VW was able to fool the EPA because the agency only tested the cars on treadmill-like devices called dynamometers and didn’t use portable test equipment on real roads. VW has admitted to installing software on Volkswagen and Audi cars with four-cylinder diesel engines that switches on pollution controls when they are being tested. The delay between VW’s confession and the USA exposure of the scandal occurred as regulators prepared their response to the disclosure. Martin Winterkorn resigned as Volkswagen CEO earlier this week, saying he accepts “responsibility for the irregularities”, though he denied any personal wrongdoing. Its testing procedures have been criticized for being predictable and outdated, making it relatively easy for VW to cheat. The company’s lack of cooperation could figure into punitive action by the government.
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Volkswagen isn’t the first automaker to lie to the public through the media.
According to the California Air Resources Board’s annual almanac, the state’s air has seen a decrease of up to 60% in pollutants and particulate matter since 1990.
Volkswagen has 650 dealers in the USA, and sold 238,000 vehicles through August-a 2.8% decline from the same period in 2014 and far below other major auto makers selling cars in America.
At Volkswagen of Oakland, California, almost two dozen new diesel cars have no chance of being sold in the short-term, while 25 2016 model vehicles are being held up at the Port of San Diego because they can’t pass emissions standards, sales manager Chris Murphy said. What’s more, carmakers persuaded the EPA to write a letter to the Copyright Office opposing the exemption. One-third of recalled cars are never fixed; there are an estimated 37 million cars on the road in the United States with unfixed safety recalls. In these circumstances, the vehicle uses an emission control system that traps nitrogen oxide, a key ingredient in smog. It got honors from the North American vehicle and Truck of the Year jury, won Yahoo! Not really. We’ll say that’s because everyone drives differently, which is true, but it’s also true that the automakers have a tendency to fudge those numbers.
By that point, VW and other automakers had lobbied for nearly a decade for regulators to give diesel another chance. That’s what happened with VW: Volkswagen was self-certifying its pollution information and handing those numbers over to the EPA. A recent visit to Craigslist.com indicated resale value on cars like his have fallen 20% since the emissions scandal emerged. The Europeans had a working theory that diesels should run more cleanly in the United States, where regulations are stricter, than in Europe.
Over the next 12 months, the West Virginia University researchers analyzed the data. “They were recalcitrant”, he said.
In a statement in response to the Auto Bild report, BMW said it “does not manipulate or rig any emissions tests”. “Because they had their own shenanigans?”
“We discovered some very odd anomalies”, Young said.
The best way to defeat factory-set emissions controls is to own the factory. So clearly something else was going on. “They only need to know we will be keeping their vehicles a little bit longer and we’re going to be driving them a little bit more”.
On July 8, CARB shared its results with VW, but there was no change in Volkswagen’s position.
The air coming out of the back of VW’s diesel engines was 40 times more polluted than allowable by law. The EPA says about 500,000 USA cars including the Jetta, Golf, Beetle, Passat and Audi A3 have the cheating software, and VW says a total of 11 million cars have it worldwide. Schmidt declined to speak to Reuters.
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This kind of sophisticated sneakery is only practical with software, and software also makes it possible to get away with (for a while).
