On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 12:00:52PM +0100, Cathal (Phone) wrote:
I gather it was discovered when a trade association was setting out to show off how awesome and clean modern diesels were, and did their own tests on actual road driving unlike the EPA. They discovered how shit the pollution really was and decided to report it.
Which, if that's accurate, really reaffirms my faith in some of humanity, because it was actively against their interests to do so?
AFAICT this was discovered by scholars, not regulators (check wikipedia link). Cheating EPA appears to be common practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Volkswagen_emissions_violations&oldid=683264419 In 1973, Chrysler, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Toyota, and Volkswagen had to remove ambient temperature switches which affected emissions, though the companies denied intentional cheating and said that strategies like enriching fuel mixture during cold engine warm-up periods could reduce overall pollution. In 1996 General Motors had to pay a near-record fine of $11 million, and had to recall almost as many cars as Volkswagen's US TDI diesels, 470,000, when they, like Volkswagen, programmed ECU software to disengage emissions controls during conditions known to exist when the cars were not being lab tested by the EPA. There are more cases linked.