Volkswagen Group Massive Emissions Fraud Scheme

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IssacZachary said:
As for me I've been seriously thinking of converting to CNG for my ol' VW diesel now that there's a CNG station in town. But the conversion costs aren't cheap. Plus if I get my van I'd probably sell the VW.
Ballpark price ?
How far could you go before you have to turn around, presuming no NG at your destination ?
 
SageBrush said:
IssacZachary said:
As for me I've been seriously thinking of converting to CNG for my ol' VW diesel now that there's a CNG station in town. But the conversion costs aren't cheap. Plus if I get my van I'd probably sell the VW.
Ballpark price ?
How far could you go before you have to turn around, presuming no NG at your destination ?
Mainly the DOT approved CNG tank, $1,300 for 13 GGE plus another couple hundred for the regulator. Which should take me at least 400 total miles, plenty in range between CNG stations. But that's figuring on getting around a 30 mpg of gasoline equivalent. Currently I can get 700 miles out of a full tank of diesel, close to 60mpg going highway speeds. After everything is said and done I can see paying $2,000 or more for the complete conversion, including an added catalytic converter. Or I could buy a small 6 GGE tank for around $600 and then later on buy another one and have 12 GGE total. That would take $700 out of the initial price making it around $1,600 for the conversion. The engine is all mechanical so the CNG injection system would be fairly simple and cheap.

Looking at the CNG infrastructure it looks like there are plenty of stations. About as good as the Tesla super charging network. Except if I converted the engine it would be dual fuel compatible, so if I needed to go where there isn't any CNG it would still be possible on diesel. Hence the possibility of starting with a smaller and cheaper CNG tank.

CNG can be dirt cheap. I think I pay not much more than a dollar per gasoline gallon equivalent at home. However, a compressor to use my household NG in my car would set me back another few hundred dollars. I probably never would get the money back invested into the whole system. But at least the emissions would be cleaner on the ol' diesel car. I've also thought of doing this if I made my ol' Golf into a pusher trailer for the Leaf. Then it would be tri-fuel, electric, natural gas and diesel!
 
@IsaacZachary,
Interesting, thanks!

Unless your LEAF is running off PV, the NG conversion is actually a better environmental choice that our Colorado grid, and it has the same home fueling convenience ;-)

Could your converted car also take propane in a pinch ?

Where do you place the tank in the car ? I have read that modern gasoline car tanks are plastic but I presume that is not possible for NG ? I'm just guessing based on the price.
 
SageBrush said:
@IsaacZachary,
Interesting, thanks!

Unless your LEAF is running off PV, the NG conversion is actually a better environmental choice that our Colorado grid, and it has the same home fueling convenience ;-)

Could your converted car also take propane in a pinch ?

Where do you place the tank in the car ? I have read that modern gasoline car tanks are plastic but I presume that is not possible for NG ? I'm just guessing based on the price.

I think going solar could be cheaper. Or close in price. It would just be hard to make portable and practical.

As for propane there are several factors to think about.

If I did a 100% conversion to CNG I'd be able to use propane only if I lowered the compression ratio sufficiently, perhaps with a thicker head gasket, or some head machining. CNG would require a lower compression ratio too. The one problem is that CNG tolerates and benefits from a higher compression ratio than LP does. In a full conversion I'd also have to tap out the injector ports and install sparkplugs and also add on an ignition system, probably a wasted spark digital system like one made by CB Racing or MegaJolt. That would put me back another thousand or so and the system would not be able to use diesel. Propane would also require it's own tank for the propane.

If the conversion used idle diesel injection as the "spark" I would still have compression issues. Lowering the compression ratio of course would make it less efficient on diesel and also possibly harder to start. One idea I had was to use water injection instead of lowering the compression ratio which would also lower NOx and CO emissions even more, although that would have to be protected from freezing during the winter. Then again, with cold winter air it might not be needed. Also, if the engine is used only for a steady, low RPM, low load use, like as a pusher trailer with a preset load and used only in top gear, there is a chance that the air-fuel ratio of the CNG would be low enough that no engine knock or damage would occur, even without lowering the compression ratio or adding water injection. But with propane there would be more of a chance of harming the engine. However, with such an engine it would be very easy to go back to using diesel in a pinch, and only extremely small amounts of diesel would be needed for igniting the CNG when running off of it.

Another conversion is to fumigate the intake with either propane or natural gas in small amounts and use mainly diesel as the driving fuel. In small amounts there isn't any possibility of harmful engine knock, and the natural gas or propane in such small amounts will still help improve emissions. But other than that it would still be a mostly diesel engine, using perhaps one gasoline gallon equivalent of gaseous fuel for every three or four gallons of diesel.

LeftieBiker said:
It seems to me that high grade biodiesel would accomplish your emissions goals with less modification - mainly a small second fuel tank and mixing valve.

Biodiesel would require more work on a regular basis. There aren't any stations in Gunnison that sell it. So I'd have to make do with used veggie oil from restaurants. Plus the stuff doesn't work well in the cold. I'd have to heat my whole fuel system. As it is, when it drops down below -30*F it is common for the regular diesel to gel, especially if I'm using the summer blend or from another town where it's warmer. I might have to put a heat exchanger on the exhaust to warm the engine coolant and fuel since this little diesel doesn't put out a lot of heat. I guess the thing is a bit too efficient. I can warm up the engine (and it has a good thermostat, trust me) and drive it around town and watch the temperature needle drop and it start blowing cold air out the of the heater, although on the highway the heater does pretty well until I start down a long grade.
 
Via GCC:
DUH says testing indicates use of defeat device in BMW 320d diesel
l http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/12/20171207-duh.html

. . . According to the investigation, not only the speed, but also the torque is used as a parameter for this shutdown. The software expert Lothar Daub explained that EGR is switched off above 3,500 rpm; this configuration was stored in the software of the vehicle, with a a map and corresponding data. Such a speed is reached at 47 km/h in second gear, 70km/h in third gear, 87 km/h in fourth gear and 112 km/h in fifth gear.

The European Type Approval Regulation 715/2007 explicitly includes in its definition of “defeat devices” the engine speed (RPM) as a parameter for reducing the effectiveness of the emission control system during normal vehicle operation. General activation of defeat devices is inadmissible under this regulation.

DUH noted that on 27 September 2017, Harald Krüger, CEO of the BMW Group, said: “We did not manipulate the vehicles, we have clean diesel, and they are the best in the world, there is no defeat device at the BMW Group.” This full-bodied promise is in clear contradiction to the results of the exhaust and software investigations of the BMW 320d, DUH charged. . . .
Emissions were found to be up to 7.2 times the standard.

Via GCR:
VW Dieselgate exec Schmidt gets maximum jail sentence: 7 years
https://www.greencarreports.com/new...ec-schmidt-gets-maximum-jail-sentence-7-years

He was also given the max. $400k fine. It's a pity that he's likely to be the only senior VW exec to see the inside of a U.S. prison.
 
This is how EGR works. It is always reduced/disabled at higher load/torque.
The fact that NEDC cycle is not real life scenario, is a reason, why real emissions
do not follow NEDC cycle emissions. According to most other observations,
ALL manufacturers had around 700% emissions compared to limit.
VW had 2000%, this is why DieselGate was born. But all, I repeat, ALL, others
had around 7 times more. As BMW 320d is in that category, nothing new was told.
 
VW didn't just design engines that would do better on the test cycle than in the real world, as most manufacturers do. They designed a 'cheating algorithm' that turned the emissions controls off or greatly reduced them during the test cycle. If you can't or won't see the difference there, there isn't much point in arguing about it.
 
arnis said:
This is how EGR works. It is always reduced/disabled at higher load/torque.
The fact that NEDC cycle is not real life scenario, is a reason, why real emissions
do not follow NEDC cycle emissions. According to most other observations,
ALL manufacturers had around 700% emissions compared to limit.
VW had 2000%, this is why DieselGate was born. But all, I repeat, ALL, others
had around 7 times more. As BMW 320d is in that category, nothing new was told.

Are you trying to make this defensible? WOW!! just WOW!

My take? VW is done, who's next?
 
I read somewhere recently that the main VW defeat was to not send unburned fuel to the NOx trap for reducing the NOx. Is this true?? It sounds plausible. I wonder why they can't just use DEF instead.
 
IssacZachary said:
I read somewhere recently that the main VW defeat was to not send unburned fuel to the NOx trap for reducing the NOx. Is this true?? It sounds plausible. I wonder why they can't just use DEF instead.

hmmm? not sure I have heard "that" excuse and there were many. I think the biggest issue was providing more power to the engines and that was the cause of the excess pollution.

I do remember a few buying them thinking they were so advanced because they had XX acceleration times AND got 45 mpg on the freeway which at the time was well over the norm. BOTH were simply outright lies. One lady I know took hers into the shop a few times because she did not drive fast and was struggling to hit the mid 30's...
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
I think the biggest issue was providing more power to the engines and that was the cause of the excess pollution.
Yes. I've heard that and also for getting better fuel mileage at the same time. But I still wonder what it is exactly that does that. How did they provide more power to the engine? Bigger engine? More boost? Less EGR? I know that the main emissions problems with diesels is NOx and PM. CO and HC are naturally lower in a diesel engine than a gasoline engine. But more power??

Actually that doesn't even make all that much sense to me. Most of the time you don't use full power, except during acceleration or on a very steep hill. In fact, all modern cars, with the exception of BEV's, really don't get rated emissions at full power. Ever smell that rotten egg like smell out of the exhaust of any car, old or new, that passes you, especially on an uphill incline? That's because at full throttle and high RPM's gasoline engines run richer than stoichiometric, not providing enough oxygen for the catalytic converter to burn up the unburned hydrocarbons and generally overwhelming the catalytic converter anyway. Actually you can't get gasoline engines to run at stoichiometric at full throttle without damaging the engine, unless you use something like water injection. So saying that power is what causes the engine to not meet emissions requirements doesn't quite make sense since it's expected not to get great emissions under full power anyway.

Still, even if the emissions at full power is the problem in a diesel VW, then what if a guy drove one around without ever gunning it? Would he get rated emissions that way? I mean, if I got a newer VW diesel and cruised across the country at part throttle, would my emissions be good? Maybe the emissions laws allows you to get more HC and CO emissions at high throttle (which is what gasoline engines do) but not NOx emissions (which is what diesel engines do)?? I really don't know and would like to be enlightened on what exactly is the defeat in the VW diesel scandal.

Spraying or not unburned fuel into the exhaust does make sense to me. A common way to reduce NOx emissions in many other diesel engines is through SCR (I've driven buses with this system) in which unburned diesel fuel is sprayed into the exhaust (for an example, it can be sprayed in the cylinder during the exhaust cycle), which reduces the NOx to N2 and CO2 and the rest of the fuel burns up in the catalytic converter into CO2 and H2O. The problem is a 10% to 20% loss in fuel mileage.

I love the fact that I can get good fuel mileage in my 1985 VW diesel. I can fill up here, drive over 600 miles and top off the tank with less than 11 gallons of fuel. I'm serious! I am not making up my numbers! In fact I'll be driving to my parent's in law in Texas in a couple weeks and know that I only have to fill up here. I'll make it there, over 600 miles away, still drive around for another week and only put in around 12 gallons before filling up and coming back home. I don't like the poor emissions, but I don't want to change it for something that either costs an arm and a leg to buy or that only gets less than stellar fuel mileage or that will become a maintenance nightmare or that also gets poor emissions. The Leaf is the only car that seems to fit all those criteria, except it doesn't like to go on long trips.
 
IssacZachary said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
I think the biggest issue was providing more power to the engines and that was the cause of the excess pollution.
Yes. I've heard that and also for getting better fuel mileage at the same time. But I still wonder what it is exactly that does that. How did they provide more power to the engine? Bigger engine? More boost? Less EGR? I know that the main emissions problems with diesels is NOx and PM. CO and HC are naturally lower in a diesel engine than a gasoline engine. But more power??

Actually that doesn't even make all that much sense to me. Most of the time you don't use full power, except during acceleration or on a very steep hill. In fact, all modern cars, with the exception of BEV's, really don't get rated emissions at full power. Ever smell that rotten egg like smell out of the exhaust of any car, old or new, that passes you, especially on an uphill incline? That's because at full throttle and high RPM's gasoline engines run richer than stoichiometric, not providing enough oxygen for the catalytic converter to burn up the unburned hydrocarbons and generally overwhelming the catalytic converter anyway. Actually you can't get gasoline engines to run at stoichiometric at full throttle without damaging the engine, unless you use something like water injection. So saying that power is what causes the engine to not meet emissions requirements doesn't quite make sense since it's expected not to get great emissions under full power anyway.

Still, even if the emissions at full power is the problem in a diesel VW, then what if a guy drove one around without ever gunning it? Would he get rated emissions that way? I mean, if I got a newer VW diesel and cruised across the country at part throttle, would my emissions be good? Maybe the emissions laws allows you to get more HC and CO emissions at high throttle (which is what gasoline engines do) but not NOx emissions (which is what diesel engines do)?? I really don't know and would like to be enlightened on what exactly is the defeat in the VW diesel scandal.

Spraying or not unburned fuel into the exhaust does make sense to me. A common way to reduce NOx emissions in many other diesel engines is through SCR (I've driven buses with this system) in which unburned diesel fuel is sprayed into the exhaust (for an example, it can be sprayed in the cylinder during the exhaust cycle), which reduces the NOx to N2 and CO2 and the rest of the fuel burns up in the catalytic converter into CO2 and H2O. The problem is a 10% to 20% loss in fuel mileage.

I love the fact that I can get good fuel mileage in my 1985 VW diesel. I can fill up here, drive over 600 miles and top off the tank with less than 11 gallons of fuel. I'm serious! I am not making up my numbers! In fact I'll be driving to my parent's in law in Texas in a couple weeks and know that I only have to fill up here. I'll make it there, over 600 miles away, still drive around for another week and only put in around 12 gallons before filling up and coming back home. I don't like the poor emissions, but I don't want to change it for something that either costs an arm and a leg to buy or that only gets less than stellar fuel mileage or that will become a maintenance nightmare or that also gets poor emissions. The Leaf is the only car that seems to fit all those criteria, except it doesn't like to go on long trips.

Read the many posts up-thread which discuss your questions.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
Are you trying to make this defensible? WOW!! just WOW!

My take? VW is done, who's next?


hmmm? not sure I have heard "that" excuse and there were many. I think the biggest issue was providing more power to the engines and that was the cause of the excess pollution.

Well, you made a decision on somebody else's prosecution without even knowing what did they do wrong. Shame.


For those who are interested, long story no-so-short:
NOx can be either stopped by A - Lean NOx Trap or B - Selective Catalyst Reduction; LNT, SCR
VW chose A as it is cheaper and it can give good results when driven very carefully (aka emission testing procedure).
This doesn't work in real life well enough to get to latest NOx limit. It just doesn't. Plus making it work (when tested on rollers)
actually requires extra fuel to be burned in exhaust pipe - total waste of fuel and additional pollution (all pollutants except NOx).
So official fuel economy ratings (EPA city, highway, combined) are actually way worse than in real life driving, as no extra fuel is burned.
To reach latest NOx limits, MORE fuel must be burned if NOx treated by A. As ALL MANUFACTURERS are around 700% above
NOx limit in real life anyway, VW though that they won't bother burning any extra fuel and let rather less CO2, PM, CO out than
reduce NOx by adding lots of other pollutants. Which, actually, is reasonable. "Fix" to those vehicles can be done this way:
a) reduce maximum power and b) burn lots of extra fuel (NOx appears when very little fuel is used by engine, more you use, less NOx).

Why I like whan VW did is because NOx limit is just made up. It's just a number on the paper. And in this case, a mistake was made.
Whoever made/calculated that number didn't know unreasonable limit was introduced years ago. Unreasonable as in "how much
hidden pollution will happen if it will be applied".
Just stating difference in EU and in US.
EU - 0.5 in 2000, 0.25 in 2005, 0.18 in 2009, 0,08 in 2014 - as we see, gradual reduction over the years
US - 0.25 in 1994, 0.03 in 2004, 0.04 in 2017 - we see massive step and then 25% retreat in 2017.

In addition to that mistake introduced in 2004, testing procedure itself is nonsense. Actual pollution in real life is, on average,
7x more than these numbers state. And all others get away with it. Not VW due to "cheat software", which main mission in real
life was to stop burning extra fuel to get NOx level down to 7x above legal limit (like all others) as it is useless. It's better to burn
less fuel (therefore less fuel made, less fuel transported by truck to station) rather than try to reduce NOx. If I knew (and every
car manufacturer actually knows that) that EVERY diesel on the road is exceeding NOx limit by 700%, I would also write a code
that would stop burning fuel for fun. It's like shooting a horse with broken legs - it's better this way even though it seems cruel.

What actually happened is just pure absurd. In terms of Hippocratic oath "First, do no harm". Actually more harm was made.
Totally fine vehicles were scrapped. This is very very bad in terms of the whole "environmental game". Which is the second proof
that whole story was not about environment. First one was incorrect NOx limit (as in "do no harm", which it does).
Third proof is the fact that real emissions (compared to limits) are still way more than the limit allows. Therefore limit is more
like a "reference" rather than actual limit. Funny part is that somebody actually went to jail for breaking the limit "too much".

Fun fact: did you know emission limits are being rolled back to more relaxed numbers soon due to new real driving measuring
procedures and that current limits are mostly not achievable by manufacturers.
https://www.autovistagroup.com/news-and-insights/just-15-euro-6-diesels-pass-real-world-emissions-tests
 
Ah! So I was right about how the device works! NOx trap without the extra fuel spray.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ4irwe3ZDk

I'm not saying cheating on emissions is ok, but I wonder if a lot of this has to do with the gasoline standard. If diesels have to produce the NOx level that's possible with a gasoline engine then why not make gasoline engines produce the HC, VOC and CO emissions that are possible with a diesel engine?

Engine efficiency is limited by the compression ratio. My diesel has a 23:1 compression ratio. It's no wonder the VW XL1 gets twice the fuel mileage the Aptera did.
 
Via GCC:
Australian study finds VW diesel using up to 14% more fuel in real world driving after emissions upgrade
http://www.greencarcongress.com/201...-real-world-driving-after-emissions-upgr.html

. . . Conducted in partnership with the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the real world testing was commissioned to quantify performance changes associated with the software upgrades being implemented on affected vehicles. . . .

In late 2016, AAA commissioned research firm ABMARC to run two tests on an affected VW vehicle—one before recall and one immediately after.

The test result indicates that a 2010 model Euro 5 VW Golf used an average of 7% more fuel (0.5 liters/100 km) after it had the recall completed. This ranged from using 2% more fuel while driving in urban areas, 7% more fuel on rural roads and 14% while driving on highways.

The tests showed a reduction in emissions of NOx carbon monoxide and particulate matter occurred after the recall fix. However, the NOx emissions were still 4.11 times the laboratory limit after the recall when tested under real driving conditions. . . .

The results show that VW may have found a fix for reducing the level of noxious NOx emissions but as a result, the amount of fuel used has increased. The testing also indicated that both power and torque had increased slightly after the recall fix. The testing further supports the AAA’s call for a real-world emission testing program in Australia. . . .

Related, also GCC:
European Commission publishes draft proposal to tighten up car emissions testing
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/03/20180310-ec.html

. . . New and improved car emissions tests have been mandatory since 1 September 2017: tests in real driving conditions (“Real Driving Emissions” – RDE) and an improved laboratory test (“World Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure” – WLTP).

The Commission is tightening the screws further by improving these tests and introducing more controls to guarantee that vehicles already in circulation are in conformity with the emission limits.

The proposal which is open for consultation aims at reducing margins of technical uncertainty in RDE testing; increasing emissions checks of cars in circulation; and testing by independent and accredited third parties.

The Commission also proposes to improve the WLTP procedure by eliminating test flexibilities and introducing for the first time on-board fuel and/or electric energy consumption monitoring, thereby making it possible to compare laboratory results for CO2 emissions with the average real driving situation. . . .
 
Via GCR:
Report: Former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn criminally charged over dieselgate
https://www.greencarreports.com/new...winterkorn-criminally-charged-over-dieselgate

Former Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn was charged with defrauding the U.S. in a Michigan federal court Thursday for his role in the widespread VW diesel emissions scandal. The charges were first reported by Reuters.

According to the report, the charges were filed secretly in March and made public Thursday. . . .
As Germany doesn't extradite, he's got nothing to worry about from us unless he's dumb enough to enter the country.
 
IssacZachary said:
I read somewhere recently that the main VW defeat was to not send unburned fuel to the NOx trap for reducing the NOx. Is this true?? It sounds plausible. I wonder why they can't just use DEF instead.
There are multiple reasons of varying importance
You have heard most of them, but I think one under reported (and the most important) is that the pollution control devices have a short lifetime.
 
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