More VW Trouble: 2016 Desels Have New Suspect SW

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Quote:
Volkswagen confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday that the "auxiliary emissions control device" at issue operates differently from the "defeat" device software included in the company's 2009 to 2015 models disclosed last month.


Quote:
If EPA rules the new software is a second defeat device specifically aimed at gaming government emissions tests, it would call into question repeated assertions by top VW executives that responsibility for the cheating scheme lay with a handful of rogue software developers who wrote the illegal code installed in prior generations of its four-cylinder diesel engines.

That a separate device was included in the redesigned 2016 cars could suggest a multi-year effort by the company to influence U.S. emissions tests that continued even after regulators began pressing the company last year about irregularities with the emissions produced by the older cars.


http://news.yahoo.com/2016-vw-diesels-software-affecting-emissions-tests-142019516--finance.html#
 
Do they expect a VW official to stand up and say that he did this? Executives hire people to take the fall when things go wrong. These guys are like the little kid that says, "No mommy. A great big gorilla threw the baseball that hit Daddy's car and made that big dent, honest!". The executives are just better at it because they have a lot more practice.
 
I am surprised at the lack of comment on the EPA. They have written the rules to make it almost impossible to manufacture a diesel that runs well. And, they get to make up the rules without any legislative approval.
 
Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
Do they expect a VW official to stand up and say that he did this? Executives hire people to take the fall when things go wrong. These guys are like the little kid that says, "No mommy. A great big gorilla threw the baseball that hit Daddy's car and made that big dent, honest!". The executives are just better at it because they have a lot more practice.


Wrong. Executives don't read software code. They don't know whats in it. They only care about results: pass U.S. emissions, check a box. The insiders, the software engineers and managers, probably had to know, NOT the execs. I'm a software engineer myself and have worked doing embedded software like this for years.
 
Originally Posted By: redbone3
I am surprised at the lack of comment on the EPA. They have written the rules to make it almost impossible to manufacture a diesel that runs well. And, they get to make up the rules without any legislative approval.

Not run well clean? I don't think we know that yet. I'm presuming, for just one example, that the Chevy Cruze diesel which competes, does not have to cheat and it runs fine. We'll know for certain in a few months, so you might be right, but I doubt it at this point.
Saying the EPA is going to far doesn't sound right either.
 
Der Spiegel reportts that at least 30 managers are involved in the fraud. Maybe they couldn't read the code, but they surely could read between the lines.
 
Originally Posted By: BRZED
Der Spiegel reportts that at least 30 managers are involved in the fraud. Maybe they couldn't read the code, but they surely could read between the lines.


I read the Speigel news item. VW is denying there were that many, so who knows. I do think more than "just" a few software people knew though. Said this before:
Originally Posted By: lubricatosaurus
I have a couple of names, so don't blame Winterkorn for failing to scrutinize the project like these two should have:
The Powertrain group led by Cambridge-educated Johannes Arning, and
Technical development leader Thorsten Duesterdiek
These were techie car guys that knew the long history of EPA laws and diesel emissions very well.
 
Originally Posted By: redbone3
I am surprised at the lack of comment on the EPA. They have written the rules to make it almost impossible to manufacture a diesel that runs well. And, they get to make up the rules without any legislative approval.


Which is why they don't comment much. They get more rules passed under the radar.
 
Originally Posted By: lubricatosaurus
Originally Posted By: BRZED
Der Spiegel reportts that at least 30 managers are involved in the fraud. Maybe they couldn't read the code, but they surely could read between the lines.


I read the Speigel news item. VW is denying there were that many, so who knows. I do think more than "just" a few software people knew though. Said this before:
Originally Posted By: lubricatosaurus
I have a couple of names, so don't blame Winterkorn for failing to scrutinize the project like these two should have:
The Powertrain group led by Cambridge-educated Johannes Arning, and
Technical development leader Thorsten Duesterdiek
These were techie car guys that knew the long history of EPA laws and diesel emissions very well.


There is no way a handful of people could make that big of a change in a car inside such a big company without 100 people knowing about it. Too much testing and documentation with APQP.
 
I dunno. There was just a handful of people manipulating LIBOR and the actual process of setting it was beyond ridiculous.
 
Originally Posted By: Benito
I dunno. There was just a handful of people manipulating LIBOR and the actual process of setting it was beyond ridiculous.


Look up how APQP works. The documentation is spread across hundreds of people and suppliers. Most of them engineers who know the difference.
 
Originally Posted By: Doog
There is no way a handful of people could make that big of a change in a car inside such a big company without 100 people knowing about it. Too much testing and documentation with APQP.

They were being team players. Unethical team players, happens all the time.
Some are reporting: "In 2007, German fuel-system and emissions components supplier, Bosch, warned of the illegality of tampering with the software to circumvent the rules. In 2011, VW engineers also alerted top management of the impropriety but a culture of fear at the automaker led to some disastrous decision making."

At a minimum, a few software engineers knew, we got that. Test engineers you'd think would notice the emissions control devices stopped working as much outside the lab's dynos, although most work was done on dynos. Tech Leads and managers could have figured there was something up.

Who knew what and when they knew it will come up, knowing there were warnings years ago. Waiting for proof and how high the conspiracy got.
 
Originally Posted By: Doog
Originally Posted By: Benito
I dunno. There was just a handful of people manipulating LIBOR and the actual process of setting it was beyond ridiculous.


Look up how APQP works. The documentation is spread across hundreds of people and suppliers. Most of them engineers who know the difference.


I wouldn't put too much faith in APQP for internal software code. Few people actually read it. Discovery was at some point when testers realized emissions control dormancy was occurring outside the standard U.S. dyno tests. APQP is a lot of planning and documents which show how the product should work, not what secret-ish software code was embedded.
 
Originally Posted By: lubricatosaurus
Originally Posted By: Doog
Originally Posted By: Benito
I dunno. There was just a handful of people manipulating LIBOR and the actual process of setting it was beyond ridiculous.


Look up how APQP works. The documentation is spread across hundreds of people and suppliers. Most of them engineers who know the difference.


I wouldn't put too much faith in APQP for internal software code. Few people actually read it. Discovery was at some point when testers realized emissions control dormancy was occurring outside the standard U.S. dyno tests. APQP is a lot of planning and documents which show how the product should work, not what secret-ish software code was embedded.


Exactly. There's probably one guy who was TOLD to do it who must have the highest blood pressure in all of Germany since Hitler waiting in his bunker.

His superiors are no doubt practicing exactly how they will claim he did it without their knowledge.
 
Originally Posted By: Benito
Exactly. There's probably one guy who was TOLD to do it who must have the highest blood pressure in all of Germany since Hitler waiting in his bunker.

His superiors are no doubt practicing exactly how they will claim he did it without their knowledge.


Who said it was "one guy"? Just bizarre statements. Without proof of communication up the chain of command, it could have been held close to a handful of people, at least at first. Others probably caught on later but were team players and decided not to rat them all out.
Your extreme statements are just odd. Hitler references are not called for.
 
Originally Posted By: lubricatosaurus
Executives don't read software code. They don't know whats in it.

Exactly. They probably have enough problems checking their own emails, let alone auditing code. The only thing they'll ever know about the code is what someone - anyone - wishes to tell them.
 
I'm very anxious to see how this plays out, and what happens to VW, and diesel engines in passenger cars and light trucks going forward. I can't imagine the outcome for VW being very good.
 
Yeah, lots of people involved.

To get their paycheck and keep their job they simply did exactly what their employer wanted.... to pass emission testing.
 
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Yeah, lots of people involved.

To get their paycheck and keep their job they simply did exactly what their employer wanted.... to pass emission testing.


Exactly. I'd be willing to bet upper management might not know how to read and/or write the code responsible, but they knew exactly what was going on.

Upper management might have said something like this: I/we don't care how we pass emissions, just get us to pass emissions! The reply: OK. lol
 
Corporate big wigs sets the goals, just pass this dang test so was can sell all these diesel cars.

Every industry bends the rules to meet a financial goal.
 
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