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Comment by wukerplank | Hacker News Reader

So it wasn't the rogue engineers after all? Colour me surprised!

(https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/volkswagen-...)

German regulators are ALL IN on cracking down diesel gate once for all. It hurts the German auto manufacturing reputation big time. And we now know it's probably an industry wide practice extends beyond VW[1].

[1]: https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/14/mercedes-diesel-emission...

I would hope VW puts into production some of their claimed Year 2020 EV models, if so, they will have restored my faith in the company.

Are the other car manufacturers going to be held to account as well?

I have a hard time having faith in any auto manufacturer whose EV initiatives are compelled by regulatory interests. Tesla is the only automaker whose dabbling in EVs isn't for the most part motivated by meeting regulatory compliance.

Don't Tesla sell co2 emission credits to other companies ? I would be surprised if the company doesn't owe its continued existence to these credits.

Here's the breakdown: https://seekingalpha.com/article/4243459-evolution-teslas-re...

It's only a small portion of their revenue overall and they operate on razor thin margins so it just might be keeping them afloat.

>I would hope VW puts into production some of their claimed Year 2020 EV models, if so, they will have restored my faith in the company.

As someone who already owned a couple cars out of the Volkswagen brands, currently is seeing them still very critical but following their news closely I am sure they will do. The first ID model will maybe delayed, maybe not better than a Tesla in many points, but I see VW is going full in to EVs and this is something that would never happened so fast if there wasn’t this Dieselgate story. The other german car manufactors are way more conservative with their transition and VW will push a So this is maybe the happy end of all this.

The "requirement" for a fleet average of 95g of CO2/km in the EU is inevitably pushing many manufacturers to double-down on full EVs, as provided you can sell enough they can have a dramatic effect on the fleet average. (It's a requirement insofar as there are fines for being over, but there's no other consequences in the short-term.)

No they will not. You can't imagine the sunken cost fallacy around the diesel. Careers, factory and towns where build around this.

They can not grow internak competition against it without sabotage from those who built this.

And of course not just German industry: “ICCT and ADAC showed the biggest deviations from Volvo, Renault, Jeep, Hyundai, Citroën and Fiat.“

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal

The engine control systems were from Bosch, also german, so other car manufacturers that also used Bosch for the engine/fuel injection/emissions control subsystem may have also made use of the "test conditions" bypass.

Not sure if this other scandal has a name yet, but it's basically a combined diesel+petrolgate, and certainly involves more than just VW: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/05/bmw-daimler...

"Between 2006 and 2014, the commission suspects that the “circle of five” carmakers ... colluded to limit, delay or avoid the introduction of selective catalytic reduction systems (SCRs) and “Otto” particle filters."

The best thing about this scandal is that (at least for now) all new VW cars have 6 years of warranty/72k miles. Such a great deal, couldn't say no to that.

Here in Australia they have 5 year unlimited km warranty.

So of all of the modern generation of passenger car diesels we're there any that achieved what they were supposed to? If Mercedes and VW were both cheating, who else made that type of diesel? BMW? The US never seemed to see many passenger vehicles of that type.

Not only that, it caused people to die. Diesel emissions are one of the most dangerous kinds of emissions from a public health perspective, especially in populated areas. Because of this emissions testing fraud diesel emissions pollution was worse in many major cities than it would have otherwise been, and the result has been unquestionably a vast loss of life (DALYs, if you prefer), no different than if someone had poisoned a water supply or sold tainted food. But because it has been so diffuse that aspect hasn't gotten quite the attention it deserves.

> It hurts the German auto manufacturing reputation big time.

Does it? US sales figures don't reflect that claim. They'll be back to their 400,000+/y US sales rate in the next year or two. The hit after 2015 was modest, never going below 300,000.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but in Southern Africa, VW's service is absolutely terrible.

The cars themselves are not bad, but the service centres are downright dishonest and very unhelpful. So, for me at least, the real reputation problem is their attitude towards the customer.

According to the article

> While the actions of some of the men dates to 2006, Winterkorn was informed about the scam in May 2014, according to prosecutors. Six months later, he condoned a “useless” update of the vehicles’ computer software to help further veil the scam.

So, from 2006-2014 it was rogue engineers and then the CEO took actions to cover it up?

Seems similar to many scandals throughout history, like Watergate where Nixon didn’t direct the burglary but did direct actions to cover it up.

The "rogue engineer" they presented wasn't just an engineer, but the head of the entire division at VW.

The entire "rogue engineer" meme is ridiculous, and this person is absolutely not innocent.

I know the sort of instructions you get to become a rogue engineer. I want x achieved by date y. I do not care how you do it, I don't even want to know that. But unless you manage that let nobody come back alive.

What stunned me was that the German legal system is going after the managers who made the decisions, not the engineers who implemented them (undoubtedly under duress).

In any other country -- and especially UK/USA -- I'd expect to have seen a bunch of engineers forced into plea-bargain deals an a bunch of managers "retiring" to Monaco.

The "rogue engineer" excuse was always empty. If a rogue engineer put the cheat into the design and it made it thru production, what it strongly implies is your design verification process is broken.

Maybe a little bit of that too.

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