The Volkswagen scandal in a nutshell

First off, I'll own up now. Our family car is a Volkswagen Passat - but its too old for it to be part of this scandal.

What Scandal? well have you been under a rock for the last month? YES!...Right...

..let me explain what's been going on:

What Happened?

About a week ago (from time of writing); Volkswagen admitted to fiddling test data from emissions test on their diesel cars that were produced from 2009 onwards: Volkswagen Boss Investigated

Their Diesel engine cars were producing 20 times  the baseline rate of NOx that the EPA had outlined!

This meant MILLIONS of their car would have to recalled, billions in fines, shares in the company fell massively, a stain on German's auto heritage (a country that invented the motor car), and utter ridicule from the rest of the world:

Also there are stories of VW diesel owners raising law suits against VW!

Its boss at the time said he had no idea it was going on. That may be true, but somebody - a head engineer maybe - new this all along!

Volkswagen is part of the VAG (Volkswagen Audi Group) - which means that Volkswagen technology is in Audi too! So they are also being investigated!

How did they find out?

At the University of West Virginia, the were asked to do some test on family diesel cars: a dyno test and a real world driving test.

A dyno test is where the vehicle is plonked on a rolling road and a sensor stuck up its exhaust pipe.

Dan Carder and his team test a number of branded cars and noticed that the Volkswagen's were giving them different results on the road than on the Dyno. The released there data nearly 18 months ago, and only now are Volkswagen having to explain themselves - that's a slow response to a serious claim!

Here is Dan being interviewed by ABC Australian news:

How did they falsify the data?

Here's the tricky part: pay attention!

A car is not just 4 wheels and an engine any more. All modern cars now have an EMU or ECU (Engine Management Unit or Engine Control Unit). Its basically a little, yet powerful, computer that has a bunch of sensors connected to it. These sensors can read EVERYTHING: 

<inhale>

Road speed, Engine Speed, Engine Temp, Oil Pressure, Turbo Pressure, Outside Temp, Coolant Temp, Steering Wheel position, Throttle Position, Brake Position, ABS sensors, Crank position, What gear the cars in, Manifold Temp, Exhaust Temp, Oxygen content of exhaust, intercooler temp, fuel level, oil level, coolant level, how rich or lean the fuel-air mixture is and even if you have enough screen wash in your bottle!

</inhale>

Some ECU's also talk to other computers in the car - like the info-tainment system: this is basically what handles your SATNAV, Music and in car communications, like connecting to your phones bluetooth.

So on a rolling road, there are a number of sensor that could detect when its being tested, for example: 

• the ABS sensors not working properly, 
• outside temp is warmer maybe, indicating lab conditions
• Steering wheel position - you can't steer on a rolling road
• or even if the GPS speed doesn't match the wheel speed - if GPS speed = 0 and wheel speed = 60mph, then its on a rolling road.

So if any of the above criteria are met, then you can tell the ECU: "Right - your being emissions tested, here is a different set of code for you to run. It'll pull power a bit and make yours farts like roses!"

So why are they bothered?

Well This chap at the university of Nottingham puts it quite well:

Basically its to reduce NOx - a tasty set of compounds which can cause a large amount of damage to the environment. If we carried on producing NOx: then you get acid rain, pollute the local wildlife, smog, repository issues. It's bad stuff and you don't want it in your system or air space.

Over a million car pushing a couple of milli-grams of NOx every 10 miles or so - that's tons of NOx every car every 10 miles!

So why did they do it

Maybe they believed that there customers wanted more power and by reducing emissions, that power had to be reduced. Maybe they couldn't get the research on reducing emissions whilst maintaining performance. 

Or Maybe they couldn't afford the research (or rather didn't want to part with the cash). But also it could just be an engineer or engineering manager that wanted to meet the specifications, couldn't and fudged it by falsifying the data using the method above.

But it seems odd that BMW appears to have passed this test, so its not like its hard to achieve?

All conjecture of course - till somebody spills the beans!

It looks like an over-elaborate way for getting round the issue! But it's a couple of lines of code that probably took 10 minutes to write and 30 mins to test!

Why did it take till now to discover?

There's a piece of legislation called the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act). It appears that they were hiding behind it! - Hack-a-day article

Basically the EPA (Environment Protection Agency) could not touch these cars ECU's without obtaining permission from the manufacturer first. If they did, it would be classed as a sort of breach of copyright and could be fined a helluva lot of money!

The DMCA is a really old piece of legislation that really needs updating and bring up to date!

I believe John Deer did something similar a while ago: http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

WVU managed to get round this cos they are an independent body. ( I believe)

So am I affected by this?

If you own a 2009 or earlier model with a diesel engine - yes! If concerned go to your local VW Dealer or visit the VW website

anything older - no

But what about older cars that don't meet these requirements? surely they are damaging the environment too?

Well yes and no. I just had my old Landrover with a 2.5l turbo diesel MOT'd and it passed, yet still smokes like a chimney at Drax! Yes it does pollute, but no it's not illegal!

It meets the standards that were set at the time, which didn't exist. This law only applies to cars after it was put in place in the country of production.

My 2 penth

I'm not surprised this has come about! There had to be a reason for car makers to tell us to stop poking around our cars: http://www.autoblog.com/2015/04/20/automakers-gearheads-car-repairs/

And now there appears to be a reason. They probably don't want to find out their dark secrets!

Like I mentioned, I own a old diesel, with a mechanical fuel pump and a turbo and I can tell you without lab data that that thing is not environmentally friendly - but I only drive it 3 days a week to work and maybe to play on weekends.

But the utter nerve of these big company's telling us not to mess with their cars when they should be the responsible ones and are messing with the air we breath by falsifying data! I bet those who have tinkered and remapped the ECU have probably done a better job than VW could ever have done!