Car-maker Volkswagen (VW) has been at the top of the news for the last week or two in a high-profile scandal that has so far seen its stock prices drop 30% and put the emission-production statistics of nearly every car on the road into question. According to the BBC, the company “…has admitted that about 11 million cars worldwide are fitted with [a] so-called ‘defeat device’…” that can allow its vehicles to cheat on emissions tests in the US. Specifically, the emissions of nitrogen oxides in diesel-burning cars were up to 40 times above the test limit during normal operation.
The revelation comes after several months of rather accidental investigation and study. Last year, the non-profit International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) wanted to prove to Europeans that diesel cars could run clean. After European tests showed strange results, the ICCT decided to try again using the US’s high-standard and rigorously-enforced emission tests. They worked with the California Air Resources Board to test the vehicles in laboratory conditions and found that, as expected, the cars—a VW Jetta, VW Passat, and BMW X5—passed the test.
The ICCT also performed a second set of tests with the West Virginia University. These tests were different; they were performed on the road in realistic conditions using a probe stuck in the exhaust pipe. According to Bloomburg Business, this test was supposed to check if VW “…had gamed the emission test…” It wasn’t an unprecedented idea; in an earlier case, long-haul trucks had been fitted a device that increased engine power (and nitrogen oxides production) only when they cruised at constant speed for extended periods. The ICCT test showed that both VW vehicles had substantially higher emissions than the laboratory test showed, while the X5 did not.
Volkswagen was contacted, and it tried to replicate the results. After testing, it claimed that the performance discrepancy was caused by software problems, and issued a recall to install a software patch. The California Air Resources Board continued to scrutinize the compromised cars and found that the patch did not work. VW proposed other technical explanations, but none were satisfactory for regulators. As the 2016 model launch approaches, those regulators have to approve each model before it can be sold. This is a process that Bloomberg describes as “…routine… for most automakers.” But for Volkswagen, they decided that they would not certify the new cars until the emission anomaly could be resolved.
At this point Volkswagen admitted that it had designed what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—the US agency responsible for emissions standards and testing—called a “defeat device”. The device was a software algorithm that determined when it was undergoing emission testing by monitoring speed, engine operation, and the position of the steering wheel. When the algorithm identified that the car was undergoing testing, it caused the engine to operate in a different and cleaner mode. Eh Hohenberg, an associate professor at the University of Alberta suggested that this mode “may result in poor throttle response, less torque, less horsepower, worse fuel economy,” in an report by the CBC, explaining why the cleaner operating mode was disengaged outside the test environment.
The fallout from the scandal has already been fast and damaging. Volkswagen says that 11 million cars are outfit with the device world-wide, and 500,000 cars have been recalled in the US. Chief executive Martin Winterkorn has stepped down, though he denies wrongdoing, and the company has set aside $79.6 billion CAD to cover the costs of the scandal. Other high-ranking personnel in the company are implicated in the cover-up. The fines that the EPA could issue are $37,500/car, or $18 billion total. Class-action lawsuits from owners who bought Volkswagen because of the supposed environmental-friendliness of the cars have cropped up. Volkswagen will be recovering from the lost trust and financial damage for a long time.
This is the second major scandal to hit the automotive industry in recent times. In 2014 General Motors (GM) recalled 30 millions cars in North America because of faulty ignition switches that could cause the cars to turn off. This was more cars than GM sold worldwide that year. They also paid compensation for the deaths of 124 people. The problem had been know about for at least 10 years. Both this scandal and Volkswagen’s involve severe ethical lapses on the parts of executives and engineers within the company. We can expect to see case studies of the pair taught in first-year “Introduction to Engineering” courses very soon.
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