I’ve got a fair amount of questions asking about Volkswagen’s diesel nightmare where the company was caught using software to cheat on emissions tests, known on social media as #dieselgate. That’s led to investigations by various nations and the exit of their CEO. That’s made me put together a quick primer on this:
What’s the core issue?: Volkswagen and Audi cars with “clean diesel” engines sold in the United States from the model year 2009 onwards have been found to be in violation of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards for tailpipe emissions. As a result, the company has been ordered to recall about 500,000 of them in the US to fix the issue.
How did Volkswagen cheat?: It’s actually very clever. Programmers working for Volkswagen came up with a software algorithm that used the car’s sensors to monitor the movement of the steering wheel and accelerator pedal. Using that information, the algorithm determined when the vehicle was in a lab being tested for emissions. If that were the case, it would tell the engine and emission systems to do everything possible to minimize the emissions coming from the tailpipe. When this was no longer the case, emissions returned to normal, which was as high as 40 times what it should have been.
Why did Volkswagen feel that it had to cheat?: That’s a tough question to answer. But I suspect it was a combination of things. First they wanted to be the #1 automaker on the planet. Something that they had achieved when this scandal hit. So they might have decided to do whatever was required to get there. Second, sometime around the mid 2000’s, the standards for tailpipe emissions got much more stringent. To meet those standards, anyone who was making a diesel powered car for North America (BMW and Mercedes Benz for example) had to use an additive in the exhaust which was a mixture of roughly 35% urea and 65% de-mineralized water to reduce the amount of nitrogen oxides (NOx) coming from the tailpipe. But this is expensive from a service standpoint as well as being less convenient as these cars would not start if you ran out of this solution or you had problem with the plumbing that delivered the solution to the exhaust. I am guessing that Volkswagen, who was in the process of making their cars more price competitive with the GM’s, Honda’s and Toyota’s of the planet didn’t want to go this route, so they instead cheated.
Why is this an issue in North America versus the rest of the world?: Diesel fuel in North America has one thing that diesel fuel in Europe doesn’t have. Sulfur. This creates loads of NOx that car companies have to deal with if they want to sell a diesel car in North America. Also, In Europe, the focus is on carbon-dioxide emissions; In North America, the emissions standards also focus on NOx. So that puts car companies in the position of having to make cars for two different markets. That’s not a cheap thing to do. The fact that they may sell only a fraction of diesel vehicles in North America compared to what they sell in Europe makes this kind of expensive for a car company.
What penalties are Volkswagen facing?: At the very least, Volkswagen is facing a fine that could be as high as $18 billion dollars from the EPA. But they’re also facing investigations in other countries that could lead to criminal charges and further fines. They are also facing lawsuits in Canada and the United States that could get expensive in a hurry.
Is Volkswagen finished?: They have a very loyal group of owners and that could help them to survive this. But that would assume that their owners still trust them. They will also likely not be getting many new customers anytime soon. They have to also survive the lawsuits, fines, and potential criminal charges. That might be a bigger problem for them. File this one under “to be continued.”
If You’re Wondering Why You Haven’t Saved Any Space Via iOS 9, The Secret Is Out…
Posted in Commentary with tags Apple on September 24, 2015 by itnerdYou might remember when Apple announced iOS 9 they trumpeted a feature called “App Thinning” which would only download the parts of the app that your iDevice needed to save space. You may also remember when I reviewed iOS 9 I said this:
One thing that Apple made a big deal of when iOS 9 was announced is that it would take less space when installing or updating and you would have more space on your iDevice afterwards thanks to “app thinning” which only downloads the bits of the app that your iDevice needs. That’s of interest to me as I have a 16GB iPhone 6
because I am cheap. Now the over the air update that I did was just over a 1.3GB in size so it was smaller than previous iOS updates. But I did not have any more space free than I did under iOS 8 when I was done installing iOS 9. Strange.Now I know the reason. In a post to its developer website today, Apple informed developers that an issue with iCloud backups prompted the deactivation of “app slicing,” which is one of three technologies that make up “app thinning.” There’s no ETA as to when it will be reactivated which means that those who were hoping to gain some space back on their iDevice can’t. That sucks.
Of course Apple could simply add removable storage to iDevices or stop making 16GB models which would make this whole discussion moot. But that would just make too much sense.
Leave a comment »