EPA accuses Fiat Chrysler of excess diesel emissions

[oil pan 4]

Someone forgot to cut a check to the DNC.

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

No, the engineers can meet the emissions standards. They just can't do it at the right price point, weight and form factor to satisfy their Board. Assignment 1: Make this diesel pass emissions, report what it's going to take to do it. Assignment 2: Ignore the results of Assignment 1 and just fit the diesel in this car, spending no more than $X, and make it look like it passes emissions.

I probably should have written '... cannot be done simply' instead
About anything can be done if money is not prohibitive.

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

RustyLugNut- Yes, the main news is that the EPA charged someone. But you're reading it backwards: The takeaway is that since the Volkswagen problem, the EPA actually started looking for other automakers doing the same thing. The fact that they found one isn't news at all, and the fact that it's going to be argued is even less newsworthy.

Sure, the EPA caught an engine from FCA polluting more than they supposed. The difference is in the operation. VWs "Cheats" sensed a road going situation and absolutely changed the whole emissions profile to turn off the functionality of the systems for the most part. FCAs diesel gets "caught" producing more emissions during road going tests. The infractions happen during specific loading situations or during changeover functions such as trap purge or valve cleaning. FCAs failure is not one of cheating, it is one of bending over backwards to work with the EPA in explaining the operations of its systems to the bureaucrats with voluminous amounts of detail allowing those bureaucrats to find 8 "undeclared" AECDs to charge FCA with. All modern diesels go through purge cycles for particle traps and urea traps. They go through cycles to clean engine valves and EGR valves. FCAs legal team should have been more careful in allowing lines of code within other lines of code to be "undeclared". That is the EPAs accusation. It is a legal battle. These engines are not producing 40 times the NOx emissions on a regular basis as VWs engines were programmed to do. They are producing emissions under very specific conditions for limited amounts of time with code that was deemed to be "hidden". If FCAs code had been properly annotated and "declared", there would be no basis for an accusation. FCAs frustration is real, as they were working openly with the EPA allowing access to vital information without a court injunction. But, billions of dollars are on the line and the legal waters will change with a new administration, so EPA dumps all the good work they and FCA had put in over the last year and a half and makes an accusation of cheating.

Will this make our air any cleaner? No. It will make all diesel manufacturers think twice about working so openly with the EPA. And it will make the life of a programmer that much stickier as legal teams will pour over thousands of lines of code to determine what is declarable. If you are a contract lawyer with programming skills, you might have a new set of clients.

And yes, the pointed humor about FCAs bungling did show up in blocks of code to control physical devices that are not present in the North American engines but are used in European and Asian markets.

I live and work in Southern California producing emissions tech for the diesel market. I work with representatives of CARB ( California Air Research Board) and the AQMD ( Air Quality Management District ). These are good people doing good work to keep our air clean. It is a daunting task. However, what has happened between the EPA and FCA is just a sign of the political times. This has nothing to do with cleaning the air.