve means much more lower down power, so you have to work the gearbox less."
At traffic queue speeds the turbo isnt working and the engine will be gutless so it'll actually be more ef
Re: Volvo have screwed themselves (Score:2)
Either Ford have screwed up, or you got a bad example. Small engined VWs (1.2/1.4 TSI) I've driven have exhibited none of this, with plenty of torque available from ~1400rpm, with no effort required to spool the turbo. Compared to a 2.0TDI, you get far less noticeable boost.
Comment from someone here who owns one suggests they're not all bad.
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Those small turbo engines are a bit weird if you're used to standard petrol ones. I had a car with a Fiat 1.4 engine as a courtesy car and it was ridiculously stall-happy. It conked out if you tried to pull away from idle rpm in 2nd - something even my old ultra-weedy 1.3 Toyota could manage. It did go well once the turbo spun up though, and was quite economical for a silly crossover thing.
Re: Volvo have screwed themselves (Score:2)
I drive a 1.4 TSI, so not quite as small, but not worlds apart from the 1.0 Ecoboost. As long as you've got 1400rpm it's fine, more than 2000 and the rest of the power arrives. But that's not wildy different to my last naturally aspirated Toyota, and all in there's lots more low down torque, so you can accelerate uphill at 40 in sixth.
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I saw a video review of the XC90 with the dual-boost 2.0L engine (it's turbocharged *and* supercharged -- apparently supercharged at low RPM and then turbocharged at higher RPM).
The power output seemed kind of crazy for such a small engine and I do wonder how long they will hold up before either losing a ton of power and/or needing major rework.
What I thought was kind of crazy was that fuel consumption wasn't amazing, maybe mid-high 20s average MPG. I own a 2007 S80 with the 4.4L V8 that also used to ship
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" fuel consumption wasn't amazing, maybe mid-high 20s average MPG."
You need a given amount of fuel to produce a given amount of power regardless of how big the engine is. Yes the more cylinders you have the greater your frictional and induction losses but they don't really add up to all that much at the end of the day.
"I'm not sure how they will squeeze 200k out of a 2.0L like that."
They won't. But by they'll make sure the engine will last up to the warranty period in normal use. Beyond that they don't care
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I would think the opposite with regards to fuel efficiency - mainly turbo, and the supercharger gate closes when extreme power is needed.
Volvo is using a butterfly valve and a clutched supercharger, and they ARE doing what the GP said. The supercharger provides low-end boost, and then it's disconnected at high RPMs and the turbo takes over.
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I bet the life of that clutch will be short and expensive.
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It sounds like it's basically the same story as an A/C compressor clutch, so it might not be that bad. Say, moderate and moderate.
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Clutched superchargers are not anything new. The 1988 supercharged MR2 came with such a configuration and "twin-charging" them (adding a turbo kit) was a relatively common performance modification, and that car was amazingly reliable.
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We played with some superchargers that were driven by brushless electric motors. Ran them just long enough to get the turbo spooled up. They made a huge difference.
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There does seem to be an obsession with shriking engines below what is reasonable (3 cyl 1.0L in a Mondeo?? Hello Ford!) simply to meet CO2 emissions targets.
Actually its due to tax reasons in most places. Cars with big engines cost more to register.
In addition to this, engine efficiency has increased to the point where smaller engines are producing more power. The 1L Ecoboost produces in the Mondeo produces 92 KW. That's more than the 1.8L 4cyl Zetec in the first generation Mondeo which produced 88KW.
However the Mondeo is also available in the 150 and 180KW 2L Ecoboost if the 1L is not to your liking...
Besides this, the Mondeo is an economy family wago
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If your country is anything like Canada(in the winter season right now), around the time the diesel scandal broke it was also the same time that winter blends for fuel were being changed over to. Seeing 15% as a drop is within the blend change, to know for sure you'll have to wait until spring.
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Latest breaking news (Score:2)
Wake Up (Score:1)
Anyone pretending that all car companies have done this and are on the shirttails of getting busted are in denial.
Hell even Chevy had the Diesel Cruze last year, surprisingly, just after Dieselgate broke, it was announced that the Diesel version of the cruze would not return for 2016, and that was chevy's only diesel passenger car (in the US).
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So if pretty much every manufacturer is doing this, how is this not equal to a kind of mass civic protest?
If in reality car emissions are higher than overly ambitious standards, but still low enough that air quality is OK - should the cars be "fixed" (as in the pet related term, neutered) or instead should the regulations be brought to realistic levels based on what cars are actually emitting today?
You think our air quality is ok?
Re: How to tell a regulation has failed utterly (Score:2)
My air quality is great, but I live on the west coast. I love the smell of ocean air.
Even LA is a lot better than it used to be. I think we are making progress.
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When was the last time you saw smog?
Re:How to tell a regulation has failed utterly (Score:5, Insightful)
So if pretty much every manufacturer is doing this, how is this not equal to a kind of mass civic protest?
Money.
Re:How to tell a regulation has failed utterly (Score:5, Informative)
If in reality car emissions are higher than overly ambitious standards, but still low enough that air quality is OK - should the cars be "fixed" (as in the pet related term, neutered) or instead should the regulations be brought to realistic levels based on what cars are actually emitting today?
Air quality is anything but okay. I can't speak for the US, but here in Europe, we have serious problems with it. In China it's so bad in some areas you can actually only register a new car if it's electric - that's actually an important reason why electric cars are getting more attention now.
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Diesel is the problem in Europe. Air filled with particulates from small diesel engines.
Re: How to tell a regulation has failed utterly (Score:3)
If you are idling at stop lights diesel sucks. If you are on a highway it's better.
Cities compound the problem by having lots of stop and go traffic.
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And that's exactly the kind of traffic where EVs shine. No idling and regen braking makes for quiet, clean city driving.
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The newest buses in my home city have kinetic-energy recovery systems (KERS) so they switch their diesel engines off at stops, traffic lights etc. and use the KERS energy to drive off and only restart the engine a few seconds later.
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Diesel is the problem in Europe. Air filled with particulates from small diesel engines.
If you are worried about particulates from engines, you should be at least as worried about gasoline as diesel, as gasoline cars produce just as much particulate output as diesels [slashdot.org]. You aren't, though. You're just an anti-diesel shill.
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Yes, but far more of the diesel-produced particulates are carcinogenic.
Go look it up.
Uh what? That is 100% ass-backwards. Follow the link I provided to learn that you are 100% full of shit.
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Besides, most of the automobile pollution isn't gasoline cars, it's from diesel and 2-stroke mopeds.
This article is about cars with diesel engines....
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You've only qualified the claims of air quality by pointing out that we're doing something about air quality. I live near 13 coal plants--one is a multi-gigawatt plant--and our air quality is decent; it could be better. I don't live in Beijing, I know that much.
Re: How to tell a regulation has failed utterly (Score:5, Insightful)
"Overly ambitious" standards? In whose opinion, the car manufacturers or those who suffer the consequences?
This isn't some civic protest akin to Prohibition, these are regulations designed to avoid Tragedy of the Commons scenarios with real costs to society. In the UK alone, nitrogen dioxide emissions cause [www.gov.uk] 23,500 extra deaths, costing around £13bn per year.
How dense are you? (Score:2)
"Overly ambitious" standards? In whose opinion,
It's not opinion, it's fact.
If the standards were even close to reasonable, then most manufacturers would meet them without cheating.
Since it appears perhaps ALL companies are cheating the tests, then obviously the standards are unreasonable in terms of allowing the manufacture of cars that people will actually buy.
If the standards are so unrealistic that both consumers and car companies ignore them, they simply need to be re-thought to be realistic rather than
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wow. So if all manufacturers cheat then it is okay. That's amazing. So what do you think is the correct response? To dial back the regulations and pollute ourselves to death?
Coal companies just as uniformly lied about waste and did illegal dumping of chemical toxins into the water supply. Should the government not have attempted to regulate that? Were they wrong to go after companies until finally standards improved a little (to dumping chemical toxins in Mexico, often with water bringing them back into the
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Ah I see, it's your opinion - hence the redefinition of "fact".
So you feel the only reasonable standard is one a business can meet without difficulty, regardless of the external costs [theconversation.com] to everyone else. Which of course would mean there'd be no pressure to develop new technologies that meet these higher standards (such as catalytic converters or electric vehicles), and LA [america.gov] would look more like Beijing. [theaustralian.com.au]
It's obvious that not ALL companies are cheating (Tesla certainly isn't), and there's certainly no evidence th
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> but still low enough that air quality is OK
Define OK... because it most certainly isn't with what the scientists whose recommendations the regulations were based on defined it as.
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>So if pretty much every manufacturer is doing this, how is this not equal to a kind of mass civic protest?
Well, if Bernie Madoff were to resist arrest - and then every other convicted fraudster in the US resisted incarceration or tried to escape all at once... would you also consider *that* an example of legitimate civic protest ?
Sure you *can* protest for the right to harm others - but that doesn't mean your protest deserves anything but scorn from those others or lawmakers. At best this is "protest" i
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If every manufacturer decided to make seatbelts unsafe (and lied about it), would you consider that a civil protest or a criminal action?
Many corporations breaking the rules in an effort to save money doesn't make it right in any way shape or form.
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Emissions have nothing to do with safety, seatbelts do.
DUH DUH DUH.
I personally would be fine without seatbelt regulations, they don't matter as few people would be stupid enough to buy a car without them. They actually provide value unlike unrealistic emissions standards that make a car impractical to drive.
In fact if you think about it, if most cars actually followed the way too high standards they would (as the article notes) be much slower - and therefore a hazard when trying to merge with traffic. I
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Did the car makers complain about the standards? No
Were they upfront about the issue to the customer and public? No
Did they install the best for low emission software by default? No
This is not bending the rules
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If in reality car emissions are higher than overly ambitious standards, but still low enough that air quality is OK
The second part of your premise is the problem. In some cases, VW cars were emitting as much pollution as a semi truck.
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So if pretty much every manufacturer is doing this, how is this not equal to a kind of mass civic protest?
Because corporations are not citizens, no matter how much the legal system screws up the definitions.