Volkswagen Cheated Emissions Testing

No, it wouldn't require a different transmission.

You're not required to push the pedal to the floor, you know. Reducing the maximum power doesn't change the fact that the car works just fine at a lower acceleration.

There's an additive that gets injected into the exhaust, though, in order to reduce emissions. Not sure how much more often that would need to be topped off.

Modern Auto transmission shift points are controlled by the ECU. Delaying the shift points under acceleration will help. They will be a little slower off the line though.

Off topic, but today I was behind a British registered VW van with one of these on the back window.



Gobsmacked doesn't do justice to how I felt. Why would anyone want something so close to this in their back window? Unless they're a Nazi of course.

This morning, the Brunswick prosecution office carried out a razzia in VW Wolfburg's offices (as well as in other production places) - the prosecutors' search, with the help of officers from the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office, was done for securing documents and data carriers.

"This is the real cause of the Volkswagen cheating scandal"

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/real-cause-vw-cheating-scandal-191153186.html

That was a good read, obliterates the argument that Volkswagen had good reason to cheat. No matter how anyone throws the dice they come up with management is the problem not engineering.

This one strikes me as an automotive version of the thing about tom Brady inflating footballs to his tastes rather than to a rule. Here's why I can't get excited over it.

GRANTED we don't want to go back to tetraethyl lead and Holly carburetors... But the pollution regs in effect in 1990 were more than good enough; a car made since 1990, if kept in good condition, does not crete enough pollution to worry about. We've almost certainly come to a point in which pollution caused by vehicles is now some sort of a 95/5 proposition with 5% of the vehicles producing 95% of the pollution.

Moreover, they could vastly simplify present laws with very little likelihood of increasing pollution.

A reasonable set of car laws to my thinking would look like this:

• Unleaded gas or diesel only.
  
• 3000-lb weight limit for passenger cars.
  
• 3 liter engine size limit for passenger cars.
  
• high pressure fuel injectors mandatory.
  
• Computerized ignition mandatory.
  
• Incentive program for use of new gen IC engines ( Ecomotors or Angellabs ).
  
• Incentive program for use of carbon fiber or titanium to reduce weight.
  
• Incentives for engine size under 2 liter or equivalent for new gen.
  
• Pollution declared to be total volume of pollution and not any sort of a ratio.
  
• CO2 recognized to be harmless and not a pollutant.
  

It isn't really clear to me that you'd need anything else.

Pretty good list. Only thing I'd add is maybe an incentive for low Cd, coefficient of drag.

British comedian crashes VW car launch in 'dieselgate' protest



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/03/01/vw-car-launch-crashed-by-dieselgate-protester/?kbnf


If that vid diesn't work for you, here it is on youtube.....

engineer-

You state that if a person bought a high-polluting VW car he is screwed.

I say no, the earth and its people are screwed by the pollution but the purchaser is no more hurt than any other human. The purchaser does enjoy high performance.

I believe VW will now send each purchaser a check!!! Why?

The purchaser is screwed because the resale value for their car will plummet, so they have to breath the pollution like all other humans and they are out thousands of dollars. The VW check is to make that whole.

engineer-

Thank you.

But why would the resale value plummet? The car performs well. The purchaser is sitting inside the car. He does not suffer from the pollution any more than non-purchasers do.

Oh. I think I understand. The purchaser has to buy more gas than he thought he would need.

No, the car has a bad reputation to it (even if it isn't true) and that lowers the value. Also, in some states, the car can't be sold because it can't meet the emissions standards.