[ExI] vw games emissions tests

[spike]

>. On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] vw games emissions tests

 

On 2015-09-27 23:44, spike wrote:



 

>>.I have some ideas, but the real question is this: does
reverse-engineering VW's emissions settings violate intellectual property
rules? 


>.According the The Economist, this seems to be how the company kept third
party researchers from investigating the algorithms. -- Anders Sandberg

 
 
Since the development of computer controlled fuel injection, car makers have
had the option of adjusting performance and fuel economy with software.  It
applies to gasoline engines as well as Diesel, but I can see where the
Diesels would have been a temptation.  Catalytic converters need to be kept
hot in order to break down the nitrous oxides.  A Diesel engine gets some of
its efficiency by injecting less fuel into the airstream when spinning but
not under load.  This operation mode, common in passenger cars, allows the
catcon to cool, where it doesn't work as well.
 
I put some blame on the news media.  They are running gleeful headlines
about the rigged cars spewing 40 times the pollutants and so forth, the kind
of headlines that sell clicks.  We envision (I did this too, and I know
better) a Jetta spewing choking clouds of soot.  But that isn't what happens
at all.  It emits 40 times as much NOx, which doesn't really hurt anything.
The levels were already set way down there, so it isn't clear 40 times a
trace is anything more than a less tiny trace.  But getting rid of that
little bit of NOx will burn a lot more Diesel and will result in more
choking clouds of soot.
 
All this said, I hope something good comes of all this, such as the
engineering realization that the real brilliance of a Diesel is when it is
operated under constant speed and load.  Then the catcons can be kept hot,
the soot production minimized and controlled, the energy extracted from the
fuel at maximum efficiency.  Semi-trucks do this so very well, which is why
they can haul 20 times the weight with 4 times the fuel as a passenger car.
We can have all these advantage too, if we drive series hybrid Diesel cars.
But this efficiency and clean running comes at a cost: series hybrids don't
accelerate hard.  
 
But if we have self-drivers, that doesn't matter as much.
 
This is a fun time for mechanical engineers.  {8^D
 
spike
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