Repair-It

The software, included on VW and Audi vehicles from the 2009-15 model years with 2.0-liter turbodiesel engines, detects when a car is undergoing EPA emissions testing and turns on the vehicle’s full emissions controls. The software then switched off the full emissions controls during real-world driving, the EPA said in a statement.

EPA officials called the software a “defeat device” that allowed VW and Audi vehicles to fulfill emissions standards in lab testing, but emit nitrogen oxides at up to 40 times allowable levels in real-world driving.

For the second time in my life, it appears that the US diesel passenger car market has been mortally wounded by a car company claiming to be its champion.

The first time, it was due to incompetence: GM foisted an underdeveloped diesel V8 on customers, dealers and technicians who were ill prepared to maintain it.

This time, it’s due to outright dishonesty on the part of Volkswagen, a leader in U.S. passenger car diesel sales. There’s nothing wrong with the engines or their drivability; rather, they emit vastly more pollution than advertised to either the public or the U.S. EPA. The only reason they were ever approved for sale in America is due to a software trick known as a ‘defeat device’ that VW engineers deliberately designed to mislead emissions testers.

VW has also leaned on the performance of its diesel lineup as a key message to boost demand amid tepid U.S. sales, which are down 2.8 percent through August.

"Vehicle owners will suffer loss of vehicle value due to Volkswagen’s future recalls and degrading of performance characteristics such as horsepower and fuel efficiency in order to make vehicles meet EPA standards," the suit says.

"The tinkering that Volkswagen will have to do by law to fix these vehicles will almost certainly degrade the performance to less than what Volkswagen claimed when it originally sold these cars,” said Steve Berman, a class action attorney in Seattle who brought the suit and has filed similar, successfully cases against Toyota and Hyundai.

I guess that explains how VW has been able to sell all those wonderful European diesels here when GM and Ford were denying American consumers the opportunity. Diesels forums must be exploding all over the Internet about now.

I must say, regretfully, European vehicles are not always what they seem to be. I have been "scammed" by BMW not only once (shame on them), but twice, since I could not believe the 1st car was that bad (shame on me).
Perhaps what these German car makers need is a good dose of humility and honesty. Seems that the Japanese learned that decades ago; and American manufacturers have been humbled since the 2009 economic crash and the recall scandals more recently.
I for one will NEVER but another European-branded car, and this only puts the last coffin nail in.

Ken • 3 days ago

I'm not so sure that 18 billion would teach an adequate lesson to VW (aka. Piech & Works Council Inc).

But, this article is quite incomplete, what with no mention of the second half of the story.

These 2010-2015 US market 2.0 liter diesel Volkswagen cars were using Lean NOx Traps* to meet emissions. The only way to reprogram the engine to achieve acceptable NOx emissions levels is to reduce engine power and torque, reducing both fuel economy and engine performance to unacceptable levels.

For 2016, Volkswagen in America begins using a revised version of the EA288 diesel, upped 10 horses to 150 horsepower, which actually meets US emissions standards by adopting the industry standard combination of SCR (selective catalytic reduction) and dual loop (high pressure and cooled) EGR (exhaust gas recirculation). It also has higher pressure (2,000 bar) fuel injection, and a variable valve train with a camshaft adjuster, all to greatly reduce emissions. VW was already using SCR on its heavier diesel vehicles from 2012 including the Passat, Touareg, A6, A7, and A8 TDI models, because a Lean NOx Trap would have proven insufficient.

FYI: The SCR emissions technology of the 2016 year US market EA288 has been in production at other vehicle makers since 2010.

* In the use of Lean NOx trap (LNT) technology, Nitric Oxide (NO) is catalytically oxidized to Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2). The stored NOx is removed in a 2-step reduction process by temporarily inducing a rich exhaust condition using a pulsed charge in fueling (using diesel fuel as a hydrocarbon reductant). This gives an advantage over SCR systems of not needing to provide an additional reductant.

NOx adsorbers use precious metal catalyst sites to carry out the NO to NO2 conversion step. The NO2 is then chemically stored in alkaline-earth oxide as a nitrate. To operate effectively, the NOx adsorber must remain stable for extended periods, during which time the exhaust environment modulates between rich and lean conditions.

LNT can produce very high NOx conversion efficiencies (70% to 90%) when new.

BUT, Lean NOx Traps are drastically poisoned by sulfur dioxide (SO2) derived from the sulfur in the fuel. This reacts catalytically with oxygen and then with the NOx storage components, such as BaCO3, forming stable sulfates and rendering the adsorbing capabilities of the system ineffective. In addition, SO2 can be catalytically converted to sulfate in the exhaust stream, resulting in higher particulate emissions.

The higher sulfur dioxide concentration in the exhaust, the faster poisoning occurs.
LNT is also sensitive to sulfur content of engine oils. Therefore very low sulfur diesel fuel (less than 5ppm) does not necessarily prevent sulfur poisoning, as engine oil sulfur content becomes very important and must also be reduced to minimize the poisoning effect. LNT requires regular desulfation strategy. Desulfurization requires temperatures in excess of 600°C, difficult to achieve easily in diesel operation.

In summary, LNT can reduce NOx by 70% to 90% when new, however it is NOT considered in the EU due to cost, fuel non-flexibility, efficiency, complexity of control and durability. The use of lean NOx traps is largely limited to small displacement engines due to the cost of the precious metals required.

TDI: "Totally Deceptive Implementation"

Why do none of these Auto News articles mention the International Council on Clean Transportation, the catalyst for this whole affair coming to light?

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There were discrepancies in the European tests on the diesel variants of the VW Passat, the VW Jetta and the BMW X5 last year, and the results didn’t add up. The VWs were spewing harmful exhaust when testers drove them on the road. In the lab, they were fine.

But Peter Mock, European managing director of the International Council on Clean
Transportation, suggested replicating the tests in the U.S.

The U.S. has higher emissions standards than the rest of the world and a history of enforcing them, so Mock and his American counterpart, John German, were sure the U.S. versions of the vehicles would pass the emissions tests, German said. That way, they reasoned, they could show Europeans it was possible for diesel cars to run clean.

“We had no cause for suspicion,” said German. “We thought the vehicles would be clean.”

German and his group were actually trying to prove exactly what VW has been claiming for years: that diesel is clean. They asked West Virginia University for help. The school’s Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions had the right equipment -- a portable emission measurement system to stick in the car trunk, attached to a probe to shove up the exhaust pipe. German’s group, funded mostly by foundations, didn’t.

Testers drove the monitor-equipped diesels from San Diego to Seattle because if Volkswagen had gamed the emission test, they couldn’t be sure how, German said. In another cheating case years ago, he said, long-haul trucks were equipped with devices that allowed the engines to gradually discharge more and more harmful nitrogen oxides the longer the vehicle cruised at the same speed. The more emissions, generally speaking, the greater the engine power. The 1,300-mile trip under varying conditions would expose any such scheme in the VWs, German said.

Meanwhile, the California Air Resources Board tested the vehicles in their laboratories and they passed.

Then German received the results of the real-world tests. “We were astounded when we saw the numbers,” he said.

On the open road, the Jetta exceeded the U.S. nitrogen oxide emissions standard by 15 to 35 times. The Passat was 5 to 20 times the standard. “It was shocking,” German said.

The BMW X5 passed the road test.

The CARB and the EPA opened an investigation into VW in May 2014. Talks between the parties went on for several months, with VW trying to replicate the West Virginia University results. The company said it had identified the reasons for the higher emissions and proposed a fix. That resulted in a recall of nearly 500,000 U.S. vehicles in December to implement a software patch.

CARB continued to test VW cars after the recall began. It was concerned that real-world road tests couldn’t confirm that the software patch was working. Sure enough, nitrogen oxide emissions were still in violation of California and U.S. laws. The agency shared those findings with Volkswagen and the EPA on July 8.

At the same time, regulators were considering whether to certify VW’s 2016 models for sale -- a routine process for most automakers. Regulators said they wouldn’t approve the cars unless the company resolved the questions about real-world tailpipe pollution. VW engineers continued to suggest technical reasons for the test results. None of the explanations satisfied regulators, who indicated the models wouldn’t be certified.

“Only then did VW admit it had designed and installed a defeat device in these vehicles in the form of a sophisticated software algorithm that detected when a vehicle was undergoing emissions testing,” the EPA said in its letter to VW Friday.

“We have no idea if this is also going on in China and Europe but we definitely think the question should be asked, especially since the agencies in those places don’t have the expertise and the legal authority that they have here in the U.S.,” German said.