Additionally, modern ECUs in vehicles are modifiable at run time through something called XCP/CCP programming. You can think of of this as calibrating the ECU. ECU = Electronic Control Unit.
The thing that really bothers me about all this is from the article
"Carder said he's surprised to see such a hullabaloo now, because his team's findings were made public nearly a year and a half ago."
It seems nothing was done until the media outlets got a hold of the story?
Why didn't this blow up happen a year and a half ago before all these additional vehicles were put on the road?
And great insights on the software side of this.
The initial investigation 18 months ago kicked off an investigation by the EPA. VW denied any wrongdoing but admitted to a "glitch" and started issuing ECU updates. This is why some people think there is already an ECU fix for this out there. There is a "fix" from last year that says it's an ECU upgrade for emissions, but it was a stalling tactic / red herring while VW continued to cover up the extent of the deception.
http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/cert/documents/vw-nov-caa-09-18-15....
But someone with managerial skin in the game decided, and it's hard to see someone up high enough to have that skin in the game being able to push their goals down to the developer. Which means there's at least a chain of people, and at each level there's probably a small number of peers who know what's going on.
Someone decided, and needed help to get it pushed down to implementation.
People who spec'd power requirements had a very good understanding of what's possible with power vs economy vs emission control. If they got the power they wanted, they must have known how they got it.
There must have been a lot of people who either conspired or looked the other way.
The whole industry has been getting away with similar schemes for decades, why shouldn't they get away with one more?
Cars in Germany have to undergo emission tests every two years, and even older gasoline cars with rudimentary engine computers will perform vastly different when subjected to its standardized testing interval – and if they don't, it's all sorts of trouble for the owner and mechanic responsible. My dad is a car mechanic, and he has been complaining about engine computers occasionally not going into emission test mode for as long as I can think. It's an open secret and the testing agencies are actively helping their mechanics to make sure the cars pass.
From the article: Carder said he's surprised to see such a hullabaloo now, because his team's findings were made public nearly a year and a half ago.
"We actually presented this data in a public forum and were actually questioned by Volkswagen," said Carder.
So, ok, it will perform during the test to the standard. End of thought process. Not really cheating; just conforming as written.
You think that's too easy an answer? Let me tell you about our phone module on the old Unisys NGen series. It was a programmable answering machine, plug a phone line into it, then a handset (remember those?). All worked fine.
Then we tried to sell it in Germany. They had a regulation: phone handsets had to be connected directly to the wall. The idea was, presumably, they didn't want any other equipment failure to compromise phone service, which was arguably part of safety/emergency equipment.
But our answer was, build a special cable, runs from the wall to the handset. There's a dongle on the end there, that splits the signal to run on another wire to the computer. But internally, the wire connection ran from wall to dongle to computer, then back to the handset. Electrically, same as in USA.
This wasn't a subterfuge. Heck, the German qualifying agency helped us put it together. It was how you got things done in a highly regulated society.
I could easily see people at VW resenting these tests, and actively working to thwart them.
I know there have been several occasions (especially when it comes to banks) I've heard about a fine and mentally reckoned that it would be too low to make the behavior unprofitable.
It's still an open question whether the actual fine they end up paying will wipe out the benefit.
I wonder if any of the Politicians and bureaucrats who made that decision will get asked hard Q's.
Apparently Mrs Thatcher Questioned this approach at the time.
I was talking about the underlying cause of the rise of Diesel and the health effects being ignored and the Technocrats and politicians avoiding any questioning