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Audi used transmission programming to cheat on emissions
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2016 Nov 8, 8:30am 1,459 views 6 comments
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justme
2016 Nov 8, 8:53am
Low CO2 mode is GOOD. It means using less gasoline. This mode should be standard. The problem is that the mode is turned off during regular driving, so that the car becomes less efficient.
What Audi is doing here is not cheating on "emissions", but cheating on MPG figures (consumption). Note that CO2 is not even directly a regulated emission, only indirectly through "fleet MPG" requirements.
For the VW diesel cars, the cheat was on cold-engine NOx emission, which is also not CO2. That is quite different.
One would think that a car site like Jalopnik would understand this, but nooooo.
NDrLoR
2016 Nov 8, 9:17am
"This appears to be a particular variant of the eight-speed unit"
How does an eight speed transmission ever get into high gear in stop and go town driving anyway? People used to talk about the old four-speed Hydra-Matics and its up and down shifts all the time, what would they think about these things! The complications in such a transmission are mind boggling. If you're going to eight speeds, why not just use a CVT? I've driven rental cars with six speeds and they're shifting through gears all the time to distraction. I've found that I like the Hyundai best because at 75 it's only turning 2,500 RPM. The best automatic ever developed was the Turbo-Hydramatic 400 with the variable pitch stator in Olds, Buicks and Cadillacs 1965-1967 behind 400-430 cubic inch engines. They were so good that Kenne-Bell performance used to salvage used units and adapt them to race cars.
zzyzzx
2016 Nov 8, 9:48am
Low CO2 mode is GOOD. It means using less gasoline. This mode should be standard.
This is why I am suggesting a programming fix to always keep it in this mode.
zzyzzx
2016 Nov 8, 9:49am
Who do they think they are, Volkswagen?
I know you are being sarcastic, but maybe some people don't know that Audi is owned by Volkswagen.
NuttBoxer
2016 Nov 8, 2:42pm
I don't need an Audi to cheat. I just take my car to this old asian dude who putters around for 20 minutes, then spits out a paper saying I passed, without ever starting my car.
http://jalopnik.com/america-figured-out-a-new-way-audi-cheated-on-emissions-1788630969
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has figured out how Audi cheated on a particular run of “several hundred thousand†of their cars, according to a new report by the German newspaper BILD am Sonntag. This time we Americans have discovered a trick in the car’s software that relates to the steering wheel.
When the Audi starts up, its transmission engages a ‘low CO2' program, shifting gears in such a way as to keep engine revs and emissions artificially low. If the steering wheel is turned more than 15 degrees, car deactivates the program and the car shifts in its normal, more pollutant fashion that burns more gas and produces more CO2.
Audi figured that the only time the car would run with the steering wheel never moving would be in a lab, on a test bed. This is a similar philosophy to the classic ‘dyno mode’ cheat that kicked off Dieselgate. It’s so simple, and apparently it was enough to get Audis to pass emissions tests in lab situations they might have never passed in real world conditions.
The cheat was only implemented on cars with an automatic transmission with an internal designation AL 551. This appears to be a particular variant of the eight-speed unit Audi sources from transmission supplier ZF, set up for Quattro models. It apparently covers several hundred thousand vehicles under the cheat, according to Bild am Sonntag’s reporting. Diesel engines and gasoline engines are both affected here, and models involved include the Audi A8, the Audi Q5 as Forbes notes, as well as the Audi Q7.
#audi #vw #pollution #autos #emissions #cheating