Half a million VWs recalled, sneaky emissions software.

[Scuffers]

AW111 said:

I'm in partial agreement with you : yes the EU6 limits appear unnecessarily restrictive, no they are not unachievable, it will jusf have a cost in £, mpg and power.

If you think of all the posters rhapsodising over the power, economy and low monthly payments on their TDI VAG-mobile, maybe it was always too good to be true : would 5% less power and economy make them rubbish? 152 hp vs 160, 38 mpg vs 40?

it's not just the headline figures that are the problem, it's the contortions the mappings have to go though that least to some 'interesting' driving characteristics.

it's the same for Petrol engines, modern EU5/6 cars have really poor throttle response, huge flat-spots, etc, often blamed on DBW throttles or turbo lag, but in reality they are mapped like that in a desperate attempt to keep within the NOx limits.

That's why so many re-mapps get rave reviews, it's not so much about how much more power you get, the big differences are in drivability, once you forget trying to meet the NOx targets, the engines just run so much better (and yet, usually a LOT more economically)

for an IC engine to gain in efficiency, you inevitably end up using higher combustion temps, this is exactly what then leads to higher NOx emissions.

your 5% figure is way off the mark, I would suggest in the current VW ststorm, the cars in question will be more like 15-25% worse on fuel when they get 'fixed'

[Otispunkmeyer]

Just to add.

Estimated after treatment costs for a 2L petrol and 2L diesel, according to a paper I am just reading (SAE paper), look something like this:

Euro 1
Petrol: ~ £150
Diesel: ~£50

Euro 2
Petrol: ~ £170
Diesel: ~£100

Euro 3
Petrol: ~ £220
Diesel: ~£350

Euro 4
Petrol: ~ £220
Diesel: ~£420

Euro 5
Petrol: ~ £250
Diesel: ~£700

Euro 6
Petrol: ~ £250
Diesel: ~£1100


So as you can see, costs for fixing diesels exhaust gases really ramped up after Euro 3. I dread to think what Euro 7 will mean, we will likely see the price for petrol after treatment begin to climb as things like Gasoline Particulate Filters are introduced.

[Scuffers]

Otispunkmeyer said:

So as you can see, costs for fixing diesels exhaust gases really ramped up after Euro 3. I dread to think what Euro 7 will mean, we will likely see the price for petrol after treatment begin to climb as things like Gasoline Particulate Filters are introduced.

good info, but that is just to meet the current test.

you know that due to this current bull, that's going to change, and thus meeting the current EU6 rules may well be practically unachievable?

[Otispunkmeyer]

Scuffers said:

Otispunkmeyer said:

So as you can see, costs for fixing diesels exhaust gases really ramped up after Euro 3. I dread to think what Euro 7 will mean, we will likely see the price for petrol after treatment begin to climb as things like Gasoline Particulate Filters are introduced.

good info, but that is just to meet the current test.

you know that due to this current bull, that's going to change, and thus meeting the current EU6 rules may well be practically unachievable?

These are 2012 estimates mind, so a little out of data. But should still be ball park.

I am not sure on cars, but on large trucks they can actually meet PM emissions without a DPF. A lot of manufacturers simply go hot and employ an SCR. They meet the EU6 emissions. They do however have plenty of space for such devices though, packaging on passenger vehicles is much more difficult.

SCR systems are actually very good (once up to temperature), turning 1000's of PPM of NOx into single figures PPM. But as I have mentioned before the cost is using adblue at a 2:1 ratio (2 g adblue for 1 g NOx). The trucks have a 40L tank often, but as you can imagine, filling this up is a regular job. We used to have a huge AdBlue bowser here on site for just that. Trucks would fill up on diesel (or CNG/LNG as we do methane dual fuel engines) and then go to fill up the piss bucket.

Engines are great things, but today I think they're becoming a bunch of compromises too far with sticking plaster add-ons to make it all better. Just think, ICEs are 100+ years old. We are still skulking around the 30-40 % efficiency mark, trying to control explosions. (some big trucks on the US supertruck program can manage 55% efficiency but thats a research thing).

Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Tuesday 6th October 10:05

[CAPP0]

Anyone else hear the BBC news this morning, some Greener or other is saying that there needs to be a charge of Corporate Manslaughter brought against VAG for all the additional people their undeclared emissions have killed.

Quite scary that we have such lunatics amongst us. It's also being mooted in the States (possibly fractionally less surprisingly).

[SpeckledJim]

CAPP0 said:

Anyone else hear the BBC news this morning, some Greener or other is saying that there needs to be a charge of Corporate Manslaughter brought against VAG for all the additional people their undeclared emissions have killed.

Quite scary that we have such lunatics amongst us. It's also being mooted in the States (possibly fractionally less surprisingly).

It might be a bit mad, but it'll be hard to defend.

The reason for the emissions legislation in the first place is that these 'killer' poisons in the air do, on aggregate, kill people. The biggest car manufacturer in the world decided to deliberately side-step it.

No, you could never argue 'VW killed my Aunt Mabel', but on the aggregate, they are surely in a position to have partial liability pinned on them.

[Sheepshanks]

Otispunkmeyer said:

SCR systems are actually very good (once up to temperature), turning 1000's of PPM of NOx into single figures PPM. But as I have mentioned before the cost is using adblue at a 2:1 ratio (2 g adblue for 1 g NOx). The trucks have a 40L tank often, but as you can imagine, filling this up is a regular job. We used to have a huge AdBlue bowser here on site for just that. Trucks would fill up on diesel (or CNG/LNG as we do methane dual fuel engines) and then go to fill up the piss bucket.

I think one of the things that will come out is that on the VAG cars that use Ad Blue in the US the rate of use has been set extremely low so that they can get between services without having the tank topped up.

On the EU6 cars the rate is way higher - VW say ~1 litre per 400 miles. In practice some owners are getting only 200 miles per litre.

I hear that it's becoming fairly common for trucks to have the Ad Blue system disabled.

[heebeegeetee]

SpeckledJim said:

It might be a bit mad, but it'll be hard to defend.

The reason for the emissions legislation in the first place is that these 'killer' poisons in the air do, on aggregate, kill people. The biggest car manufacturer in the world decided to deliberately side-step it.

No, you could never argue 'VW killed my Aunt Mabel', but on the aggregate, they are surely in a position to have partial liability pinned on them.

Just to back track though, and clear something up for me? is it the case in the US that the most popular 'car's are large SUVs with large engines, petrol and diesel, and indeed the top sellers are SUVs and legislation is in place to allow them not to be emission tested? Have i got that right?

[MitchT]

I thought it was pickup trucks (Ford F150, etc.) that weren't tested in the US as they have some kind of agricultural status, or something similar. I don't think fashion victim SUVs have any exemption.

[Scuffers]

SpeckledJim said:

It might be a bit mad, but it'll be hard to defend.

I would think it would be impossible to prove in court....

[jimmyjimjim]

MitchT said:

I thought it was pickup trucks (Ford F150, etc.) that weren't tested in the US as they have some kind of agricultural status, or something similar. I don't think fashion victim SUVs have any exemption.

No, you're thinking of the gas guzzler tax; basically trucks (AND SUVs) are exempt from it:

http://electrifyingtimes.com/gasguzzlerloophole.ht...

[SpeckledJim]

Scuffers said:

SpeckledJim said:

It might be a bit mad, but it'll be hard to defend.

I would think it would be impossible to prove in court....

If they can conjure a jury-believable '5,000 Californians died this year due to NOx' in court and then show that VW were responsible for 5% of that pollution, instead of the 1% they would have been responsible for if they had actually hit their tested figures, then that's a pro-rata 250 choking, tax-paying, flag-waving citizens they have bumped-off.

200 more than was to be 'tolerated' at 1%.

200 x $20m punitive damages? What's the going rate for a Californian?

All figures purely my invention.

Or something...

[anonymous-user]

SpeckledJim said:

If they can conjure a jury-believable '5,000 Californians died this year due to NOx' in court and then show that VW were responsible for 5% of that pollution, instead of the 1% they would have been responsible for if they had actually hit their tested figures, then that's a pro-rata 250 choking, tax-paying, flag-waving citizens they have bumped-off.

200 more than was to be 'tolerated' at 1%.

200 x $20m punitive damages? What's the going rate for a Californian?

All figures purely my invention.

Or something...

Exactly. Don't forget they also get to choose their jury so there won't be any scientists, doctors or engineers!

[Foppo]

VW could break up over this scandal.Their boss is talking about the financial cost and maybe job losses.Part of the workforce will pay the price for management cock up.The workers are part of a workscouncil who could shut the place down.Not likely to happen but you never know when peoples back are against the wall.

The main man at VW is retiring, kicked out with a massive pension over 50 million pay off.Plus a top pension, deceit does pay.

[Fastdruid]

For those loving their diesels and complaining about the emissions standards, thinking this whole NOx thing is over-egged you could always move to Denmark!

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-29/...

[anonymous-user]

Foppo said:

VW could break up over this scandal.Their boss is talking about the financial cost and maybe job losses.

Of course, if you want political support at home, talk about job losses.

Foppo said:

The main man at VW is retiring, kicked out with a massive pension over 50 million pay off.Plus a top pension, deceit does pay.

Whilst his parachute is reported to be spectacularly golden there is so much talk of criminal charges in both Germany and the US it's hard to see the board accepting his resignation proper prior to some legal resolution and if his contract is subsequently terminated I doubt he'll get the payoff. Additionally I expect he will personally be tied up in litigation for years, on both sides of the Atlantic, which will rip through tens of millions in no time.

[heebeegeetee]

jimmyjimjim said:

MitchT said:

I thought it was pickup trucks (Ford F150, etc.) that weren't tested in the US as they have some kind of agricultural status, or something similar. I don't think fashion victim SUVs have any exemption.

No, you're thinking of the gas guzzler tax; basically trucks (AND SUVs) are exempt from it:

http://electrifyingtimes.com/gasguzzlerloophole.ht...

Found this too (same thing though) http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/083100/b...

Its also dated 2000, is there any info more up to date on this topic? I'm struggling to find any.

[jimmyjimjim]

Not that I found when I last looked (came across it when specc'ing up a viper). Don't think the act itself has been looked at since it was implemented.

[heebeegeetee]

Found this. http://oppositelock.kinja.com/gas-guzzler-tax-shou...

If 50mpg Golfs and Passats are killing people then so these babies definitely are too.

[xjay1337]

As I have said for a while, many other companies are guilty of failing to meet the actual emission laws.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/91132/20151004/i...