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-   -   USA: Mercedes being probed for cheating in diesel emission tests (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/international-automotive-scene/195961-usa-mercedes-being-probed-cheating-diesel-emission-tests.html)

After Volkswagen's infamous diesel gate scandal, in which the company used a cheat software to beat emission tests came to light, it appears that Mercedes too might have employed similar methods for its cars.

The German carmaker is now under investigation by the authorities in the United States and Germany. If found guilty, the company could face monetary penalties and could have to recall and fix all the cars already on the road.

According to a media report, investigators in the United States have uncovered software functions in the diesel variants of Mercedes cars that made the car pass emission tests and in one instance, even switch off the emission control systems after travelling 26 km. Investigators are also studying if the cheat software allowed the emissions cleaning system to regulate the emissions based on speed or acceleration.

Volkswagen admitted in 2015 that it had installed software in its car that would allow them to pollute up to 40 times more than the permissible limits in the United States and yet pass emission tests. Back in 2016, a lawsuit was filed against Mercedes in the United States. The complainant claimed that German carmaker's "Clean Diesel" vehicles emitted alarming levels of nitrogen oxide gases (NOx) in the real world in comparison to lab tests.



Source - Reuters

Link to the Team-BHP News

3 years down the line and that can of worms seems to be heading towards being barrels of it. More and more manufacturers are being uncovered of all the tricks they've played for god knows how long on hiding or manipulating emission data. Right now its just the Europeans, is there anyone investigating the Japanese, Koreans or even us for that matter?

I think almost every European manufacturer has been found to publish incorrect emission data or use methods that do not replicate real world scenarios.

I don't think Mercedes would cheat. Mercedes deployed AdBlue in its diesels, whereas VW's software tricks were basically to bypass the cost of such an additive-based system.

Looks like there is more to it.:)


Source:

This raises the question of whether the standards being set are too high to be achieved in an economically viable manner. Before you react this is a legitimate question. Standards are set under pressure (social and political) from green activists often without adequate consideration to the state of industry, technology and economics. Those Team BHPians, like me, who have dealt with these situations and seen how the rules or standards are framed will at least understand the challenges MB and VW faced. I am not for a moment parleying for MB or VW. But when corporate giants of the industry, one after another, fail to be able to meet a standard then at some point a much deeper introspection is called for.

Let me share a real life experience that may enrich the perspective here...

In my business we proposed to set up a specialized engineering service which also released fumes into the air. No rule existed in India for that service or those fumes as we were the very first. We asked the Govt for a standard and shared with them the rule book for Europe. In the meantime the capital equipment was ordered. The rules in Europe while tough were practical and most importantly measurable - they were higher than the equivalent standards in USA. The GoI came up with text book perfect rules and almost no objective criterion of the way it was to be measured (which is a world of difference from saying xxx parts per million). We explained to them that we can meet the European criterion, which are the highest globally for the industry, but these new GoI rules are impossible to meet and make no economical sense to the customer. But the pressure of the political greens was such that no bureaucrat worth his file folder would apply common sense. So, sadly, we simply closed the project in our own country and set it up in an economically viable European Union site and for 8 years have never had any trouble with their authorities. Job creaton 250 EU - Nil India. After us two foreign entities looked at setting up the same business, fainted when they saw the rules - one went to Malaysia (which I had also examined) and the second to Turkey.

These standards do not always get set in a holistic way where you not only match the needs of a cleaner society but also balance it with what the industry can realistically achieve and what the customer is willing to pay for. When green laws are set tacitly assuming the industry to be the enemy society ends up with laws that can't or won't be met. I would not be surprised if in the EU a sensitive industry such as the automotive one has a hundred rule makers few of whom have any ownership of how it will actually work in real life.

Other than speeding up the journey towards electrics this could also lead to some deeper thinking on the rules themselves and the need for diesels in cars.

Something ready from CNN today
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/22/e...ntl/index.html

Coming to standards on whether they were impossible to meet, the real world measurements were worse and the authorities didnt bother. Only when cheating was detected, they started pursuing it.

One very important graphic in the article on how VW isnt affected by all the fine it had to pay

Thanks for the wonderful insight, the problem with the environmental activists is that they are all for strict rules for the sake of the earth, doesn't matter if the working class are shafted, virtue signalling takes priority over people. Most have no real jobs and are funded by shady entities, so much so that GOI had to lean hard on them to tone down their rhetoric about nuclear power.

Daimler Halts Supplies of Some Truck Engines on Emission Issues.


Link

The flip side of the story is that human beings, with their typical nearsightedness, cannot put an economic value to the environmental concerns (which affect over very long period).

Hah, even personal safety does not make economic sense to most human beings (yes the working class) - doesn't mean that we forgo rules enforcing it; so I would prefer if someone errs on the side of being too harsh, rather than being too lenient.

Human beings? You mean people like us, certainly the working class in your opinion don't have the farsightedness that you possess. In the long run we're all dead, the only way the environment can be protected is by having people to have an economic benefit from it. Successful anti poaching initiatives all have an economic angle, just to give an example.

The bhpian you quoted has spent the better part of his life running an enterprise with working class people. He is better placed to comment on the regulation (inspector raj in common parlance), that's created to destroy SMEs, only big business supports this as it creates huge entry barriers

The current hysteria about pollution was created by policy to deal with another climate hysteria, CO2 overload, all of us were going to get cooked and this could be solved with more people using diesel. Now, the same agitators want everyone to do the opposite, well I guess they are blessed with farsightedness now.

Daimler risks fine as German prosecutors launch new probe.


Link

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mercede...-billion-fine/

Looks like this is it.