[sukarsan]

Originally Posted by iliketurtles

Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi have joined the growing list of manufacturers whose diesel cars are known to emit significantly more pollution on the road than in regulatory tests, according to data obtained by the Guardian.

This is a different issue. The problem is that the real world driving is not matching with the emission test cycles. I have worked on cycles from Euro II to Euro V. There are improvements done each time to the test cycle, along with making the emission levels stringent.

EU is trying to address this gap with the next set of norms along with the automotive manufacturers.

Emission analytic(the company making the claims) seems to be marketing themselves with this scandal. They would be a welcome addition to the likes of AVL, Horiba who are already in this field.

[sukarsan]

As an emission development engineer , this is my take on the scandal and what I think might happen in the future.

1. The scape goats are ready to be sacrificed, as seen in the testimony By Mr Horn to the Senate Sub- committee. Someone like me in VW is going to get full credit for doing what his boss asked him to do

2. Blaming it on a couple of engineers will have its repercussions. No one will take any risks anymore for the corporate cause. This leads to a longer development cycle and increased costs.

3. VW is super cool about the whole crisis. After 20 days no clear statement has emerged explaining which are the affected models. I was expecting so much more clarification on Oct 7th. Now, They have withdrawn the 2016 models from being certified now without any explanation.

4. Customers are pissed off, but that not the real problem here. The dealers are screwed. They now have a VW dealership with lots of business loans to payback . The backlash of the failed businesses will playout over the next year or so.

5. The future: Its now clear they want to start selling their assets. Bugatti seems the go first.
Next in line would be VW trucks. There is an effort to merge VW trucks, MAN and Scania to form a super truck company for sometime now. Selling truck business can be a part of this selling non core assets game.

6. One of the biggest risks to VW is thier seeming reluctance to sort out the internal mangement issues. Winterkorns speedy dismissal in only because of internal politics. No major changes to the board etc have been initiated or even talked about so far. This is perhaps my greatest disappointment in the whole issue.

[Jeroen]

Originally Posted by heydj

The whole scandal stinks. Its not as if US cars are very clean but still US agency decided to go after European company, would it not have been easier to investigate car makers in their own backyard. Hey but that would have led to collapse of US car makers already under pressure from various things. Afterall US president hopefulls cant jeprodize campaign contributions from US car industry.

So what do you call the run in EPA had and the fines they slapped on Ford, General Motors and Caterpillar for non compliance on emission regulation in recent years? They have been doing it for years on US, European, Japanese and Korean car manufacturers. The current VW case is the largest as it simply involves more cars then any of the previous cases.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by heydj

The whole scandal stinks. Its not as if US cars are very clean but still US agency decided to go after European company, would it not have been easier to investigate car makers in their own backyard.

Sorry but this is an ill informed statement. VW and other European manufacturers account for most of the diesel car sales in the US, with only VW using technologies without the use of Ad Blue Urea injection to reduce NOX levels. VW has admitted that it's technology did not work, and hence it cheated blatantly by fooling the emissions test. No one else has been proven to have done that.

Originally Posted by sukarsan

As an emission development engineer , this is my take on the scandal and what I think might happen in the future.



The scape goats are ready to be sacrificed, as seen in the testimony By Mr Horn to the Senate Sub- committee. Someone like me in VW is going to get full credit for doing what his boss asked him to do



2. Blaming it on a couple of engineers will have its repercussions. No one will take any risks anymore for the corporate cause. This leads to a longer development cycle and increased costs.



5. The future: Its now clear they want to start selling their assets. Bugatti seems the go first.

Sorry but the emissions engineers involved here DESERVE to go to jail. They may not be the only culprits, but they surely knew what they were doing. If you are an emissions engineer, your job is to reduce emissions, not pretend to do so when the car is being tested. If that has repercussions on engineers refusing to follow improper orders, that is good - perhaps similar to how the Nuremberg trials had an impact on soldiers.

As for the asset sales - yes, they are on their way.

BTW, the scandal seems to be becoming bigger, with VW withdrawing its request for certifying its Euro 6 diesel cars as it appears they don't meet standards without cheating either.

As I have said before, if this leads to the death of diesel, that will be great. Time for the GOI to completely ban diesel cars in urban areas starting with metro cities. An immediate sales ban should be followed by 5 years to end use of diesel cars. Remember Indian diesel cars (even Mercs and BMWs) don't even have DPFs, much less NOX reduction systems - and emit killer fumes which are choking all of us. Yes, they emit less than trucks - but trucks don't spend hours in city centres during peak hours, and there is no alternate to diesel for trucks.

[SLK]

Originally Posted by Hayek

Yes, they emit less than trucks - but trucks don't spend hours in city centres during peak hours, and there is no alternate to diesel for trucks.

And what makes you think that only peak hours are relevant. I'm sure you're well traveled, ever seen NCR roads at night?

Jumping to conclusions is the easiest thing to do, isn't it? Ban diesel vehicles.

Have you seen the skies of German Cities? There are more, many more cars, diesel cars and old diesel cars and very clean air compared to what we have here. Let us not link India with this problem, we are struggling with a completely different and very elementary problem here.

Hundreds of our petrol burning two wheels pollute more than some diesel trucks, because there is no implementation of existing pollution norms either.

Lets not consider ourselves party to a very sophisticated problem, where we can't deal with basic stuff. Most unloaded trucks spit out thick BLACK smoke when going up the 10s of flyovers we have here, that's not diesel to blame, its PUC implementation and TATA for poor engines.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by SLK

Jumping to conclusions is the easiest thing to do, isn't it? Ban diesel vehicles.

Have you seen the skies of German Cities? There are more, many more cars, diesel cars and old diesel cars and very clean air compared to what we have here.

Lets not consider ourselves party to a very sophisticated problem, where we can't deal with basic stuff. Most unloaded trucks spit out thick BLACK smoke when going up the 10s of flyovers we have here, that's not diesel to blame, its PUC implementation and TATA for poor engines.

While you make a few valid points, please note that Germany has very, very different weather and geographic conditions compared to India, and hence the situations are not comparable. Plus they moved to Euro 4 Norms in 2005.

Most 2 wheelers today have 4 stroke engines and no longer emit high particulates. (And yes old two wheelers should be scrapped). So high particulate concentrations are a function of trucks, diesel cars and cooking fires. Replacing cooking fires with LPG will help, improving emission norms for trucks and cracking down on overloading / use of kerosene will help, setting up a bypass whereby trucks don't enter Delhi (like they don't enter Bombay) will help. But most of these are long term solutions. The million plus diesel cars sold every year in India are a major incremental source of particulate emissions - and something that is completely avoidable. Banning them makes eminent sense.

Sorry for drifting off topic. Mods, if you think this should be deleted, pl do so.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by Hayek

The million plus diesel cars sold every year in India are a major incremental source of particulate emissions - and something that is completely avoidable. Banning them makes eminent sense.

You obviously have data available to back this?

[RavenAvi]

The numbers are out - around 3.6 million Volkswagen Group cars sold in Europe, fitted with the 1.6L TDI engine, will need hardware changes.

Volkswagen sold a total of 8 million diesel cars in Europe with the illegal software fitted onto the EA189 1.2 TDI, 1.6 TDI and 2.0 TDI engines and while the 2.0 TDI will only need a software revision according to the latest report, the 1.6 TDI will also require some hardware modifications.

This affects 3.6 million cars sold in Europe not just from the Volkswagen core brand, but also from Audi, Skoda and SEAT.

WorldCarFans

[sukarsan]

Originally Posted by mayankk

You obviously have data available to back this?

Check the attachment. It's called a source apportionment study.

Diesels mainly contribute to pm and Nox. Vehicles contribute to about 20%.. Area wise data also available..



Link to original PDF report which is Source for above.

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by sukarsan

Check the attachment. It's called a source apportionment study. Diesels mainly contribute to pm and Nox. Vehicles contribute to about 20%.. Area wise data also available.

I'm not sure this supports the point Hayek was making, and mayakk was trying to clarify. If anything, my reading of this shows that vehicular contribution to:

• Particulate matter is quite low at 6.6%
• NOx (which comes mostly from diesels) is ~18%
• Carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon are significantly due to vehicles - exceeding 50%

That said, very useful to see this sort of information, rather than us speculating without data, so thank you for that.

Given your profession, how about putting up a thread on this topic? It would educate some of us (and definitely me!)

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by sukarsan

Check the attachment. It's called a source apportionment study.
Diesels mainly contribute to pm and Nox. Vehicles contribute to about 20%. Area wise data also available.

And how does that point to diesel cars(private diesels)????
By the way, what's the source report, for this?

[sukarsan]

Originally Posted by mayankk

And how does that point to diesel cars(private diesels)????
By the way, what's the source report, for this?

Source: Air quality monitoring, emission inventory and source apportionment for delhi (From NEERI Nagpur).

I am not able to link it, but you can Google for this. Be warned; It's a looong paper just for Delhi. Diesels contribute only to PM and NOX. How much do cars contribute is hard to isolate. But this study gives general guidelines. I suppose based on this we can say that banning diesels is not going to help within a city. There are other sources which needs to be addressed.

Mod Note: Please typing like..... this.....

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by arunphilip

I'm not sure this supports the point Hayek was making, and mayakk was trying to clarify. If anything, my reading of this shows that vehicular contribution to:

• Particulate matter is quite low at 6.6%
• NOx (which comes mostly from diesels) is ~18%
• Carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon are significantly due to vehicles - exceeding 50%

how about putting up a thread on this topic?

Originally Posted by mayankk

And how does that point to diesel cars(private diesels)????

By the way, what's the source report, for this?

Thanks for the input @sukarsan.

We are going hugely off topic and I would request a mod to move these posts to a separate thread.

But Sukarsan's post got me to do some Googling.

On PM, the fact that most of it is due to road dust (viz general environmental factors) and area factors (chulas) is well known. But diesel vehicles including cars contribute a lot, especially in micro areas with very high traffic - which affects the lives of people living near large junctions. What's more, we already live in an unhealthy environment due to factors we can't control easily. In such a situation, you have two choices - resignation to ones fate or steps to control what you can control. I would pick the second option.

On NOX, power plant emissions are currently the bulk of the problem in Delhi. I was shocked to find that so far, India does not have norms to regulate power plant NOX emissions. (This is old technology and should have come in years ago). But as can be seen from this article (http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report...plants-2087316), the norms have just been issued, and should bring NOX emissions from power plants down very materially. (70% reduction compared to state of the art plants - implies that overall NOX from power plants may be down by more than that - so it would fall to levels similar to the total from cars). What matters therefore is NOX from diesel cars, which is only going to keep rising, unless drastic steps are taken. Given that Euro 6 fuel and engines are unlikely to come in immediately, banning diesel car sales in urban areas is the only choice.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by Hayek

Sorry but the emissions engineers involved here DESERVE to go to jail. They may not be the only culprits, but they surely knew what they were doing. If you are an emissions engineer, your job is to reduce emissions, not pretend to do so when the car is being tested. If that has repercussions on engineers refusing to follow improper orders, that is good - perhaps similar to how the Nuremberg trials had an impact on soldiers.

An engineer who is actually working onto emission, might not be the only decision maker and might have this "Cheat Mode" included only upon command of his superior/s. This is a situation where most of people find themselves into. And that includes me too, but only for commercials ( I dont work for VW, but relating to the place where I am currently employed ).

Its a team responsibility and on the larger scale, the responsibility of firm itself. And what was QC team doing ? Why did they not come across such anomalies ? How to ascertain that they are involved ? Lets assume that VW internal testing would have different pattern than what the pattern ECU understood as Testing to go into Cheat Mode. So why was it not controlled or observed by QC ? So either even the QC was in dark or it choose to ignore. Why not blame them too ?

Its very much clear that an engine could not manage less emissions and Management did not want to develop a new one and hence the Cheat Code. What can an emission engineer do if management ignores the design limitations of an engine w.r.t. output and emissions ?

A thorough investigation performed with honesty can only decide if the emission engineers are at fault or not. What if they had, even verbally warned their respective reporting authorities ?

[pgsagar]

Originally Posted by heydj

The whole scandal stinks. Its not as if US cars are very clean but still US agency decided to go after European company, would it not have been easier to investigate car makers in their own backyard. Hey but that would have led to collapse of US car makers already under pressure from various things. Afterall US president hopefulls cant jeprodize campaign contributions from US car industry.

Ok, since US is not clean, it has no right to catch culprits, right? Most of our cops are not clean. So extending the same logic, they have no right to enforce law or catch criminals. Right? That is one bizarre logic.