If you have to pass some standardized tests, the engineers will do what they're supposed to: Meet the goals.
I wouldn't call it 'rigged tests', it's more like they optimize the system under test to meet the spec. It probably happens everywhere, not only in cars. The behavior of your fridge, AC or any other hardware is probably optimized in weird ways just to meet Energy Star etc.
>I wouldn't call it 'rigged tests', it's more like they optimize the system under test to meet the spec.
You would do so wrongly. In these cases, like VW, the car is programmed specifically to detect when it is being tested, and lower emissions. They aren't optimizing to test spec, they are cheating. There's no other word for it.
Wikipedia has a list of a bunch of incidents going back to the 70s, in which the phrase "the largest fine to date" appears often: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeat_device
No, he's right.
That's "optimize for the test spec".
Detect an idiom and optimize it is very common in this situation.
For example, commercial compilers are often written to specifically detect and rewrite idioms/code in oft-used benchmarks (that aren't common to the real world), etc
Your browser's javascript engine almost certainly does it.
They aren't cheating, they are just making the test worthless by optimizing it.
They still shouldn't do it, but it's super-common.
Exactly -- what we need are better tests that aren't as easy to game. The idea of installing a real-world pollution measurement device to each car is still valid though -- that would just become the new test.
I wouldn't call it 'rigged tests', it's more like they optimize the system under test to meet the spec. It probably happens everywhere, not only in cars. The behavior of your fridge, AC or any other hardware is probably optimized in weird ways just to meet Energy Star etc.