RE: Smouldering ruins: PH Blog
Discussion
RacerMike said:
I'm afraid no legislation would not lead to a sudden wealth of fantastic, high revving, high output NA engines! It would simply mean that engine technology would stay where it is today, so in 5 years, you'd still have a 150bhp 1.4T in your Golf and a 400bhp 3.0T in your M3. Competition drives development, and legislation drives completion in the automotive industry. The fact of the matter is, the majority of people in the world who buy cars couldn't give a hoot what type of engine is under the bonnet!
Legislation is a good thing. But it's human nature to get everything you can out if it. Every so often there will be a tightening, or a change in the legislation to close loopholes, but it's not the first or last time something like this will happen. Thankfully, what's learnt along the way generally progresses the march of human understanding!
I agree. It's amazing how many people seem to think regulation is the problem. As if companies in the real world would be trying to reduce emissions of it were not for regulatory pressure. They would not. They would be trying to do whatever it is that would sell them the most cars for the lowest cost. Which would probably be just making the same engine year after year. Just take a look at what motorbike makers did when they had to work to Euro 5 laws. We have a mass of new, low emissions, good mpg bikes. We suddenly have bikes doing 70-80 mpg, when not that long ago there were very few. And these are not "made to test" figures.Legislation is a good thing. But it's human nature to get everything you can out if it. Every so often there will be a tightening, or a change in the legislation to close loopholes, but it's not the first or last time something like this will happen. Thankfully, what's learnt along the way generally progresses the march of human understanding!
As for the complaint about MPG test vs real world. That is nothing to do with targets. That IS down to people wanting something. Car makers don't have MPG targets. They do have standard tests for it. The reason the want good MPG is because that's what people ask for. The tests are in place because you need some standard way to compare like for like, as companies used to lie through their teeth. I would love to know what the suggested alternative to the current tests is, because without some form of testing manufacturers will just do the cheapest thing, and no matter what the test it will have to be standardised otherwise it will be meaningless. But if it is standardised engineers will always work to the test.
I would love to know what people would suggest as the alternative to the current testing, that is not just a test with a diffrent set of metrics, that would produce more efficient cars? Manufacturers won't do it on their own, at least not at any speed.
Tis all a load of cobblers, My works Prius has never seen the claimed MPG on a full tank. You might see it creeping it off the forecourt on the electric motor, but as soon as the engine kicks in the number bombs.
I hate to think who else is going to get rumbled along with VW? I take it anything from the VAG group is a dead cert?
I hate to think who else is going to get rumbled along with VW? I take it anything from the VAG group is a dead cert?
PH gets more like a motoring focussed version of The Daily Mail with each passing week.
The notion that this issue for VAG is the death of all diesel cars and that a wave of virtuous high-revving NA petrol engines is going to sweep the evil diesel engines aside is ludicrous.
Petrol engines have their own issues (often higher CO2/lower MPG) and if this type of cheating the tests really is rife, who knows what might have happened with petrol engines?
The notion that this issue for VAG is the death of all diesel cars and that a wave of virtuous high-revving NA petrol engines is going to sweep the evil diesel engines aside is ludicrous.
Petrol engines have their own issues (often higher CO2/lower MPG) and if this type of cheating the tests really is rife, who knows what might have happened with petrol engines?
Burwood said:
i dont profess to know much but the Add Blue Urea whatsit absorbs the gasses before it leaves the pipe. Ergo, same fuel consumed, lower emissions. Makes sense to me
AdBlue, an ammonia based urea solution, doesn't 'absorb' the gases, but rather converts them through catalytic reduction into less harmful products. It takes the NOx emissions from diesels (gasoline engines don't produce much in the way of NOx, hence why you don't get SCR systems on them) and turns them into water and nitrogen. However, rather ironically, it also increases the CO2 output at the same time! With the current focus on NOx emissions (see Oxford Street atmospheric NOx readings) SCR systems will start filtering from heavy commercial vehicles into light passenger vehicles. The problem with these emissions controlling devices is that they tend to compromise one another and in order to offset this, more refinement is required elsewhere. It's a fine balancing act and very difficult to achieve. With Euro 6 standards now in play, and Euro 6.5 not far off, the death knell is being sounded for diesels as it won't be financially viable to get them clean enough.
Some of you professing your wish for a petrol only world may have it granted sooner than you think!
spyker138 said:
Why is this complicated? - they deliberately cheated and lied. The product is not what is says on the label, worse that that they marketed the hell out of it being 'clean', when it wasn't. So they have broken the law and broken the trust of their customers. It's pretty basic and no amount of saying the regulations are misguided changes that. If you don't like the rules, don't play the game, and/or take a lead to change the rules.
BTW this WAS an engineers solution.
Does the same not apply to mpg figures? The manufacturers quote them in adverting and presumably have somehow achieved those figures somewhere, somehow - but the complaints by owners of not being able to get near them are widespread. And if the cars are using more fuel, they must be creating more emissions.BTW this WAS an engineers solution.
heebeegeetee said:
Does the same not apply to mpg figures? The manufacturers quote them in adverting and presumably have somehow achieved those figures somewhere, somehow
It would be illegal for any manufacturer to quote any fuel economy figure OTHER than the official figures, determined using the official test cycle.http://www.dft.gov.uk/vca/fcb/the-fuel-consumption...
TooMany2cvs said:
It would be illegal for any manufacturer to quote any fuel economy figure OTHER than the official figures, determined using the official test cycle.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/vca/fcb/the-fuel-consumption...
You'd think they would replace it with a more accurate mpg test, though I guess manufacturers like being able to quote higher mpg figures.http://www.dft.gov.uk/vca/fcb/the-fuel-consumption...
The problems seem to be that all the tests are measured with very slow driving on a dyno, so the effect of vehicle weight and efficiency on boost don't affect the results. For this reason non-turbo, lighter vehicles more easily achieve combined mpg figures when driven slowly, and the opposite is true.
iloveboost said:
You'd think they would replace it with a more accurate mpg test
Such as? Bear in mind it has to be very tightly specified, so as to be utterly reproducible and comparable between vehicles.iloveboost said:
though I guess manufacturers like being able to quote higher mpg figures.
The test wasn't defined by manufacturers. Remember, it would be illegal for the manufacturers to quote anything OTHER than these figures - and every single manufacturer is on a level playing field.iloveboost said:
The problems seem to be that all the tests are measured with very slow driving
Remember, every single vehicle on the market has to be able to meet the required speeds.iloveboost said:
on a dyno, so the effect of vehicle weight and efficiency on boost don't affect the results.
Who says the dyno used ignores weight and aerodynamics? If it did, why would manufacturers bother with aero tweaks and weight-shedding for the bunny-hug versions?Burwood said:
The article is almost a VW apologist. Don't get me wrong-the punishment will not fit the crime. Billions in fines is OTT but lets not forget they deliberately deceived everyone.
I don't think either side come out of this looking particularly good TBH, the long running joke that is building ever more complex and fault-prone engines to chase emissions target % points and ignoring the true environmental/pollution costs, but of course that doesn't excuse VW for their actions. The yanks are probably closer to the mark with ideas like dust-to-dust but pehaps if the current house of cards topples a proper rethink could the the result (I'm dreaming of course we'll just get some new BS from the spivs that all the sheeple will clamour to follow)According to other articles I have read this is by no means the first time a motor manufacturer has been caught at something like this - see, eg, "Carmaker Cheating on Emissions Almost as Old as Pollution Tests" http://tinyurl.com/q2n9vex
Edit: and the NY Times - "Volkswagen Test Rigging Follows a Long Auto Industry Pattern" http://tinyurl.com/o427h7c
Edit: and the NY Times - "Volkswagen Test Rigging Follows a Long Auto Industry Pattern" http://tinyurl.com/o427h7c
Edited by tosh.brice on Saturday 26th September 20:45
Ozzie Osmond said:
Perceptive OP from 10 years ago....
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=220...
9 Nov 2005
"According to the motoring press modern diesels are clean and efficient but I've been behind more stinkers recently than you can count. Every make of car seems to be guilty with Audis, Peugeots, Fords, and the rest either belching clouds of black smoke under acceleration or just stinking like filth when they're in front of you. There should be an agreed sign that can be waved to diesel drivers when their cars smoke/stink so they have to get to the dealer for a new car."
Wow. Must have been a boring day for you to trawl for that.http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=220...
9 Nov 2005
"According to the motoring press modern diesels are clean and efficient but I've been behind more stinkers recently than you can count. Every make of car seems to be guilty with Audis, Peugeots, Fords, and the rest either belching clouds of black smoke under acceleration or just stinking like filth when they're in front of you. There should be an agreed sign that can be waved to diesel drivers when their cars smoke/stink so they have to get to the dealer for a new car."
SteveSteveson said:
I would love to know what people would suggest as the alternative to the current testing, that is not just a test with a diffrent set of metrics, that would produce more efficient cars? Manufacturers won't do it on their own, at least not at any speed.
A different set of metrics is exactly what we need, if you have look into what the NEDC actually involves you quickly see just how unrepresentative of real world driving it is. The cycle involves unrealistically long periods of being stationary which is what gave rise to the proliferation of Stop/Start technology. The acceleration events are also very gentle. This means the for the emissions testing the car only needs to operate efficiently in a very small envelope, beyond that it doesn't matter anywhere near as much. This is why turbo cars do so well on tests but fair so poorly in the real world. The OEM can map the turbo for peak efficiency over the test points and then open it up higher in the rev range to give the performance consumers demand at the cost of efficiency. This is possible to anywhere near the same degree with an NA engine, hence the way NA engines perform much more closely to their quoted figures.There are plans to replace the NEDC test with a new cycle which involves more aggressive acceleration and less time stationary to help bring some more real world relevance to the figures achieved. The NEDC test also flatters hybrid and electric cars a lot more due to the large stop-start portion of the test which is where those technologies are most effective. Some plans for future testing even involve replacing the current dyno test with a real world driving routine, thought the repeatability of such a cycle is a sticking point. At the end of the day we need a standard test to allow us to compare efficiency of different cars, the NEDC test is very flawed but at least if all cars are tested to it then we can assume to some degree that they're all equally wrong.
TooMany2cvs said:
Who says the dyno used ignores weight and aerodynamics? If it did, why would manufacturers bother with aero tweaks and weight-shedding for the bunny-hug versions?
A dyno is a static test, aero won't be involved as the vehicle doesn't have to push through the air. Similarly the affects of weight are reduced. It will still increase the friction force on the tyres. Weight is factored back in by increasing the loading on the rollers to make the load on the engine higher. Dyno testing isn't the same as the real world but it is repeatable and that's key for a standardised test.Ozzie Osmond said:
Diesel emissions requirements are MUCH tighter in USA than in Europe and most of the rest of the world. That's why diesels in USA need AdBlue and similar clean-up technologies.
I don't think that's correct. Unless diesel emissions regs are more lax in Europe than they are here in Australia. As a bit of background, I used to work as a diesel mechanic for a Volvo/Mack/UD/Hino dealership here in Australia. All the new Volvos and all the macks using Volvo engines (sorry, Mack M-power engines, some nice badge engineering) featured adblue. At the time I was there, 2013, the Volvos and Macks had to meet Euro 5 emissions, and to do so they where running both adblue and EGR systems. Some of the smaller Hinos and UDs I believe didn't need ADblue to meet Euro 5, but certainly the volvos and macks, which were running 7-16l inline 6s did. Now I know that one of the staff at our companys training centre, who was originally from Pittsburgh, went back to the US on holiday with his family and visitied the Volvo factory and he said they were still building to Euro 4 regs when we in Aus were about to jump to Euro 6. So no, the US regs aren't as stiff as Europe, unless Europe itself isn't on Euro 5 or 6 regs yet.SteveSteveson said:
RacerMike said:
I'm afraid no legislation would not lead to a sudden wealth of fantastic, high revving, high output NA engines! It would simply mean that engine technology would stay where it is today, so in 5 years, you'd still have a 150bhp 1.4T in your Golf and a 400bhp 3.0T in your M3. Competition drives development, and legislation drives completion in the automotive industry. The fact of the matter is, the majority of people in the world who buy cars couldn't give a hoot what type of engine is under the bonnet!
Legislation is a good thing. But it's human nature to get everything you can out if it. Every so often there will be a tightening, or a change in the legislation to close loopholes, but it's not the first or last time something like this will happen. Thankfully, what's learnt along the way generally progresses the march of human understanding!
I agree. It's amazing how many people seem to think regulation is the problem. As if companies in the real world would be trying to reduce emissions of it were not for regulatory pressure. They would not. They would be trying to do whatever it is that would sell them the most cars for the lowest cost. Which would probably be just making the same engine year after year. Just take a look at what motorbike makers did when they had to work to Euro 5 laws. We have a mass of new, low emissions, good mpg bikes. We suddenly have bikes doing 70-80 mpg, when not that long ago there were very few. And these are not "made to test" figures.Legislation is a good thing. But it's human nature to get everything you can out if it. Every so often there will be a tightening, or a change in the legislation to close loopholes, but it's not the first or last time something like this will happen. Thankfully, what's learnt along the way generally progresses the march of human understanding!
As for the complaint about MPG test vs real world. That is nothing to do with targets. That IS down to people wanting something. Car makers don't have MPG targets. They do have standard tests for it. The reason the want good MPG is because that's what people ask for. The tests are in place because you need some standard way to compare like for like, as companies used to lie through their teeth. I would love to know what the suggested alternative to the current tests is, because without some form of testing manufacturers will just do the cheapest thing, and no matter what the test it will have to be standardised otherwise it will be meaningless. But if it is standardised engineers will always work to the test.
I would love to know what people would suggest as the alternative to the current testing, that is not just a test with a diffrent set of metrics, that would produce more efficient cars? Manufacturers won't do it on their own, at least not at any speed.
AnotherClarkey said:
loomx said:
This is why my M135i I had would do well over 40mpg in normal driving, compare that to my first gen 120i which struggled to see 30mpg.
That's amazing, most people with M135i's seem to get between 25 and 29mpg on average.http://www.fuelly.com/car/bmw/m135i
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