Posted on 09/25/2015 8:08:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Volkswagen is confronted with a monumental challenge.
The company has admitted that 11 million of its cars used illegal software to cheat emissions standards.
Now, many owners are demanding that the offending cars be fixed.
That's easier said than done, and Volkswagen has already tried — and failed — twice.
Here's the issue, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency: Cars with Volkswagen's 2-liter TDI turbo-diesel four-cylinder engines include software that detects when the car is undergoing emissions testing and turns on a suite of pollution-control systems.
But as soon as the test ends, the controls switch off, leaving the engine free to emit up to 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide, a highly polluting gas. According to the California Air Resources Board, Volkswagen admitted to using a defeat device during a September 3 meeting with the agency and the EPA.
The problem for Volkswagen is that getting the engine's emissions in line with pollution standards probably means sacrificing something else.
"Building an engine involves balancing four factors — performance, emissions, durability, and fuel economy," explained Jake Fisher, Consumer Reports' director of automotive testing.
Right now, VW has sacrificed emissions to create a TDI engine that offers great performance, incredible fuel economy, and solid reliability.
"Whatever the fix is, it will likely sacrifice fuel economy and probably durability as well," Fisher said.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
And now your $30,000 car runs like crap, all the time.
Agreed! So what is the issue?
Unless they gave the bogus data to our federal government in order to comply with some regulatory requirement.
That looks like a super with the bug box computer.
A Nice six volt ‘67 would be fine with me.
That would bankrupt them.
Do you that for a fact, or are you just speculating? I suspect the test mode is not used for calculating the MPG.
OK, here’s something nobody is talking about:
ALL the automakers, foreign and domestic, use “Defeat devices” to meet federal, state, and local NOISE laws.
Even though the federal motor vehicle noise law (40CFR 205) comes under the EPA, the arm of the EPA charged with enforcing that law was defunded decades ago, and compliance has not been enforced since about the early 1980s.
That’s how noisy diesel trucks, from pickups to Peterbilts, can be sold as they are.
States and cities have noise laws on the books but lack the expertise to measure compliance.
Ask me how I know...
Next thing we hear, odumbo will put out his EO that due to the pollution factor, all VW’s be impounded and zero compensation paid to the owners. VW will be required to replace them at their cost.
they will pass the smog tests. the issue is whether the emissions systems are on all the time or only during the test. in either situation, under testing they’ll pass. how will the smog testers know whether the car’s software has been updated? short of a master database maintained by dealers of who has or hasn’t brought their cars in for the “fix”, the government wouldn’t really know... i suspect that outside of California, this won’t be a big deal. since California has the toughest smog standards, car manufacturers make their cars meet those standards. most other states don’t have emissions testing, or the standards are not as tight.
i think what VW did was unethical, but faced with increasingly ridiculous bureaucracies writing arbitrary regulations (i.e. did any of us ever get to vote on these smog standards? or vote for the people who wrote them? or have veto power over them?), they found a loophole which was probably legal and took it. the government routinely does wrong things while explaining them away as “legal”. so turnabout is fair play.
unplug it when you get home ;)
Your solution is great.
However...rest assured it'll never get implented because some long-haired, Gaia-worshipping, granola-eating, Birkenstock-wearing, butt-ugly libtard freak (male or female) will come protesting with their brain-dead fellow travellers, weeping before the cameras, screaming, "The Erf is dyyyyyiiiinnnnngggg!!!!!! Somebody saaaave the Errrrffffff!!!!!"
well they’ll appear in states like mine that have no emissions requirements
How do you know? ;)
That is what I would do.
Imagine the damage in the environmentalweenies eyes towards the VW brand. All VW products are now suspect even if they aren’t diesel powered.
AND you would be wrong...
MPG is calculated using the total hydrocarbon emissions to determine the amount of hydrocarbons (i.e., fuel) burned per mile. Gas and diesel vehicle MPG is determined this way and has been since MPG standards were established.
VS...
nitrogen oxide, a highly polluting gas
Systems and cycles are no longer discussed, whether, science, medicine government or religion or history.
Good point. Might be a great opportunity to get one cheap as long as nobody "fixes" it.
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