[ChiragM]

According to a media report, Audi has used up to four different defeat devices in vehicles powered by its 3.0-litre V6 diesel engine. The defeat devices are reported to lower emission readings during German government's emission tests, which are carried out on a rolling road. The emissions are said to be lower than actual real-world emissions.



The defeat devices are claimed to be built by Audi and are said to be used on vehicles built up to the beginning of 2018. That's more than two years after Volkswagen was accused of using defeat devices to lower emissions during tests. It may be recalled that in June 2017, Audi was accused of cheating in emission tests by the German government.

The German transport ministry instructed Audi to recall up to 2,00,000 cars in January 2019. Out of the four defeat devices, only one of them has been deemed to be illegal. Audi can voluntarily remove the other three defeat devices as a part of the recall. The illegal defeat device has been labelled 'Motoraufwärmfunktion', or the 'engine warm-up function'. Cars from Volkswagen and Porsche are also said to be affected.

Source: Autocar

Link to Team-BHP News

[TorqueKnight]

Is this real? People say there are no second chances but these guys blew up their second chance. Remember the saying "Once a cheater, Always a Cheater"?
These guys own that phrase now

[procrastinator]

After people got an update to their cars earlier, they said very less difference in observed in engine performance.
It was difficult to digest.
Why on the earth VAG would cheat emissions and give similar performance after removing the defeat device?

Now it's clear. The engine has been designed to deliver optimal performance with defeat devices only and they can cheat while running car test too.

Notorious brand!

[Garth]

Shocking if true. Have they not learned their lessons yet?

[jailbird_fynix]

So Audi joins the extended Dieselgate family - which comprises of Volkswagen, Chrysler, Jeep, Nissan, Renault & Mercedes. All Hail Capitalism !

[V.Narayan]

When so many OEMs resort to cheat devices means they cannot build an engine that can meet the norms normally and do so within a cost effective price of production. It raises the question if the pollution control standards are too high to be within reasonable reach of industry at a reasonable price. When almost everyone is breaking a law it raises the question if the law is appropriate. A thought.

[jailbird_fynix]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

A thought.

Sir, aren't European emission standards less strict when it comes to diesel engines? Especially when compared to U.S emission standards?

And yes, with the increasing pollution & climate change issues, standards have to get stricter with each passing year. I don't think anything can be done about that. Relaxing the requirements for the convenience of the industry would only do harm to us in the long run. BTW, this is just an opinion. I don't know squat about the whole situation.

[CarJunki]

Ethics is a culture and does not happen overnight as was expected after dieselgate at volksvagen. Replacing CEO with a company insider only means continuation of earlier culture and ethical practices.
Indeed it is quite believable that Audi (a part of Volksvagen group) continued to install cheat devices even after being caught, penalised and paraded as guilty.

I also think that companies are installing these cheat devices as desire to meet new challanges with minor tweaks and not re-engineering as may be needed.

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by jailbird_fynix

And yes, with the increasing pollution & climate change issues, standards have to get stricter with each passing year. I don't think anything can be done about that. Relaxing the requirements for the convenience of the industry would only do harm to us in the long run. BTW, this is just an opinion. I don't know squat about the whole situation.

While I don't endorse cheating, lowering emissions simply isn't a cake walk! Lawmakers and legislators fail to understand how complex it is to lower emissions while retaining the performance and driveability customers have come to expect.

Honestly, this is a result of Big Oil and traditional automobile companies delaying the development of electric cars due to vast amounts of money invested in refineries, oil wells and the internal combustion engine.

I'm pretty sure these companies would've realised that they can't push the ICE for very long with the increasingly stricter emission laws. But then it was already too late as they had already invested too much into new age engines which would never be able to meet the required standard, even before launch! Thus they decided to cheat in order to recover their investments. The rest is history!

A classic case of penny wise pound foolish. But Audi is still being foolish and is playing with fire! Maybe German engineering and common sense don't go hand in hand

[jailbird_fynix]

Originally Posted by Turbohead

Lowering emissions simply isn't a cake walk! Thus they decided to cheat in order to recover their investments.

Thanks, I completely agree. So I guess we can neither blame the lawmaker for the high standards nor can we blame the manufacturers for cheating. This was the point I was trying to make in reference to Narayan sir's post. That probably didn't come through clearly.

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

When so many OEMs resort to cheat devices means they cannot build an engine that can meet the norms normally and do so within a cost effective price of production. It raises the question if the pollution control standards are too high to be within reasonable reach of industry at a reasonable price. When almost everyone is breaking a law it raises the question if the law is appropriate. A thought.

This can also mean that the automaker thinks it is too difficult/expensive and more importantly, too time consuming to get the engine to meet new emission norms, so they decide to cheat.


We are talking premium products from premium reputed manufacturers. All of them were able to 'officially' comply with norms since Day1, nobody took their cars off the market. Not any model, even temporarily. This means either they originally expected this to be a short term measure. Or, they realized they were staring down the barrel of the gun and that the diesel IC engine simply couldn't be made this clean without improvisation. Again, time and speed of execution would have been critical, for if this were the case, all new resources would be spent on electric R&D, making cheat devices just temporary band aid to stay in business till the next round of products come in.

It could have been a choice between openly declaring incompetence in ensuring Euro 6 compliance after spending so much money by the deadline, leading to withdrawal of models from the market, shutting down of factories, crashing of share prices as so much loss of face. Or, to cheat. Keep the factories running and money spinning, while hoping to get away with it for as long as you can. Frankly, the situation the VW group is in wrt emissions is not dissimilar from the mess Ramalinga Raju created at Satyam Computers. You start a lie, and then you keep lying till the truth finally catches up with you.

[V.Narayan]

I am as much for lower emissions and cleaner air as any one else on this forum. My experience in India while setting up or expanding industrial units has been that our green laws are built on theoritical premises as if written by a theoritician with no clue of what technology is available, what is affordable and beneath that what is implementable with machinery and processes available today. Who knows something similar might be occuring in Europe. Common sense tells me that today's technology cannot meet the standards of emmision set for diesel engines within a cost that the market will bear. Hence all this cheating. Either the Govt makes the standards more relaxed or the OEMs stop producing diesels. From what little I have seen cheating by companies at times is motivated by a desire to survive. This is what seems to be happening here. I am no friend of VAG or their little brother Audi. Just trying to point out that this is more nuanced than just a few dishonest executives.

[im_srini]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

...
Common sense tells me that today's technology cannot meet the standards of emmision set for diesel engines within a cost that the market will bear.
...
Either the Govt makes the standards more relaxed or the OEMs stop producing diesels.
...

The people in the know, viz. climate scientists, seem to think that we're too late already.
So if the standards cannot be relaxed, it follows that small diesels have to go.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

...
From what little I have seen cheating by companies at times is motivated by a desire to survive.
...

I would be hesitant to call Audi a company 'trying to survive'.

In the end, it's a question of ethics.

If a student is caught cheating in an exam, do we say...

A) The exam was too tough for the student to prepare in an economical way, so his cheating is Ok

B) Some of the other students cheated too, so something is definitely wrong with the exam, so his cheating is Ok

C) The student's mom died last week, so he could not prepare for the exam, so his cheating is Ok

D) The student's girlfriend dumped him the night before the exam, so he could not prepare for the exam, so his cheating is Ok

E) The student cheated, it's NOT Ok - he needs to be punished !

[nishsingh]

I don't think it is a straightforward case of Audi cheating.

As per the reports " the (German) transport ministry did not undertake testing leading to the discovery of the defeat devices, but instead relied upon information provided by Audi. "

[swissknife]

Originally Posted by ChiragM

Out of the four defeat devices, only one of them has been deemed to be illegal. Audi can voluntarily remove the other three defeat devices as a part of the recall.

How can a device be a defeat device and be legal? If it's legal, how can it be termed as cheating? Also, why would it be expected that Audi removes devices that are legal?