[HN Gopher] 'Dieselgate' trial opens in Germany without ex-VW boss
___________________________________________________________________
'Dieselgate' trial opens in Germany without ex-VW boss
Author : belter
Score : 147 points
Date : 2021-09-16 09:45 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.rfi.fr)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.rfi.fr)
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| For the love of God can we pleaaase stop referring to scandals as
| "something-gate".
| lordnacho wrote:
| Why? It's not a bad idea, a certain suffix that means "scandal"
| is useful, no?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Spanish has a million good suffixes, but my favorite is
| "-azo", which means _hitting somebody with something._
| Puppyazo would be a reference to when somebody was hit with a
| puppy (or when a puppy was hit, or a when a shockingly big
| puppy was revealed.)
| selimthegrim wrote:
| So Caracazo means Caracas hit...itself?
| valenterry wrote:
| How about using just -scandal?
| kjaftaedi wrote:
| I think you missed the chance to voice this opinion 50 years
| ago.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| The Watergate scandal had nothing to do with "water". It was
| the actual name of the hotel where the crime took place.
| "Dieselgate" is a meaningless word.
| olivermarks wrote:
| My experiences with Germans in business is a very polished
| ethical public face, whether small or large businesses, and
| absolute chaos and gerry rigging (sic) behind the scenes.
|
| I normally avoid national stereotypes but these have been my
| experiences. Wirecard makes the EU diesel regulatory whipsawing
| of VW and other european firms such as Jaguar small beer though-
| fraud on a huge scale arguably largely enabled by EY...
| themdonuts wrote:
| It's funny how the dieselgate scandal was just a few years ago
| (and still ongoing) and now that same company's big and bold
| slogan is "VW way to zero - roadmap for climate neutral
| mobility". We live at a time that a bit of shame is easily
| forgotten.
| lbriner wrote:
| That is true but also, if the previous management have gone and
| a new management really care, how long should they be judged by
| their predecessors.
|
| I think this issue comes up all the time with individuals
| either being negligent or just plain incompetent and then when
| it all screws up, they just blame the previous management and
| move onto another similar job in another company. At what point
| is the individual liable and what point is it "tough luck VW,
| you have to pay for that crook of a CEO you employed"
| fulafel wrote:
| DG didn't increase co2 emissions. NOx seems to be a wash wrt
| anthropogenic climate change given opposing effects of methane
| neutralization and O3.
| mikestew wrote:
| What would VW have to do for you to quit holding a grudge? Are
| there hoops to jump through, or is a temporal thing? If the
| latter, how long? If the former, then what, will public
| floggings satisfy you?
|
| It wasn't that long ago that I charged my Nissan Leaf at an
| Electrify America charger, paid for by VW, and VW seems to be
| moving forward with their electrification efforts. I'm not
| saying all is forgiven, but I'm ready to move on. If they
| actually release that Buzz electric van, we'll likely stand in
| line to buy one.
| anticensor wrote:
| Why not try him in his absence, and assume he is fully sane?
| okl wrote:
| He's not insane, he had an urgent hip operation.
|
| Edit: Actually, I can't say for sure whether he is insane or
| not.
| [deleted]
| Tomte wrote:
| Because criminal procedure does not allow either.
| retSava wrote:
| It doesn't, in Germany?
|
| Criminal law in Sweden allows both - if no specific reason
| exist for a psych evaluation of the accused, the person is
| assumed sane. That's the basic assumption.
|
| If the person doesn't show up, a trial is often postponed
| once or so, but ultimately, if the accused doesn't show up,
| the trial can be held anyway if it is considered to be
| performed satisfactorily despite the absence.
|
| That to me sounds like a good default.
| Tomte wrote:
| I'm certain regarding in absentia, and doubt the "assume
| sane, then modify the sentence afterwards if assumption
| turns out to be wrong" very very much.
|
| To be more precise: it's possible to do a trial in
| absentia, but only if the maximum sentence is a financial
| penalty, reprimand, loss of driver's license and so on.
| Paragraph 232 Criminal Procedure Code (StPO).
| nehalem wrote:
| Because trying plaintiffs in their absence is difficult under
| German rules of criminal procedure (Sec. 230 Para. 1 StPO[1]).
| Exception exists only if the plaintiff leaves a trial after
| their initial statement, does not appear for an adjourned
| date(Sec. 231 StPO[2]) or if the plaintiff intentionally caused
| their absence by rendering themself unfit for trial (Sec. 231a
| StPO[3]).
|
| According to the court's press statement[4] (in German) they
| decided that the plaintiff is not fit for trial but did not
| culpably cause this unfitness. The court decided to separate
| the trial and postponing it until the the plaintiff recovers.
| They explicitly did so to no longer postpone the trial against
| the other plaintiffs indefinitely.
|
| [1]: https://www.gesetze-im-
| internet.de/englisch_stpo/englisch_st... [2]:
| https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stpo/englisch_st...
| [3]: https://www.gesetze-im-
| internet.de/englisch_stpo/englisch_st... [4]:
| https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stpo/englisch_st...
| [deleted]
| belter wrote:
| The technical details:
|
| "The exhaust emissions scandal (,,Dieselgate")"
|
| https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7331-the_exhaust_emissions_scand...
| gspr wrote:
| This is hands down the best exhibition of the topic that I've
| ever seen, and perhaps one of the better CCC talks too! It's
| for a long time been my go-to reference whenever I encounter
| someone frustrated about the opaque version of the story retold
| in newspapers.
| saberdancer wrote:
| I watched the video and I did not understand why would they
| go to such lengths to use "alternative" mode most of the
| time, only using the proper one when in the NEDC cycle. Only
| downside I could understand from the talk is that it would
| use more AdBlue which seems such an unimportant thing.
|
| Is there something I am missing?
| hef19898 wrote:
| They limited Adblue tank capacity, together with other
| German OEMs in a cartel. Also it seems the affected VW
| engines indeed are not able to meet emission
| standardstandards without serious changes.
| bri3d wrote:
| https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~klevchen/diesel-sp17.pdf for those who
| don't love videos/talks, although this one is great.
| belter wrote:
| Not only Volkswagen....
|
| "In this paper, we described two families of defeat devices
| used in the Bosch EDC17 ECU to circumvent US emission tests.
| The first family of defeat devices was used by Volkswagen and
| lies at the heart of the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal.
| The second device appears in the diesel Fiat 500X automobile
| sold in Europe, and has not beed documented previously."
| lordnacho wrote:
| I don't understand why the emissions procedure was so easy to
| trick in the first place. Obviously we want to know how much the
| emissions are in real life driving, so why isn't the test simply
| that we find a representative sample of 100 or so people who have
| the cars and are using them? Just shove the measuring kit on the
| cars, maybe pay people for the inconvenience, and see what the
| numbers come out as?
|
| We're not talking about figures that were almost legal here,
| which maybe could justify a lab test, they were pumping out many
| times the amount that was allowed.
| bagacrap wrote:
| I'd assume the VW engineers could still create a defeat device
| (ie detect the test equipment and alter performance) for that
| situation
| Oddskar wrote:
| Because you need to have this measured out by the time the car
| is available for purchase (maybe even way in advance?), not
| after.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Also comparable standardized test procedures. Those are
| needed for certification proposes.
| SilasX wrote:
| Not really, you could just do it as tax proportional to how
| much in-practice the company's cars pollute. Though that
| would introduce a greater difficulty in risk and cost
| management since it's harder to predict and control in
| advance.
| r00fus wrote:
| Likely the emissions procedures were developed with the "help"
| of industry (VW included) lobbyists as well.
|
| Any remediation from Dieselgate that doesn't include structural
| changes like improved testing means the auto industry has won.
| maeln wrote:
| Tests needs to be standardized to ensure that they are
| replicable. If running the test several time wouldn't give the
| same result (within a small tolerance margin) manufacturer
| would cry unfairness and they would be right. What if in one
| run more driver use the freeway and in another where stuck in
| cities traffic ?
| lordnacho wrote:
| I tried to address this in my comment. If if was some
| marginal thing where there was a chance they were close, then
| maybe it would make sense to have a standardized lab test.
|
| If someone is 50kg overweight we don't need a special
| procedure with a sensitive scale to decide that.
| bri3d wrote:
| This is pretty much how the defeat was discovered - by a group
| who were curious about how US diesels could be so great
| compared to their European counterparts, using sniffers
| attached to vehicles performing normal road driving.
|
| Unfortunately, this wouldn't work very well as a certification
| test, as it would require standardization. But, as a failsafe
| in addition to a standardized test plan, I think this would be
| great - basically "we'll give you the procedural test you know
| and love, and we'll drive 100 normal road miles with more
| lenient thresholds in place. Fail either and you don't get a
| certification."
| jonplackett wrote:
| I wonder if there's a way to put a figure on the damage those 9
| million vehicles have done. For example, we know that diesel
| cause cancer [1] and these cars were emitting more than they
| should have been. How many extra deaths did they cause?
|
| [1] https://www.hazards.org/chemicals/fuming.htm
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| The analysis I saw back then limited itself to vilifying VW,
| looking at excess deaths from PM2.5 etc., not taking into
| account any reductions in other emissions caused by the
| vehicles getting better mileage.
| tobias3 wrote:
| There is e.g. [1] which doesn't paint a pretty picture.
|
| I'd btw. put blame also on introducing tax incentives for
| diesel cars in the first place. Without those this wouldn't
| have happened. And those were to prevent tax arbitrage between
| European countries :/.
|
| [1]
| https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/200596/1/1668020459....
| ketzu wrote:
| I remember this being a very popular take on reddit back when
| the story broke out (and calls to try VW execs for murder). I
| remember the number 120 (but seems they or my memory is not
| that correct [1]) edit: Another find was 5k/year in europe [2]
|
| What I found fairly frustrating was seeing this angle only
| limited to VW (even when it became clear that many makers acted
| similarly) - but it also felt like a weird angle in general.
| Should we calculate deaths by pollution in general and treat
| them as murder? It would be an interesting reminder on what our
| technological society is built.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#D...
|
| [2] https://phys.org/news/2017-09-dieselgate-deaths-europe-
| year....
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Should we calculate deaths by pollution in general and
| treat them as murder? It would be an interesting reminder on
| what our technological society is built._
|
| It sounds like a can of worms you definitely do not want to
| open. It's probably uncomputable. Sure, pollution may
| directly decrease people's life span. But having private
| cars, ambulances and helicopters being able to transfer
| people to specialized hospitals in emergencies directly saves
| lives. So does a generator providing emergency power for said
| hospital. Then there are n-th order effects of how our
| fossil-fuel-based civilization impact peoples' health and
| lifespans. It's likely impossible in practice to meaningfully
| untie all those interdependencies in order to put a
| meaningful body count on diesel engines. It's prohibitive to
| even do this on the margin.
|
| On the other hand, a clear fact remains: diesel emissions are
| bad for peoples' health, and an engine that pollutes more is
| worse than one that pollutes less. It's an externality, just
| one that's hard to price on the margin.
|
| So perhaps we should sidestep the problem and price in the
| externality in bulk. To the extent that a given type of
| pollution, in aggregate, causes health problems, we should
| tax it in proportion and funnel the funds into public
| healthcare.
| pasabagi wrote:
| I would actually really like it if a public-health approach
| was taken to household choices. Driving a car is simply
| _expensive_ for society at large, because it has all sorts of
| negative effects on air quality, pedestrian safety, even
| stuff like municipal service provision (less density = higher
| costs). This isn 't priced in, either in terms of taxation
| (normally you tax goods that cause social ills heavily, like
| cigarettes). In fact, the reverse happens. This is stupid,
| and bad for everyone, even car drivers.
| bserge wrote:
| And as always, the poor pay more. Your plumber, landscaper,
| construction crew _need_ a car, but you 're not gonna pay
| them more, are you.
|
| Always some out of touch chodes getting paid six figures to
| work from home telling the rest they should be taxed more
| for using a car or something stupid.
| pasabagi wrote:
| It would be pretty easy to offer a tax rebate for people
| who use a van for work.
| triceratops wrote:
| Nah. Too easy to game. Let them pass on the costs to
| their customers.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Unfortunately the poor will also pay more for the climate
| change the diesel causes, and are more likely to be
| affected by the crap air.
|
| The rich always make sure they never pay for anything.
| That's why they're rich.
| scrose wrote:
| How do plumbers, landscapers and construction crews
| survive in countries where car ownership and gas is taxed
| heavily?
| usr1106 wrote:
| They have higher rates and their are fewer of them . And
| as a consequence 99.9% people mow their lawn themselves.
| Even many software engineers here do significant own work
| when the family builds a house. At least in bigger
| companies it is fully socially accepted that a software
| engineer is less productive at work during the year they
| are building a house.
|
| - Living in a high tax country
| triceratops wrote:
| > Your plumber, landscaper, construction crew need a car,
| but you're not gonna pay them more, are you.
|
| Why not? If they all have to pay the same tax, they'll
| all start charging more. Same way they do if the price of
| pipe or lumber or gas goes up.
| SilasX wrote:
| Exactly. We're paying for it somehow, the only question
| is whether the costs should be borne proportionately by
| the people that impose those costs. And the reasonable
| answer is: "Of course!"
| SilasX wrote:
| Actually, I like when goods reflect their cost of
| production, the economy works better that way.
| mavhc wrote:
| Exactly, just add the cost of cleaning up pollution to
| everything, then use the money to clean up the pollution.
|
| Side effects: cheaper ways of cleaning up pollution, and
| people making less pollution so their stuff is cheaper
|
| Anything else is just cheating
| bagacrap wrote:
| should we calculate deaths by pollution --- yes.
|
| Should we treat them all as murder --- no. For the time being
| this would classify everyone as a murderer, so it's
| impractical.
|
| Should we treat intentionally illegal pollution as murder ---
| yes.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Legally there is a difference between exploiting loop holes,
| e.g. temperature windows, and putting these loop holes in to
| an extent through lobbying and actively ignoring even these
| loop holed regulations. Everybody did the former, with some
| over stepping. VW did the latter. and that is the reason only
| VW managers are on trial at the moment.
|
| Personally, both approaches suck, but only is most likely
| illegal. What pisses me of even more is the fact that VW
| waited, and German authorities with them, until VWs gray
| eminence Ferdinand Piech died. only to avoid asking how much
| _he_ knew...
| [deleted]
| BBC-vs-neolibs wrote:
| I think it is some kind of manslaughter or willful
| negligence.
|
| If a local government enacted a law for factories that they
| should all have fire sprinklers installed, to save x number
| of lives per year.
|
| Then the a factory operator decides to pretend they installed
| sprinklers, but did not.
|
| Shouldn't they be culpable for excess death?
|
| I think it's similar here - the EU mandated a safety measure
| (a certain limit on NOx and particles), the car companies
| merely pretended to comply.
| bserge wrote:
| Calculate deaths by ignorance and treat them as murder, too.
| Why not.
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| I find infuriating that, globally, most of the fines will be
| paid to customers (who were misled in their purchase) instead
| of the actual victims (the public and, a fortiori, the people
| who got and will get sick).
|
| How did we turn this health issue into a business one?
| lbriner wrote:
| I wondered the same thing. How many customers can honestly
| say that the emmission levels had anything to do with their
| purchase? It is the governments/health services that have to
| pick up the pieces if the emmissions were really that bad.
|
| It also staggers me that a company can afford to pay $30B in
| fines and costs. Do you think the ATM can fit their bank
| balance on the screen (perhaps it can now!)
| Transrapid wrote:
| Every car manufacturer, even in the USA, harms people with their
| cars. Even a battery car emits particulate matter. If you really
| want to put something sensible on the road, it's the FCEV. That
| frees the air from particulate matter.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _That frees the air from particulate matter._
|
| It doesn't, as long as the car still has tires and brakes.
| Lutger wrote:
| Yes. But not every manufacturer has committed this level of
| fraud in an attempt to illegally circumvent regulation.
| [deleted]
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| FCEV needs 2 to 3 times more energy than an EV for the same
| range.
|
| >hydrogen cars are only half as efficient. If an electric car
| converts 86% of the energy originally harnessed by a wind
| turbine into moving the vehicle forward, the hydrogen car has
| access to only about 45%.
|
| Source:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-11-09/how-hy...
|
| Energy generation is the main source of pollution for an EV
| over its whole lifetime. So, an FCEV is far worse than EV
| (however you produce your hydrogen).
| Transrapid wrote:
| I read so much wrong information about FCEVs here. Or are there
| also bots from Elon on the road here?
| yitchelle wrote:
| VW is behaving fraudulently in the matter.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| Just in case you don't know it...
|
| In germany it's not possible to have a criminal prosecution
| against a company. It's only possible to do it against the
| individual persons in that company who acted criminally.
|
| Pretty stupid imho and one of the few things I'm jealous about
| the US.
|
| It's also the reason why VW had to pay a huge fine in the US but
| not in Germany.
|
| Actually germany can't do shit about it. They can only try to
| punish some employees IF they can prove they are guilty....
| ketzu wrote:
| > It's also the reason why VW had to pay a huge fine in the US
| but not in Germany.
|
| VW had to pay 1 billion euro in germany.
|
| Maybe that's not enough, but it definately is not the case that
| companies are not persecuted in any way at all in Germany.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| This basically leads to people getting away with lots of
| sketchy behavior, (in the US) because the corporate veil
| absolves the decision makers of any personal responsibility.
|
| A stark difference between the EU and the US is that European
| companies have a harder time claiming their product is safe
| when it really isn't. For example, lead paint was banned in
| European countries long before the US.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| This thread is about how Volkswagen claimed their cars were
| safer than they were.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Not safer, cleaner.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I guess it depends on timeframe. The reason we care about
| the cars being "cleaner" is because it is safer. But not
| in a someone is going to be maimed way.
| bagacrap wrote:
| which is the stronger deterrent, a (large but recoverable)
| corporate fine or prison time for the decision makers? I'd
| wager the latter --- the former mainly punishes shareholders.
| Sindisil wrote:
| The proper response would be to prosecute both the
| corporation _and_ specific individuals who acted illegally.
|
| The former as a corrective action to help unwind any
| advantage gained in the market due to the illegal activity.
| This means, though, that fines need to actually claw back the
| ill gotten gains, not the small fraction they represent
| today. Right now, the fines are just another expense,
| assuming the company even gets caught.
|
| Prosecuting the company properly might also ensure some
| measure of justice in cases where specific individuals' guilt
| is obscured by corporate structure and systems (intentionally
| or otherwise).
|
| Prosecuting individuals who break the law in service of their
| employer (executive or not) isn't much different than
| prosecuting soldiers who commit war crimes -- obviously
| different in degree, but not in kind.
|
| "I was just following orders" shouldn't be an acceptable
| defense in either case, though coercion and fear of reprisal
| should certainly be taken into account.
| [deleted]
| voxic11 wrote:
| Having a criminal record has other consequences for companies
| in the US, like being ineligible for most government
| contracts.
| watwut wrote:
| But the managers who caused it are long time gone, they got
| their pay raises and new jobs. The stocks went up too in
| the meantime, rewarding those who enabled in the process.
| antnisp wrote:
| OTOH executives can't hide behind the company as an entity.
| voxic11 wrote:
| They seem to be doing it just fine anyways based on this
| article.
| adamors wrote:
| > Winterkorn, 74, was initially meant to stand trial
| alongside the other four executives but recently underwent
| an operation, leaving him unable to appear.
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| If anyone has any doubts about the morality of automotive OEMs,
| the EU fined the German ones some months for agreeing to limit
| the development of more efficient / clean technologies --
| https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-fines-german-car-cartel-e...
|
| I'm wondering why their engineers still agree to work for a
| company that actively conspires towards poisoning their children.
| andrew_eit wrote:
| How is it that, in a country which values precision and 'doing
| things right' to the extent that you will be told off by
| bystanders for crossing an empty road at night on a red light,
| there could be such brazen, unethical and scaled corruption at a
| corporate level.
|
| Like, at a community level, the average German citizen takes it
| upon themselves to speak out when they feel anyone is acting
| anti-socially. Which I admire!
|
| But then Dieselgate, the Wirecard scandal, and a bunch of other
| non-nonsensical activities (immense coal energy industry, buying
| gas from Russia and general lack of large scale green policy)
| just seem so far removed from the Germany I know.
|
| I really don't understand how something like Dieselgate can
| happen at the scale that it did. And Wirecard too - with BaFin
| even stepping in to harass the investigative journalists from the
| FT.
|
| Is there something I am missing here?
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| It's all fake, "doing things right" etc are rules for the
| plebs.
|
| It's like in Saudi Arabia, where of course nobody drinks
| alcohol, it's haram! But then the sheikhs have the craziest
| parties with hookers and 10k usd champagne etc.
| paule89 wrote:
| Easy answer. Three things: * Money * Lobbyism * Job security
|
| We party of Merkel is great for "stability". But this stability
| also means everything bad will stay bad and stuff like policing
| lobbyism is not a priority for those politicians, because they
| are good enough to hide it and profit from it so much, that
| they don't want it to change at all. Worse, we even have one
| party FDP which is really small, but openly pushes against
| policing lobbyism and they are the second or third largest
| benefactor of huge lobby donations.
|
| The powerful want to stay powerful. If you ask the normal
| citizen they would want things to change at least to make
| everything more right.
|
| The third point is also quite critical. The biggest industry in
| Germany is car manufacturing. And because of this every change
| here might disrupt millions of people, potential voters, and
| harm the industry. The reason germany did not come up with a
| great Tesla competitor or even Tesla itself is because of that.
| Everything moves so slow in these companies, they depend on so
| many other companies to get you some part of your car and then
| in the end assemble it all, that any change will disrupt too
| much and gets killed before it can bud.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| What makes Germany so different than Canada? Sheer
| population?
|
| In both countries there is a marked willingness to do the
| right thing, but I'm struggling to remember corruption
| anywhere close to the size of what goes on there.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Greater ability to detect corruption? I always presume that
| for every case that makes headlines there are dozens that
| don't get reported, that ratio may be higher in Canada.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| Canada is heavily influenced by the CCP to the point of
| systemic corruption.
|
| Note that Bo Xilai's (former CCP big shot) son lives in
| Canada and works for Power Corp. (Power is one of the most
| influential companies in the country.)
|
| Xi's family also lives in Canada and Australia, since it's
| unsafe for them to live with him in China (!).
| dundarious wrote:
| Deutsche Bank have repeatedly been caught doing highly
| questionable things. I don't think German capital considers
| itself subject to those same cultural constraints -- quite the
| opposite in fact.
| watwut wrote:
| Cause telling someone off when "crossing an empty road at night
| on a red light" does not imply no corruption. It is just
| someone petty feeling good about little power or irritated over
| minor rule breaking.
|
| That being said, in fact in Germany, pedestrians cross an empty
| road at night on a red light fairly regularly. Or they just
| cross at random place, not through the pedestrian crossing
| despite that one being fairly close and being red. I have seen
| that both. And I have done both, no one told me anything.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Because German society, like most others, is divided between
| those to follow the rules and those above the rules.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| Observation: If you are a multinational company that has the
| resources to buy entire countries, your cultural origination
| becomes secondary. Another commenter made a comparison to
| Canada, but they recently had the snc-lavalin affair that
| shuffled the cabinet and is still vaguely a topic in their
| upcoming election.
|
| I'd make the argument that in these countries there are _fewer_
| of these incidents and that they _become public_ at a higher
| rate, and that the _public shame_ is greater than in countries
| like the US where we know it happens but there will never be
| any actual public dialog, let alone recourse. Mental exercise:
| If either of those scandals had happened in the US, what would
| have been the outcome? For comparison, notice the way that
| Monsanto managed to export their "trouble" over glyphosate to
| Bayer, where it escalated into a scandal.
| bserge wrote:
| Lol, don't buy into the stereotypes. Germany is like USA with
| better social policies.
|
| As long as you pay your taxes you're free to do whatever you
| want.
|
| No one will help you, no one will get in your way.
|
| The occasional cranky old guy calling the cops on a party is
| not representative of the whole society.
| Glawen wrote:
| Well it is quite easy actually. Your biggest customer request a
| bunch of features, some for test purposes. You find something
| fishy, you ask your boss and he tells you orally to just do it
| because this customer is the most important, or he takes the
| matter seriously and gives the feature directly to your
| colleague in India who doesn't raise an eyebrow.
|
| The SW is done and millions of vehicles have the feature. Don't
| count on other engineer to spot the cheat because everyone has
| a specific area of expertise, and the software is closely
| related to the engine hardware. It is very difficult to
| understand the purpose of each piece of code.
|
| Remember that at that time, noone was ever tried for cheating
| the exhaust norms and the compliance team only cared about
| financial fraud.
| koshnaranek wrote:
| You have a caricature of Germany in your head if you believe
| people yell at you for crossing at red on an empty road.
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| DE has strong vigilante culture
| watwut wrote:
| Yeah and pedestrians still cross red light I the night
| fairly regularly.
| bserge wrote:
| FFS, do you even understand that word? DE has the opposite
| of vigilante culture.
|
| People always rely on some governmental authority. When it
| affects them, that is. Otherwise, no one gives a shit about
| anything.
| nautilius wrote:
| No, it's pretty accurate in my experience.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > Is there something I am missing here?
|
| Yes: the fact that many other automakers all over the world
| were caught as well, but you only remember VW. And my guess is
| that for the ones that weren't caught it was just that: they
| weren't caught.
|
| Basically, European politicians had created every tighter fuel
| and emissions standards that really couldn't be met (the leaner
| you burn the more NOx and other nasties, if you want to burn
| cleaner, you need a richer mixture). So enforcement of those
| standards was "wink wink, nudge, nudge", and everyone was in on
| it.
|
| Except the pesky Americans.
|
| Buying gas from Russia is sensible, see "Ostpolitik".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostpolitik
|
| Phasing out nuclear and increasing coal is just nuts. Nuclear
| should, if anything, be expanded, but it's the third rail of
| German politics. The populace has been so brainwashed on this
| topic that logic just doesn't apply. Kinda like guns in the US.
|
| The financial class in most countries sees itself as above the
| law. Cumex was worse in many ways, but what the banks have been
| doing in the US, Japan or the UK is hardly better. In fact, the
| US legal system officially declined to pursue HSBC's brazen
| money laundering, because going after the bank might lead to
| financial instability. Carte Blanche. And don't get me started
| on Goldman Sachs.
|
| Heck, the moneyed classes in the UK took the country out of the
| EU, never mind the enormous economic, social and political
| damage, in order to avoid EU transparency laws.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The did a in depth review of basically every car maker in
| Europe after that. For a while BMW was the only German one
| that seemed to come out almost clean. until they didn't.
| Peugeot and Renault were fined in France. As was Fiat in
| Italy if I remember well. The German OEMs were the worst,
| with VW leading the pack and Mercedes being a distant second.
| VW did something clearly illegal, most others thaugjt the
| just skirted the edge of legality. Maybe that skirting would
| have worked if it wasn't for public pressure after VW was
| found of having crossed line of skirting deep into cheating
| territory.
|
| VW wasn't the only having tweaked emissions, VW was the only
| one having clearly cheated. that's why they are remembered
| for it.
| [deleted]
| jd115 wrote:
| I bet you not one of those model citizens would say a word if
| you slip a few hundred euro in their pocket before crossing
| that road on red.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| Power corrupts? And Germans aren't immune to it.
| humanistbot wrote:
| Don't forget the decade-long debacle of Berlin Brandenburg
| Airport.
| SilasX wrote:
| Yeah, that's what worries me. Every time there's a story like
| this, and someone asks "what, why did the employees buckle over
| and implement this evil scheme?" you get a torrent of answers
| about:
|
| "Well obviously they cared about losing their job, we need
| strong worker protections and unions."
|
| "We just need a culture of calling people out on anti-social
| behavior, whether or not that specific transgression is already
| codified."
|
| "We need strong regulations that penalize corner cutting."
|
| But ... Germany is really good on all those points! So, if this
| kind of thing slips through there...
| yummypaint wrote:
| There needs to be law enforcement against the company itself.
| Penalties should take away the same proportion of income as
| they would be for a median citizen. If a crime is severe
| enough for a person to do 1 year in prison for, that's about
| 2% of their lifetime income taken from them plus loss of
| freedom. A crime of comparable severity should cost a company
| 2% in perpetuity. If they are outcompeted or forced into
| restructuring so be it. The threat of non-negligible
| financial consequences is the only thing that will compel
| change.
|
| The individual low level employees are about as culpable for
| the emissions cheating as the muscle cells of a serial killer
| are for murdering someone. They hold no meaningful decision
| making power within the organization and operate according to
| the local incentive structure. The executives responsible for
| shaping the incentive structure are the ones who should be
| individually penalized. Market forces would help with this if
| illegal practices were appropriately costly.
| OneEyedRobot wrote:
| I wonder how you tell illegal optimizing for a test vs. legal
| optimizing for a test.
|
| Lord knows what sort of magic they stick into 'Energy Star'
| appliances.
| corty wrote:
| Well, easy in case of VW: If the optimization involves checking
| "steering wheel has never moved out of 0 position since engine
| start" and "intake air is at exactly 293K", then it illegally
| optimizes for a test.
| [deleted]
| pueblito wrote:
| > Lord knows what sort of magic they stick into 'Energy Star'
| appliances.
|
| I had a phase a few years back where I monitored all my
| appliances and office stuff to see how much solar I needed and
| I found the energy star ratings to be more or less correct with
| my appliances except for my moms Samsung stove
| criddell wrote:
| Have any Professional Engineers working for VW been fined or
| sanctioned in any way for malpractice?
| hef19898 wrote:
| We don't have this concept over here.
| lnsru wrote:
| Long time ago German cars were kinda perfection of how car could
| be build. But recently this company was gasing apes... How low
| could VW fall!?
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/29/vw-condemne...
| analog31 wrote:
| That must have been quite a long time ago, because the German
| car makers experienced the same rude awakening as their
| American counterparts did, when Honda and Toyota showed up in
| force, back in the 80s. And they took as long if not longer to
| catch up.
|
| I don't think the VW Rabbit was actually a higher quality car
| in terms of reliability than the Ford Escort, and both were
| light years behind the Toyota Corolla.
| jsight wrote:
| I agree. I'm baffled as to why German cars are held in such
| high regard with some people. Long term reliability doesn't
| match assembly quality and initial impressions.
| hef19898 wrote:
| In the case of VW and Audi? Marketing and build tolerances.
| Especially those customers see, famously those between skin
| panels.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I'm mid 30s in the US, and I always had the impression that
| Japanese cars were the best quality:price ratio, American
| cars were cheaper quality, but also cheaper overall, and
| German cars were for showing off that you could spend money.
| mzs wrote:
| One of my sons just bought an '88 Celica GT and I am
| impressed with how much better it is than same year VW Cabrio
| and my first car a Caprice from same time frame.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Nice one, the Celica!
| h2odragon wrote:
| The VW Rabbit, imo, was better _built_ than a ford escort
| (excepting electrical); but much worse design. They didnt do
| thinks like "oops we forgot to bolt in the transmission" (my
| favorite ford trick); they did things like "when the clutch
| needs adjusting the entire car has to come apart to reach a
| retaining screw" and iirc there was something about a
| crankshaft that was destined to break in half at 30k miles...
| [deleted]
| aitchnyu wrote:
| I read a profound observation that I can barely recall. Can
| anybody find it? Its that German cars use a design that assumes
| tight tolerance parts, which drives up cost. But Japanese cars
| use looser tolerance parts which still make up a strong "whole"
| which is robust to bad parts and wear.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I don't know much about the design of German cars, but
| typically in the Japanese ones, you will find that they are
| _designed_ to work with loose tolerances, but _manufactured_
| with actual dimensions very close to the "blueprint" and
| very little manufacturing variation. As a result, you get
| very robust construction since everything is basically
| working exactly in the region it's designed for.
| baybal2 wrote:
| The word Gaswagen getting a whole new meaning
| mtmail wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_van already means
| systematically and at large scale murdering people.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Wasn't there an individual recently that used medical procedures
| to avoid trial?
| SilasX wrote:
| You mean Elizabeth Holmes and pregnancy?
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, someone else, but that one I wasn't even aware of, I
| wouldn't put it past her to do something like that on purpose
| to try to avoid jail - and quite possible end up with having
| her child paying the price for that.
| SilasX wrote:
| Maybe Harvey Weinstein and using a walker to look disabled
| in public, then?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, that's the one. Thanks. I couldn't find any
| reference to it but apparently there is now some movement
| regarding this that his surgery dates happened to overlap
| with great regularity with his court dates.
|
| I'm not sure anything will come of that because I find
| the idea of a doctor cooperating with such a scheme
| rather farfetched, but in the case of Weinstein it
| probably shouldn't be ruled out a-priori.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| I've never been surprised about Dieselgate. If an engineer is
| given a metric to beat, they'll beat the metric, not the spirit
| of the metric. The same attitude of improving the test still
| exists, it's why manual sports cars have tall gears - the test
| will happen at a more efficient rev range than the users will
| actually use. Variable valve timings, variable cam profiles, more
| aggressive sports modes: these are just hiding the real emissions
| at a rev range the emissions test won't reach. And wasn't it
| accepted wisdom that you shouldn't believe the MPG or L/100km
| figures?
|
| So-called 'tech' is just as bad. A defeat device is so similar to
| the everyday silicon valley attitude it's hard to believe it
| didn't originate there. Move fast and break things? Building
| companies based on massive amounts of user data, then complaining
| you can't feasibly do manual content review? We can't build a
| society based on the assumption that engineers will act in the
| public's best interest.
| sanguy wrote:
| The challenge is the test is flawed if it stipulates to
| narrow/limited of a test range. This is why in SW we do
| automated tests, unit tests, but also real-user testing.
|
| For emissions the only solution is in-situ testing over real-
| world operating conditions over a period of time. In other
| words real-user-testing of the vehicle as it will be used.
|
| This would stop all such games immediately.
| _1100 wrote:
| I would be very interested to see which brands / models of
| cars would see significant MPG reporting changes.
|
| How much would this exacerbate / accelerate the challenges
| car companies face in complying with governmental MPG
| requirements?
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| Is it the engineers fault? Or is this the result of antisocial
| business decisions?
|
| If you're not going to trust engineers, who are you going to
| place your trust in? Business men? Lawyers? Bureaucrats?
| Politicians?
|
| If we're looking at engineers as multi variable function
| optimizers, You'll find that the field will be automated away
| in short order. And that will be one less group to trust.
|
| Fact is, at any level, everyone has an assumption of trust for
| society. There are of course consequences to violating that
| trust. But then smart people find ways to insulate themselves
| from this consequences.
|
| Regardless, the problems you speak of exist regardless of what
| professions exist. The real problem is how do you align
| incentives to align for better outcomes, and that is a hard
| problem to solve.
| arethuza wrote:
| I think older Aston Martins had a tall first gear precisely to
| give them a good 0-60 figure.
| mercora wrote:
| for me it was also hard to grasp what went wrong here. i always
| thought if this test can be gamed something is flawed with this
| test. they were given the task to pass the test and they did
| although that did not translate to the outcome the engineers
| developing this test envisioned for it i guess. It feels like
| they changed the requirements and then went after anyone not
| passing anymore. i do understand that they purposefully tried
| to detect the test to game the result "somehow" but i cant help
| it but to think if its possible to reduce emissions for the
| test then its a viable strategy on the road given the same
| usage pattern... although i don't really know how they actually
| did it...
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| so the problem is that vw purposefully lowered engine
| performance during the test. they could have done that on the
| road, and been within spec, but then their cars would have
| felt sluggish, so instead they just made their cars lie
| during the epa test
| hef19898 wrote:
| VW detected a test cycle and turned emissions treatment,
| Adblue and some other things, on. When on the road, these
| systems were tuned down or fully turned off.
| contravariant wrote:
| From my limited understanding it wasn't just lowering
| engine performance they couldn't be simultaneously be
| efficient with fuel and low in emissions (IIRC burning at a
| higher temperature is good for fuel economy but bad for
| other pollutants). It's very well possible that no single
| configuration could have made them meet the requirements.
| hef19898 wrote:
| If memory serves well, they used steering, rev and so on as
| input to decide if the car was on a test bench. Then they
| turned on emissions treatment, or rather turned it up.
| Obviously that works on the road as well.
|
| As a tangent, VW was part of group of German manufacturers
| colluding in limiting Adblue tank capacity (I'd have too look
| up details). in order to maximize revenue, they also extended
| the refill periods to match inspection intervals. Basically
| so the OEMs could sell dirt chepa Adblue to customers. Now
| the smaller tanks were insufficient to treat emissions on the
| road without being refilled between inspections. Instead of
| mounting bigger tanks, VW decided, apparently, to just turn
| the system of while on the road. Clearly illegal because test
| cycle recognition is illegal. As opposed to using technical
| loop holes when road operations are concerned.
| peteradio wrote:
| Thats unbelievable. So they purposefully fucked with the
| car design to sell some juice? Beancounters beware. I
| wonder who it was that pitched such an unconscionable
| asinine idea. It seems like there were some missing NO men
| as well.
| hef19898 wrote:
| If I remember well, the main offenders were German OEMs
| that colluded with VW on that. other European OEMs mainly
| toyed around with other stuff and edge cases, some
| activities were later found to be illegal. Most so were
| able to fix it by "just" burning more Adblue and getting
| rid of temp windows and such things.
|
| VW was the only one I know that was forced to tweak
| engine performance. IMHO the goal was optimize weight and
| cost, and engine design. Only VW seemed to have gone far
| enough to design engines that were technically barely, if
| at all, able to comply with emission requirements. So
| they resorted to cheating. Once that worked, it escalated
| to the point 11 million cars were affected. Kind a stupid
| if you ask me.
| bri3d wrote:
| It was sort of the opposite - there was a control module
| called "kundenspezifische Akustikbedingung" or "customer
| acoustics condition" in Bosch diesel control units which
| was _deactivated_ by conditions like steering input that
| indicated real driving. So the car started in "low
| emissions" mode by default (essentially, running richer,
| which increased consumption and CO2 emissions but reduced
| NOx), and then leaned out (decreasing consumption but
| increasing NOx) once the "acoustic model" was deactivated.
|
| https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~klevchen/diesel-sp17.pdf
| hef19898 wrote:
| The acoustic mode was used to recognize the test cycle
| and to properly dose Adblue. It didn't impact fuel
| mixture, that was something VW later did to make the
| engine generally compliant. The new, leaner mixture
| resulted in some power losses.
|
| Under all other operating modes, the Adblue dosage was
| reduced to almost zero. That is clearly illegal. In
| addition to that, VW did some other stuff especially for
| the US market to meet California's emission requirements.
|
| What everyone else did was playing with temperature
| windows, under _all_ operating conditions to reduce
| Adblue and optimizing for other things. Not ullegla per-
| se, as these windows kinda used to be legal, but
| definitely violating the spirit of regulations. Some
| manufacturers exaggerated more than others. But only VW
| cheated as clearly, as bluntly, as long and at as large a
| scale. No amount of VW PR can change that.
| belter wrote:
| With the help from Bosch:
|
| "Supplier's Role Shows Breadth of VW's Deceit"
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/business/bosch-vw-
| diesel-...
| hef19898 wrote:
| Yep. Bosch tried to protect their asses by sending VW a
| letter that this software was test purposes only, any
| road or production use would be illegal. They still got
| fined.
| belter wrote:
| "In June 2008, Bosch wrote a letter demanding that
| Volkswagen agree to pay any penalties if they were
| discovered using a defeat device."
| hef19898 wrote:
| The use of that software as a defeat device surely was a
| surprise to everyone when it came out years later...
| bri3d wrote:
| The EDC17 analysis in this paper does not support this: "
| Figure 4 shows how the fuel injection quantity (additive)
| correction (qCor) is modified by the acoustic condition."
|
| Not that it makes the cheating any less illegal, but I'm
| interested in the source of your analysis and why it
| differs from the model in the FR and the disassembly
| performed by that research group.
| Glawen wrote:
| Thanks! Nice paper, I didn't know they had access to the
| SW specifications
| bri3d wrote:
| You can find these (leaked of course) easily by googling
| "Funktionsrahmen". They are shared widely by tuners.
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