EPA caught VW cheating - how does the car know it's being tested?

| > But the possibilty of real prison time will make them think before doing
the
| > crime.

| But most criminals think they will never be caught so prison is little
| deterrent.

By that logic there is no role in society for
a criminal justice system. You paint it as
just black and white.

There's a far bigger group in between -- People
who will do immoral things only if they know there's no
risk and no one will see them. Those are two factors:
personal conscience and risk of suffering. Risk is also
related to one's position. A multi-millionaire executive
with a family has more to lose than most people.

Isn't public civility really a combination of personal
conscience and risk of punishment? That's why we
have locks on doors and windows. The doors can be
kicked in fairly easily. Windows can be broken. But the
need for force deters most people. They have to be
more aggressive and more intent on stealing in order
to break in. Most people will be stopped by their
conscience, their fear, their common sense strategy
to avoid suffering, or all those things, before breaking
into your house.

On the other hand, if you leave your laptop sitting
on your front steps, someone passing by doesn't
need to be aggressive or intrude. They can also
rationalize that maybe you meant to give it away.
A lot more people will take that laptop than will break
in to take it.

Much of what we do in shame we do with such a
rationalization. Our thinking mind lies to itself to
justify satisfying our impulse. Some people are better
at lying to themselves than other people. (Which is
the essence of true laziness.) But we all do it in
degrees. The less adept we are at lying to ourselves,
the less likely we are to do something we consider
wrong if there's a risk that someone else may bear
witness. We have to be lying to ourselves on the
level of psychosis to ignore the risk of punishment
or other ramifications.

The CEO of VW is so far refusing to acknowledge
guilt on his own part, but if he were risking jail time,
along with his sidekicks and yes-men, it's a good
bet the software cheat never would have happened.
He's almost certainly a man obsessed with wealth
and power to have got to where he is. Jail is the
opposite of that. He's almost certainly not fully
psychotic. He just imagines he's out to "win" at
something. That kind of obsession helps people to
lie to themselves. But it's likely that he wouldn't have
put his position at such risk if it meant risking all of
his chips for just a slightly bigger win. Even if he
doesn't feel shame, the threat of jail would probably
temper his obsession.

As things stand now, it's easy for the people at
the top to lie to themselves because the justice
system is pretending that the corporation itself --
a mere legal/financial/tax entity -- was the perpetrator
of the crime.

On Fri, 18 Sep 2015 19:19:10 -0500, Ewald Böhm >
wrote:

> Apparently Volkswagen/Audi cheated on the USA emissions tests since
> 2009 to 2015 by turning off the EGR to lower nitrogen oxide emissions
> ONLY when the car was being tested for emissions.
>
> REFERENCES:
> http://blog.ucsusa.org/volkswagen-ca...cle-recall-887
> http://www.engineering.com/AdvancedM...EPA-Tests.aspx
> http://hothardware.com/news/vw-inten...-482k-vehicles
> etc.
>
> My question is HOW did the car *know* it was being *tested* for
> emissions?

The CEO of VW is stepping down.
http://preview.alturl.com/jxppg
It's too bad he's German. We might run
out of candidates for U.S. President.


--
Using Opera's mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

On 9/19/2015 9:36 AM, . wrote:
> On 9/19/2015 8:40 AM, Dean Hoffman wrote:
>> On Sat, 19 Sep 2015 00:12:53 -0500, mike > wrote:
>>
>>>> If I were the owner of the affected cars, I would NOT bring them in for
>>>> the recall, since it's not a safety issue.
>>>>
>>>> They will definitely lose performance after the "fix" (while they will
>>>> also do worse on emissions testing results).
>>>>
>>>> It's a lose:lose situation for the car owner to get the car "fixed", I
>>>> think, because of those two results.
>>
>>>> Do you agree?
>>>> Is there anything "good" that will happen if the owners "fix" their
>>>> cars?
>>>>
>>> Will you have any choice?
>>> If the test procedure for those cars is changed to test the "real"
>>> emissions, they will FAIL.
>>> If you care about air quality, you have to do that.
>>> Here in Oregon, you don't get your license plates renewed if you fail.
>>
>> Some cut.
>>
>> Some states, like Nebraska, do no testing. We had some testing
>> for horns, lights, etc. back in the 70s, but dropped it. I think
>> the testers hollered too loud about the low testing fee allowed.
>> I wonder how many of the non-compliant vehicles will end up in
>> states with no testing.
>
> Passenger car testing of any type has ALWAYS been a scam
> and is enacted for generating revenue. Nothing more, nothing
> less. "Unsafe" cars have NEVER been a significant proximate
> cause of accidents nor does smog testing of these vehicles
> lead to measurably cleaner air. These two concerns are best
> addressed at time of manufacture.

The VW case is a conspicuous textbook example of how and why
emissions testing is a doomed to failure approach similar to solving
drug abuse by arresting individual users. As even the admitted guilty
party have undeniably exposed, emissions control MUST be properly
addressed at the point of manufacture.

On 9/19/2015 9:36 AM, . wrote:
> On 9/19/2015 8:40 AM, Dean Hoffman wrote:
>> On Sat, 19 Sep 2015 00:12:53 -0500, mike > wrote:
>
>>>> If I were the owner of the affected cars, I would NOT bring them in for
>>>> the recall, since it's not a safety issue.
>
>>>> They will definitely lose performance after the "fix" (while they will
>>>> also do worse on emissions testing results).
>
>>>> It's a lose:lose situation for the car owner to get the car "fixed", I
>>>> think, because of those two results.
>
>>>> Do you agree?
>>>> Is there anything "good" that will happen if the owners "fix" their
>>>> cars?
>
>>> Will you have any choice?
>>> If the test procedure for those cars is changed to test the "real"
>>> emissions, they will FAIL.
>>> If you care about air quality, you have to do that.
>>> Here in Oregon, you don't get your license plates renewed if you fail.
>
>> Some cut.
>
>> Some states, like Nebraska, do no testing. We had some testing
>> for horns, lights, etc. back in the 70s, but dropped it. I think
>> the testers hollered too loud about the low testing fee allowed.
>> I wonder how many of the non-compliant vehicles will end up in
>> states with no testing.
>
> Passenger car testing of any type has ALWAYS been a scam
> and is enacted for generating revenue. Nothing more, nothing
> less. "Unsafe" cars have NEVER been a significant proximate
> cause of accidents nor does smog testing of these vehicles
> lead to measurably cleaner air. These two concerns are best
> addressed at time of manufacture.

The VW case is a conspicuous textbook example of how and why
emissions testing is a doomed to failure approach similar to solving
drug abuse by arresting individual users. As even the admitted guilty
party have undeniably exposed, emissions control MUST be properly
addressed at the point of manufacture.

On Wednesday, September 23, 2015 at 10:54:31 AM UTC-5, . wrote:
> On 9/19/2015 9:36 AM, . wrote:
> > On 9/19/2015 8:40 AM, Dean Hoffman wrote:
> >> On Sat, 19 Sep 2015 00:12:53 -0500, mike > wrote:
> >>
> >>>> If I were the owner of the affected cars, I would NOT bring them in for
> >>>> the recall, since it's not a safety issue.
> >>>>
> >>>> They will definitely lose performance after the "fix" (while they will
> >>>> also do worse on emissions testing results).
> >>>>
> >>>> It's a lose:lose situation for the car owner to get the car "fixed", I
> >>>> think, because of those two results.
> >>
> >>>> Do you agree?
> >>>> Is there anything "good" that will happen if the owners "fix" their
> >>>> cars?
> >>>>
> >>> Will you have any choice?
> >>> If the test procedure for those cars is changed to test the "real"
> >>> emissions, they will FAIL.
> >>> If you care about air quality, you have to do that.
> >>> Here in Oregon, you don't get your license plates renewed if you fail.
> >>
> >> Some cut.
> >>
> >> Some states, like Nebraska, do no testing. We had some testing
> >> for horns, lights, etc. back in the 70s, but dropped it. I think
> >> the testers hollered too loud about the low testing fee allowed.
> >> I wonder how many of the non-compliant vehicles will end up in
> >> states with no testing.
> >
> > Passenger car testing of any type has ALWAYS been a scam
> > and is enacted for generating revenue. Nothing more, nothing
> > less. "Unsafe" cars have NEVER been a significant proximate
> > cause of accidents nor does smog testing of these vehicles
> > lead to measurably cleaner air. These two concerns are best
> > addressed at time of manufacture.
>
> The VW case is a conspicuous textbook example of how and why
> emissions testing is a doomed to failure approach similar to solving
> drug abuse by arresting individual users. As even the admitted guilty
> party have undeniably exposed, emissions control MUST be properly
> addressed at the point of manufacture.

VW Chief Martin Winterkorn resigns. www.freerepublic.com

I think that Steve W is closest to the truth/reality.

VW 2.0L TDI diesel emission systems use a NOx trap in the exhaust separate from any other catalysts.

See: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...explainer.html

and

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOx_adsorber

In use, the NOx adsorber acts like a catalytic converter and does consume some diesel fuel to aid in the NOx reduction reaction. How they inject the fuel into the adsorber is still somewhat unclear to me. It appears that all they do when the said vehicle is being emission tested on the treadmill is activate the fuel supply to the adsorber and, shazamm, it starts working.. The NOx emissions drop substantially. When/if the OBD2 test plug is removed (after testing) the ECU senses that and cuts the fuel supply to the adsorber. Now the vehicle is back in "road mode." Thats why the fuel consumption gets significantly better. (about 50 mpg compared to 43) Unlike gas engines, most diesels are lean burn rather than stoichiometric.

VW got busted when some researchers simply did a road test using a portable exhaust gas analyzer rather than an "official" EPA/CARB emission test machine. The car didn't KNOW it was being tested. The road test numbers didn't jive with the certified emission test numbers. It all went downhill (quickly) from there. How could VW be so stupid as to think this wouldn't ever happen?

On Wed, 23 Sep 2015 10:00:58 -0400, Steve W. wrote:

> I would bet there will be a software "patch" that will
> erase the different testing maps, the cars will then meet the original
> EPA standards

I think the point is that the cars can only either meet the emissions
standards with reduced drivability, or, with the addition of a urea
system.

Either will be expensive.

On Wed, 23 Sep 2015 08:15:24 -0700, trader_4 wrote:

> The other reason for criminal convictions is punishment,
> regardless of deterrence. If you have no criminal laws
> covering things like this, then it's open season and and
> a whole lot of people who are already cutting corners,
> going to the edge of what's legal or beyond, will just go
> further.

Someone somewhere said it's not the severity of the punishment
that deters crime, but the certainty of it.

On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 21:26:40 -0700, Bob F wrote:

> Update 9/22: This morning VW announced that the cheating issue on diesel engines
> is much more vast than initially expected. The company admitted to cheating on
> 11 million diesel engines worldwide.

And the CEO stepped down today.

VW even, apparently, fingered a few employees to the German justice system
(which I'd love to know more about - because it gets down to "WHO" did it).

On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 23:08:40 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

> In a corporation that size, even a small cadre could have been 20 to 50
> engineers. Someone had to come up with the idea, design, build, test,
> and approve everything. The guys on the line installing would probably
> have no idea, just another part. Higher level in engineering would know.

I don't know how VW works, but, in one newspaper, they "speculated" that
this kind of cheat had to be approved at the top level.