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Here's the real answer about the lawsuits

2K views 8 replies 9 participants last post by  HoosierD 
#1 ·
It doesn't look like the EPA is involved with this aspect of the on going issues, but who knows. EPA has been know to "collude" with environmental organizations before to further their goals.

FCA Statement On Emissions Lab Testing

All engines will fail an emissions test if you look hard enough.
 
#2 · (Edited)
These were the butt nuggets who originally exposed the VW TDI ordeal. Essentially, the EPA created a test and VW programmed their vehicles to pass the test. When the WVU team exposed the EPA, they shed the blame onto VW and said they must be cheating. Study to pass the test, like that never happens anywhere in the USA nowadays.

This is a joke - the Hemi V8 gas WK2 at 10mpg less surely puts out more pullutants than one with an EcoDiesel and with California's push for renewable diesel (not biodiesel), NOx emissions go down 14% right off the bat when you use it. VW took one up the keester over the whole diesel thing and they'll be walking gingerly for quite some time, but diesel is far from dead, even in the US. (ex. 2018 F-150 with new Powerstroke V6 diesel)
 
#3 ·
My issue is with the test methodology that CAFEE is not willing to reveal. That is very suspicious. Who validates and verifies these clowns? Where is the peer review of the methods used? FCA is asking for that data and guess what CAFEE is unwilling to produce it.
CAFEE and those bringing the law suits will get their ass handed to them in court without providing this data for testing. This is part of the discovery and I am betting FCA is already generating a request for that data.

Very flaky? This is very much like playing games.
Here is the scenario:
Your vehicle exceeds the pollutants allowed by EPA.
FCA: OK please provide how you tested this so we can review the results too.

CAFEE/EPA/ name your suit: You can't have that data.

Yeah that is going to go over well in court.

I want to see the results and the testing used to get those results.

I don't believe anything until that data and methods are revealed. FCA could be guilty as hell or not but this is BS to play these games. All in the name of billable hours!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
#4 ·
there's a difference between studying to pass the test (good engineering and development of the platform) and cheating to pass the test (knowing the test and "designing" your software around it while keeping a knowingly failing platform unchanged).
 
#5 ·
IMHO, as someone who has been an active engineer for several decades, that's naive.

The emissions performance of the vehicle is defined by the tests it must pass. This is no different than the CPU "benchmark wars" which I was party to in the 80s and 90s.. there were (and are) many narrow optimizations in CPU/system architecture that have zero or even negative value to the everyday user, but that smoke on one or more benchmarks. This has resulted in better benchmarks (the equivalent of road testing for emissions).

There were many situations where someone would come out with a new benchmark which would show up some architecture particularly poorly.. and it often turned out that benchmark was narrowly crafted to prove that particular point. When the purveyor of the benchmark was required to cough up the actual code (rather than general statements about what they were testing), the emperor was usually found to have no clothes.

The squishy legal part of this emissions kerfluffle is the concept of a "defeat device" .. my take on it is that we're in a "he said she said" about what that really is.

But that's just my $0.02, YMMV.

...tom
 
#8 ·
On May 23, 2017, the US Attorney General filed suit in Michigan against FCA (US and Italy), for defeat devices. They must be serious. Google Department of Justice May 23, 2017 FCA lawsuit. Civil penalties are Bigly. My JGC ecodiesel re-sale price has taken a hit…
 
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