VW 'Volkswagen Uses Software to increase Pollution'

[liveforphysics]

Whats your thoughts on hydrogen fuel cell cars? Both electric and hydrogen infrastructure are lacking in Australia for immediate conversion to an alternative.. Toyota has just publicly announced it's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (although its been brewing for some time and is using the hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity anyway)...

Hydrogen is a scam by the petroleum companies facing certain irrelevance to desperately find some new scam product to sell you.

The idea of cost effective solar on the roof of each home and an EV in each driveway is the unstoppable nightmare and undoing of the whole barbaric 1-time-use fuels industry (coal, natural gas, gasoline/diesel, hydrogen etc).

 

[LockH]

Hehe... Currently "About 3,960 results" in a Giggle (sp?) search for phrase "fool cell".

 

[The fingers]

Der Bingle gives 8,130,000 results. I still like Giggle better. :lol:

 

[speedmd]

VW withdraws its EPA application for 2016 diesels.
http://www.autonews.com/article/20151007/OEM11/151009850/vw-withdraws-epa-application-for-2016-diesels

I guess the resale value of late model USA market VW diesels just increased.

I guess you missed the post that they are way off in value in just the past few weeks. Gas models also seeing a hit. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/07/volkswagen-resale-prices-drop-13-percent.html http://time.com/money/4064643/vw-diesel-scandal-prices/
http://time.com/money/4064643/vw-diesel-scandal-prices/
They may stop registrations in many states.

They pulled the plug on the new ones because they know there is no suitable fix. They knew this from start of the intro of the EA189 motor. http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-real-cause-of-the-vw-cheating-scandal-2015-10

Maybe desirable if your state does not require a emissions test, but the feds may step in on this and only allow a certain time for a poor fix (estimated at a 15% loss in power and torque) if allow them on the roads at all in the meantime. Not something I would speculate on. It has only been a few weeks and this will get much worse yet going by all indications.

 

[Punx0r]

Predictions of reduced resale values are likely to be a self-fulfilling prophecy regardless of the rational economic argument. A 15% reduction in economy is significant but not that bad: if you started at 50mpg you'd be down to 42.5mpg.

 

[Ratking]

Whats your thoughts on hydrogen fuel cell cars? Both electric and hydrogen infrastructure are lacking in Australia for immediate conversion to an alternative.. Toyota has just publicly announced it's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (although its been brewing for some time and is using the hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity anyway)...

Hydrogen is a scam by the petroleum companies facing certain irrelevance to desperately find some new scam product to sell you.

The idea of cost effective solar on the roof of each home and an EV in each driveway is the unstoppable nightmare and undoing of the whole barbaric 1-time-use fuels industry (coal, natural gas, gasoline/diesel, hydrogen etc).

I know you fight for freeing the world of hydrocarbons, but it is a fact that the world would not be where we are today without it. It is easy to transport and highly energy dense. You may have the luxury of managing to live without power made from coal, but India, Asia, Africa is dead without power made from hydrocarbons. Please do not make a fool out of yourself by only seeing the small picture. You should listen to this podcast and come back to me:
http://powerhour.alexepstein.com/20...y-college-on-the-moral-case-for-fossil-fuels/

It is morally right to use fossil fuel, and that is explained in the podcast. Feel free to broaden your world view

 

[speedmd]

Germans officials storm the VW headquarters. Looking very bad for VW.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...as-US-boss-faces-grilling-by-Senate-Live.html

 

[speedmd]

Us manager admitted knowing about this some 18 months back. I guess they don't have a whistle blower policy in VW. Word is company run more like in the movie "The Firm".
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/business/international/vw-diesel-emissions-scandal-congressional-hearing.html?_r=0

Live grilling. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-vw-horn-congress-html-20151007-htmlstory.html

 

[Joseph C.]

I know you fight for freeing the world of hydrocarbons, but it is a fact that the world would not be where we are today without it. It is easy to transport and highly energy dense. You may have the luxury of managing to live without power made from coal, but India, Asia, Africa is dead without power made from hydrocarbons. Please do not make a fool out of yourself by only seeing the small picture. You should listen to this podcast and come back to me:
http://powerhour.alexepstein.com/20...y-college-on-the-moral-case-for-fossil-fuels/

It is morally right to use fossil fuel, and that is explained in the podcast. Feel free to broaden your world view

A temporary view at best. At grid scale renewable energy is a lot cheaper than it is for consumers. India expects to have 160GW of solar and wind installed by 2022. It currently has 268GW of total capacity. Renewable energy will compromise more than 50 per cent of its total electricity in just seven years. By 2030 fossil fuels usage will be fading in most countries. China is aiming to have more than 50 per cent renewable generation in 15 years.

It's our moral imperative to use renewable energy. It's already much cheaper to install off shore wind than any type of fossil fuel. Coal kills tens of thousands of people every year in the U.S. alone. In India, that figure will be at least 100,000 people probably more given their lax safety records. Fossil fuel is a finite resource whose continuous use is tied into the future death of at least a billion people if not more. When the Himalayas lose their frozen water we will see droughts in that region the like of which we have never seen before.

And the West isn't immune either all of our major cities are built along either the coasts or large rivers. New York, London, Los Angeles, Dublin, Liverpool, Sydney, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Barcelona will all be flooded unless trillions are spent building flood defences and in some cases that won't be geographically practical. We currently need to burn fossil fuel in the shipping and aviation industry everything else can be electrified as quickly as we can ramp up battery production.

We also need fossil fuels for plastics and agriculture but stupidly burning it for land-based transport and electricity is idiocy. We do need time but its use in these areas has to be phased out as quickly as possible.

 

[Joseph C.]

More on topic.

The German authorities have raided Volkswagen HQ. Surely this should have been done weeks ago. :? I take it is a case of Germany protecting German interests until they have no choice.

Police raid Volkswagen HQ in emissions scandal investigation.

http://www.thejournal.ie/volkswagen-chief-knew-about-emissions-issue-in-2014-2374578-Oct2015/

 

[speedmd]

Just heard a Republican politician call for a buy back in the live hearing. OH SH!T! It does not look like anyone will wait for the maybe ok unproven fix.

In terms of waiting a few weeks for the raid, I am not too sure they were protecting their interests as much as just not understanding how big this fraud is and how far up it reached. Even here on this rather well educated board folks maintained for the first weeks that this was only a US issue and would be resolved with software. This is much bigger.

It involves the second largest purchase most folks make and a fraud of that purchase. They need to buy back all of them if they can not be made to work as well as when purchased and pass the spec. or if a customer no longer wants to own it. No way around this knowing what we know now.

 

[Chalo]

Seems like a pretty huge amount of hand wringing for a problem that looks fixable with a firmware update, or at worst a different ECU. Yes, consumers will wind up with a slower car, but they all needed to drive slower anyway.

 

[speedmd]

They admitted today that a software fix will not do it alone in at least the gen 1 cars. They also suggested they are still working on a possible solution that may end up being a replacement of the cars. Don't disagree that they all should drive slower, but calls for buy back are growing and will most likely be the only thing that makes sense once the dust settles a bit more. EPA is in the hot seat also on this with their reluctance to take a faster look at the early reports of the obvious cheating.

The new cars being pulled off the lots is also troubling and may be more to this story then we can imagine. Many of these new ones have urea systems and should be able to run relatively clean. No telling what other issues they are hiding from public.

 

[Joseph C.]

Take that Volkswagen! :lol:

https://twitter.com/RandomCorkStuff/status/652229791953907712

 

[Ratking]

I know you fight for freeing the world of hydrocarbons, but it is a fact that the world would not be where we are today without it. It is easy to transport and highly energy dense. You may have the luxury of managing to live without power made from coal, but India, Asia, Africa is dead without power made from hydrocarbons. Please do not make a fool out of yourself by only seeing the small picture. You should listen to this podcast and come back to me:
http://powerhour.alexepstein.com/20...y-college-on-the-moral-case-for-fossil-fuels/

It is morally right to use fossil fuel, and that is explained in the podcast. Feel free to broaden your world view

A temporary view at best. At grid scale renewable energy is a lot cheaper than it is for consumers. India expects to have 160GW of solar and wind installed by 2022. It currently has 268GW of total capacity. Renewable energy will compromise more than 50 per cent of its total electricity in just seven years. By 2030 fossil fuels usage will be fading in most countries. China is aiming to have more than 50 per cent renewable generation in 15 years.

It's our moral imperative to use renewable energy. It's already much cheaper to install off shore wind than any type of fossil fuel. Coal kills tens of thousands of people every year in the U.S. alone. In India, that figure will be at least 100,000 people probably more given their lax safety records. Fossil fuel is a finite resource whose continuous use is tied into the future death of at least a billion people if not more. When the Himalayas lose their frozen water we will see droughts in that region the like of which we have never seen before.

And the West isn't immune either all of our major cities are built along either the coasts or large rivers. New York, London, Los Angeles, Dublin, Liverpool, Sydney, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Barcelona will all be flooded unless trillions are spent building flood defences and in some cases that won't be geographically practical. We currently need to burn fossil fuel in the shipping and aviation industry everything else can be electrified as quickly as we can ramp up battery production.

We also need fossil fuels for plastics and agriculture but stupidly burning it for land-based transport and electricity is idiocy. We do need time but its use in these areas has to be phased out as quickly as possible.

I don't even know where to start, but did you even care to listen to the podcast? It never cease to amaze me how I make an argument and use a source to substantiate my claim, but no one is even checking my sources. How do I know? Because they start rambling about nonsense that was disproved in my source. It is so annoying to argue with people that never ever try to gain new knowledge or at least look at others peoples view before they spew out their agenda.

Please, give me your sources for your claims and I will not derail this tread anymore. Just give me proof of water rise that is above the normal. I am looking forward to that, because I was just at a lecture with some of the most knowledgeable weather researcher in Oslo, Norway and he disproved any water rise above what was normal. I would also like to get sources for your claim about how much "green energy" that is produced, because I don't believe those numbers are even slightly close to reality.

For people that want to see how green energy is doing in Scandinavia: http://stopthesethings.com/2015/10/...t-collapses-in-sweden-denmark-finland-norway/

 

[Ratking]

Seems like a pretty huge amount of hand wringing for a problem that looks fixable with a firmware update, or at worst a different ECU. Yes, consumers will wind up with a slower car, but they all needed to drive slower anyway.

That is the only moral problem with VW as I see it. They promised a car with certain specifications and if they have to de-tune the engines performance people don't get what they pay for.
The whole concept that co2 is bad is a lie from IPCC anyway, so VW is even in that regard

Catterpillar and other Amercian based diesel engine manufacturer had the same problem in the 1990s, They got away with it, so why shouldn't VW? (BTW, I have not read much about the case with cat etc)

 

[Punx0r]

VW yesterday suggested that the "fixed" cars would achieve the same fuel economy but probably see a 1-2mph reduction in top speed. That may be variable depending on specific model, but that doesn't sound like the end of the world to me, nor justifies calls for a buy-back.

They promised a car with certain specifications and if they have to de-tune the engines performance people don't get what they pay for.

Is that any different from when the quoted power for ICE engines in cars used to be based on a "good one" selected and dyno tested with none of the necessary ancillaries connected? Or current U.S. gasoline lawnmowers or electrical power tools that claim vastly inflated "HP" figures?

 

[Ratking]

VW yesterday suggested that the "fixed" cars would achieve the same fuel economy but probably see a 1-2mph reduction in top speed. That may be variable depending on specific model, but that doesn't sound like the end of the world to me, nor justifies calls for a buy-back.

They promised a car with certain specifications and if they have to de-tune the engines performance people don't get what they pay for.

Is that any different from when the quoted power for ICE engines in cars used to be based on a "good one" selected and dyno tested with none of the necessary ancillaries connected? Or current U.S. gasoline lawnmowers or electrical power tools that claim vastly inflated "HP" figures?

That sounds too good to be true. If that s the case, why did they risk this in the first place?

Not any different other than that people would know it. Test methods have always been deceiving, but if they have to tell the public that the engine is performing 10-15% less, they will have a problem. But that is just my opinion...

 

[speedmd]

Power and torque is significantly different at the lower end of the power curve where you would notice it most in every day driving. 15HP loss and 32lb/ft loss in Torque, both badly off right where you need it. This is a total disaster for VW. Don't see how they will survive this without buying back cars unless they come up with a better fix.
http://www.businessinsider.com/vw-diesel-engines-power-lose-without-cheating-software-2015-10

 

[Punx0r]

Interesting to see the difference on a dyno. If the reduction in power is skewed to the bottom end then it may well be noticeable, however I'm not convinced it'd be a deal-breaker for the average driver as people don't tend to pick 2.0 diesel cars for performance. Also, the high-torque/low-speed nature of diesel power delivery means they feel pokier in the bottom to midrange than a petrol engine of similar peak horsepower.

 

[speedmd]

Not so sure you would be happy if forced to trade your 1500 watt hub motor running 100 phase amps for a 1000 W version limited to 60 phase amps. Will be interesting to see the storm of customer dissatisfaction that comes if it is as bad as this seems and takes over a year to implement. I see a whole lot of folks wanting out as soon as possible to end the nightmare. Even my good friend that has and loves his is ready to take the best offer they will give him just not to have to think about it any longer.

 

[TheBeastie]

95% of European diesels tested flunk emissions standards
Diesels made by Honda, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, and Mitsubishi emit too much NOx.

http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/10/95-of-european-diesels-tested-flunk-emissions-standards/

 

[speedmd]

Yes, they all stink and some more than others. No issue yet on cars setup to run a bit cleaner for test type loads and scenarios but these other players are not (at least to be yet known) putting in defeat code in the black boxes. http://mashable.com/2015/10/09/dieselgate-mercedes-honda-mazda-mitsubishi/#yBuv6iGLSuqs

It is certain to make things more of a rough ride for all going forward and will change the landscape a bit. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/09/how-vw-scandal-will-change-the-industry-commentary.html

 

[Punx0r]

That's an interesting development if diesels from other manufacturers are also exceeding NOx limits and not just U.S. ones but European ones as well.

Whether this fiasco spreads even wider or not, I think it could well raise the issue of ICE emissions in the public mind. If anything is going to act as a driver for a social incentive to seriously consider EV's then this is probably it. Lung cancer is scary and people care about local air quality.

I am confident that the scapegoating is already well under way at VW - these "couple of rogue engineers" are in for a royal shafting.

 

[liveforphysics]

It is morally right to use fossil fuel, and that is explained in the podcast. Feel free to broaden your world view

This year, somewhere between 0.5Million to 3.3Million humans and who knows how many other animals die as a result of poisoned air quality from humans burning things.

Feel free to broaden your awareness of the massive scale pointless death and suffering that arises. You are welcome to choose millions of pointless human deaths and suffering of 10's of millions to be a morally right thing in your reality.

ATB,
-Luke