
Germany Orders Daimler to Recall 774,000 Diesels in Europe - felixbraun
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-11/germany-orders-daimler-to-recall-774-000-diesel-cars-in-europe
======
samfriedman
> _Germany’s automotive regulator KBA found five unapproved software functions
> in Daimler’s Euro 6 diesel engines, affecting as many as 1 million vehicles
> in Germany, Bild am Sonntag reported Sunday._

And then,

> _“We don’t see any evidence that Daimler was designing software to
> deliberately cheat on emission testing,” said Arndt Ellinghorst, an analyst
> with Evercore ISI in London._

If it's not a defeat device like the VW scandal, then what specifically is the
prohibited function causing the recall? The article doesn't really explain
what the device or function in question is.

~~~
bald
One way to reconcile these seemingly contradictory statements is the
following.

The actual programmer & designer of the software is the supplier of the engine
control units (ECUs), in most cases Bosch. The software that they supply
actually already contains these cheating routines. These routines are
delivered as a part of the software packages, and can be turned on/off with
some flags.

It is up to the auto company how to set these flags.

Source: Close relatives working in the car industry.

~~~
okmokmz
So is the issue that those routines are supported regardless of the
configuration, or that they were delivered in a way that the routines can
still be used?

~~~
endymi0n
Exactly.

This very ambiguity makes it easy for both sides to just shift the blame to
the other side in case this whole collusion gets discovered – which you can
now nicely see in the wild. In the best case scenario for both companies, both
just get away with it this way.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability)

Obviously, no parts supplier would integrate these functions in the first
place if nobody asked for it...

------
izend
I'm really surprised the Europe big car manufacturers spent so much effort on
small Diesel engines instead of Turbo gasoline engines. My theory is the fact
that having a majority of Diesel vehicles in Europe lowers their oil
consumption vs Gasoline engines, hence, lowers their CO2 production but with
the extremely negative fact of increased local smog.

~~~
gascan
Small turbodiesels were way ahead of small gasoline engines for decades in
fuel economy, power, and so forth. Diesel, which uses direct injection and
compression ignition, has always been a natural fit with turbocharging, which
makes them intrinsically suited to the paradigm of a small engine for
efficiency with a turbo for power. They also intrinsically have great low-end
torque, which complements the top-end power of turbos.

Turbo gasoline engines were hard to make well, I gather mostly due to
predetonation. Gasoline engines historically use manifold injection and spark
ignition, which limits compression ratios. However, with advances in
technology, particularly in engine computers & sensors, small turbo gas
engines have recently become far more competitive.

So, basically, from the vantage point of 2018 turbodiesels might seem like a
questionable choice- but ten or twenty years ago, good small turbocharged
gasoline engines mostly didn't exist.

~~~
rconti
This is my understanding as well. Highly advanced knock and temperature
sensors, high pressure gasoline direct injection, turbochargers, and high
compression ratios in gasoline engines are a relatively new combination.
Gasoline engines have seen huge leaps in efficiency in the past decade.

------
ProfessorLayton
The most vexing part of this is how long it took for others to notice. Did no
competitor try to legitimately meet emissions requirements, fail, and
immediately turn to Dalimer/VW to see how they "met" those requirements?

If the answer is collusion, then that only raises more questions on what else
they could all be working to sweep under the rug.

~~~
stefan_
Well, if you look at the third-party emissions tests from normal city driving,
emissions of basically _all brands_ are many times above the limit. They were
just smart enough not to sell in the US.

But really the bigger question is: surely if this was somehow fixable by a
software ECU update, they would have done so? Defeat devices are an old game
in the car industry. But as long as those recalls consist of merely software
updates, it's clear they are just preparing the next, even bigger con while
apologizing for the current one, and EU governments are happy to look the
other way.

~~~
namibj
It's relatively simple. If you have AdBlue, you pretty much eliminate NOx.
PM2.5 should be fix-able with either filters or driving the engine iirc more
lean, to incentivize full combustion. That might increase the use of AdBlue
required, but I am not sure.

If I were driving, I'd look for a car that, based on my own testing (e.g.,
during a test drive at the dealer), measures sane emissions and drinks AdBlue.
But for all I know, such a car does not exist. I really wish they make them
take all the dirty cars from the streets, mandating a retrofit AdBlue system
to allow them back onto the street. With an allowance for those that have an
AdBlue system already to measure at a test drive, i.e., with a probe shoved up
the tailpipe, and the mechanic/owner driving a loop around the block or so,
maybe with some mandatory measuring for the first 100km after installation or
so, and if the car at any point during this fails the standards, don't allow
it back on the road. The effect from this would be that teaching the car to
cheat would be next to impossible, especially if you could mandate another
test e.g. at any point between 10000 and 15000km, as best fits the owner
schedule. While it should be possible to engineer a cheat for this, it would
be hard to conceal as an accidental bug, which would be what they'd have to
make it look like to avoid potential criminal liability (they could certainly
create suitable criminal statutes along with the testing requirements, and
make sure these hit those that actually do it, along with everyone up the
chain. Make it conspiracy or so, and catch all at once. Some prosecutor would
have a lot of fun.)

------
Mizza
Diesel engines should be banned entirely. The collective effects on human
health are catastrophic, even when compared to gasoline.

You will find a lot of Europeans, particularly Germans, who still believe in
the "efficiency" and "cleanness" of diesel engines, but this is really just a
residual effect of VW's extensive marketing campaign during their turbodiesel
"glory days" \- before they got caught lying about it. VW really caused crimes
against humanity that we're still paying for.

There is no such thing as "clean" diesel and there never will be.

~~~
abakker
Evidence for this? They product more soot and smog, but less CO2. For certain
driving characteristics they are MUCH better than gas. (E.g. heavy trucks that
require larger amounts of torque)

~~~
iguy
Googling for numbers, many sources quote these EU tests which everyone's
cheating on. Out in the real world it sounds like switching Petrol -> Diesel
saves maybe 20-30% CO2, and emits 10-20x the NOx.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896971...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969717333296)

~~~
namibj
You can fix NOx with AdBlue. You can't fix CO2.

~~~
iguy
The paper I linked "sampled ... 56% of all passenger cars sold in Europe in
2016". So they all have this stuff, right?

Maybe next year's models will actually use it fully, and become clean. I'm not
holding my breath though, it seems like a political problem. And if they do
use it fully, in the real world, will they still be more CO2 efficient, and by
how much? After all, the efficiency measure is the major incentive for all
this cheating.

~~~
namibj
AdBlue is usually made from natural gas, so one has to figure the CO2 it takes
into it. It should be able to use less diesel fuel, but I don't know if the
reduction there is worth the increase in AdBlue use. The hotter the engine
burns, which in this case should mean the higher the compression/inlet
pressure is, the higher the efficiency, as well as the NOx levels generated.
The impact of particle filters on engine efficiency is not know to me.

------
Tomte
Another development: two top executives of Audi are being investigated, and
the prosecution has executed search warrants on their private homes.

------
mkirklions
Automotive seems so broken.

Japan hasnt innovated in 30 years.

US companies are too big/corrupt to make good decisions.

European cars are all style. Expensive, non-reliable, hard to fix.

Not sure what the solution is, everyone else is a low quality
copycat(Tesla/Kia/Chinese car companies).

Not to say any cars are bad, but the companies are awful. A car is entirely
dependent on the engineering team behind it, you can only hope that a company
set things up to be successful.

~~~
Spearchucker
Just as interesting as the charge that US auto companies are all corrupt - how
are European cars unreliable? German cars especially are amongst, if not the
most reliable in the world, no? Bear in mind I'm not a petrol head so this is
my perception.

~~~
rconti
European cars are considered unreliable in the US because they're generally
high-end models with newer tech (and more of it), and that kind of stuff tends
to break and be expensive to fix.

From a mechanical standpoint, they're not particularly unreliable, but again,
parts can be pricier (particularly in the US).

The way I view it is that Japanese cars are built with extreme precision in
high volume to exactly the right tolerances. They tend to be very consistent
and reliable and parts are cheap due to volume. However, if things DO fail,
it's generally because they're just slightly underbuilt and built to a
pricepoint. German cars tend to be overbuilt from a mechanical standpoint
(heavier/sturdier parts) but that doesn't mean they're more reliable as a
finished product.

