Emissions scandals thread

[homeforsummer]

Through all of this I keep thinking: are the metrics expected by the EPA in any way realistic or achievable at all with a reasonably priced internal combustion engine? Seems to me like they're asking the impossible from manufacturers and, in turn, manufacturers answer in the most cost-efficient way possible even if it's unethical by cheating.

You've pretty much nailed it.

However, the emissions targets aren't impossible, they just require compromises to things like performance and usability that companies don't want to make, because they've lifted expectations so high with technology developed before the emissions regs tightened.

VW has spent the last 20 years or so making Golf TDIs that feel as quick as their petrol equivalents, but it's getting harder to do that without excessive cost when the engines also have to be clean - which, despite the claims of some, has never really been the case.

It's also a difficult engineering job because making improvements in one area doesn't always help in another. Catalytic converters are a good example of this. They were very effective at reducing two key pollutants from combustion, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, but the process increased carbon dioxide emissions. Then governments became concerned about CO2, and manufacturers figured the best way of meeting these targets was with diesels. Diesel engines actually produce more CO2 from combustion, per unit, than petrol engines (a 50mpg diesel will have a higher CO2 figure than a 50mpg petrol), but they tend to use less fuel in the first place so overall figures are lower.

...and then everyone realises that diesels produce other unwelcome emissions like particulates and oxides of nitrogen (the latter of which cause smog, which is why diesel-friendly Paris looks like Beijing some days). But to reduce those without knackering the CO2 benefits, you have to either spend a lot of money on things like urea injection systems, or adjust the car's electronics to compensate, which can harm the way the car delivers its power.

There's no real getting around it though. Cleaner air is absolutely something worthwhile to work towards, and there's always pressure from consumers to have something bigger, faster, more luxurious, more economical, cheaper. It'd probably be much easier to make emissions-compliant cars if consumers stopped asking for the moon on a stick (profit margins on small cars are tiny these days because small cars effectively have to be as well built, and perform as well as bigger ones) but the average consumer will never stand for a smaller, slower and lighter version of the car they're currently driving just because it gets a few more MPGs and produces lower emissions.

 

[IforceV8]

Details on what FCA did. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-01/documents/fca-caa-nov-2017-01-12.pdf

 

[CarBastard]

You've pretty much nailed it.

However, the emissions targets aren't impossible, they just require compromises to things like performance and usability that companies don't want to make, because they've lifted expectations so high with technology developed before the emissions regs tightened.

VW has spent the last 20 years or so making Golf TDIs that feel as quick as their petrol equivalents, but it's getting harder to do that without excessive cost when the engines also have to be clean - which, despite the claims of some, has never really been the case.

It's also a difficult engineering job because making improvements in one area doesn't always help in another. Catalytic converters are a good example of this. They were very effective at reducing two key pollutants from combustion, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, but the process increased carbon dioxide emissions. Then governments became concerned about CO2, and manufacturers figured the best way of meeting these targets was with diesels. Diesel engines actually produce more CO2 from combustion, per unit, than petrol engines (a 50mpg diesel will have a higher CO2 figure than a 50mpg petrol), but they tend to use less fuel in the first place so overall figures are lower.

...and then everyone realises that diesels produce other unwelcome emissions like particulates and oxides of nitrogen (the latter of which cause smog, which is why diesel-friendly Paris looks like Beijing some days). But to reduce those without knackering the CO2 benefits, you have to either spend a lot of money on things like urea injection systems, or adjust the car's electronics to compensate, which can harm the way the car delivers its power.

There's no real getting around it though. Cleaner air is absolutely something worthwhile to work towards, and there's always pressure from consumers It'd probably be much easier to make emissions-compliant cars if consumers stopped asking for the moon on a stick (profit margins on small cars are tiny these days because small cars effectively have to be as well built, and perform as well as bigger ones) but the average consumer will never stand for a smaller, slower and lighter version of the car they're currently driving just because it gets a few more MPGs and produces lower emissions.

I apologize for only answering with a "like" until now, I was not sober enough to answer properly .

I used to think little turbo petrol and diesel engines could work as a stop-gap until electric and hydrogen technology catched up, but that was when I didn't really knew much about engines. Now I understand why this trend within automakers to "downsize" failed to meet expectations: a turbocharger is not a magical device to reduce fuel consumption, I think of it more as a device that varies engine displacement on demand. Yes, I know it's not the way it works technically but hear me out: my 1300cc turbo engine goes like a normal 1300cc engine because it sucks in air like a normal 1300cc engine when I'm not pushing it but, when I go full throttle and hit boost, it goes like a 3000cc engine because it sucks in air like a normal 3000cc engine and this needs the fuel a 3000cc engine would need. There's just no way to make X amount of power without using at least Y amount of fuel unless you want the engine to last mere minutes. Yes, you can reduce Y through more efficient technologies here and there but the bottomline is that 300HP of power need more fuel than 200HP.

With that in mind, I wonder, how far from reality are the expectations of customers and goverments around the world? People want to have something bigger, faster, more luxurious, more economical, cheaper, like you said, but people like us who've had some experience with cars know that you can't have it all. You want it to be fast AND cheap? It won't be ecological. You wan't it to be ecological AND cheap? It won't be fast. But the problem is that we've traditionally only achieved speed through power, focusing on the engine aspect of things. There is, however, a way for a car to be fast and ecological and cheap, once the industry develops the technology, which is the Lotus way: simplify and add lightness.

That above is a proposed city car by none other than Gordon :censored:ing Murray. The trick up it's sleeve? It weighs 550Kg or around 1000 of what some people call "pounds". Even Jeremy Clarkson said in a column some years ago that small cars could be luxurious and comfortable, similar to what Aston Martin tried with the Cygnet, it's just a matter of interior design and proper suspension tuning. With so little mass to go around, a little 80HP engine would make it feel as quick as a regular 300HP car weighing 1500kgs. There you go: more luxurious, faster, more economical, more ecological and cheaper if the industry around composites developed enough so the economy of scale and do it's thing. Or think about the Volkswagen XL1. Same operating concept only taken a bit further, focusing on aerodynamics as well this time:

Maybe we're at the limit of what can be realistically done with a mass-produced internal combustion engine. If this is true, then there's absolutely no sense in increasignly stringent emission and fuel consumption regulations. They'll just keep causing what we've just seen: automakers responding with cars that can only match such regulations theoretically through defeat devices. Unless there's a serious re-think about other elements of the car besides the engine, I think we're truly :censored:ed. This emissions scandals will keep on popping up, regulations will keep having no real-world consequences and cleaner air will keep being just a dream. Re-thinking personal transportation as a whole is also something that should be considered but I think I've bored ya all enough with this long-ass post .

 

[JC_Dude]

We're not even close to the limit of the ICE. Modern road-going ICE's have a thermal efficiency of around 30. F1 cars' ICE have a TE of nearly 50%. This is why motorsport IS important to developing road cars.

Besides that, there are lots of ways to optimize petrol cars. I still don't get why no car other than the XL1 has cameras instead of wing mirrors, for instance.

 

[CarBastard]

We're not even close to the limit of the ICE. Modern road-going ICE's have a thermal efficiency of around 30. F1 cars' ICE have a TE of nearly 50%. This is why motorsport IS important to developing road cars.

Besides that, there are lots of ways to optimize petrol cars. I still don't get why no car other than the XL1 has cameras instead of wing mirrors, for instance.

Exactly, but that's why I said "mass-produced internal combustion engine". Beyond that 30% of thermal efficiency, each little gain comes at a humongous economical cost and then there's the matter of how reliable and usable in a consumer application would such an engine be. That said, MOTORSPORT FTW! It's a shame that manufacturares are taking longe than before in trickling down motorsports tech to consumer cars.

But even with a thermal efficiency of 30% there's a lot that can be achieved in terms of increased performance and reduced emissions/consumption if we focused on honest to God lightweight design.

 

[Obelisk]

Exactly, but that's why I said "mass-produced internal combustion engine". Beyond that 30% of thermal efficiency, each little gain comes at a humongous economical cost and then there's the matter of how reliable and usable in a consumer application would such an engine be. That said, MOTORSPORT FTW! It's a shame that manufacturares are taking longe than before in trickling down motorsports tech to consumer cars.

But even with a thermal efficiency of 30% there's a lot that can be achieved in terms of increased performance and reduced emissions/consumption if we focused on honest to God lightweight design.

Honest to God, I think Mazda is one of the better companies in terms of lightweight design and good engine building - the Mazda3 tips the scales at around 2800 pounds and the MPG difference between the 2.0 Skyactiv and the 2.5 Skyactiv are negligible (30/41 vs 29/40 respectively). The Mazda6 isn't that bad with gas, either.

Actually, IIRC, Mazda has one of the best fleet averages right now.

 

[homeforsummer]

I apologize for only answering with a "like" until now, I was not sober enough to answer properly .

I used to think little turbo petrol and diesel engines could work as a stop-gap until electric and hydrogen technology catched up, but that was when I didn't really knew much about engines. Now I understand why this trend within automakers to "downsize" failed to meet expectations: a turbocharger is not a magical device to reduce fuel consumption, I think of it more as a device that varies engine displacement on demand. Yes, I know it's not the way it works technically but hear me out: my 1300cc turbo engine goes like a normal 1300cc engine because it sucks in air like a normal 1300cc engine when I'm not pushing it but, when I go full throttle and hit boost, it goes like a 3000cc engine because it sucks in air like a normal 3000cc engine and this needs the fuel a 3000cc engine would need. There's just no way to make X amount of power without using at least Y amount of fuel unless you want the engine to last mere minutes. Yes, you can reduce Y through more efficient technologies here and there but the bottomline is that 300HP of power need more fuel than 200HP.

With that in mind, I wonder, how far from reality are the expectations of customers and goverments around the world? People want to have something bigger, faster, more luxurious, more economical, cheaper, like you said, but people like us who've had some experience with cars know that you can't have it all. You want it to be fast AND cheap? It won't be ecological. You wan't it to be ecological AND cheap? It won't be fast. But the problem is that we've traditionally only achieved speed through power, focusing on the engine aspect of things. There is, however, a way for a car to be fast and ecological and cheap, once the industry develops the technology, which is the Lotus way: simplify and add lightness.

That above is a proposed city car by none other than Gordon :censored:ing Murray. The trick up it's sleeve? It weighs 550Kg or around 1000 of what some people call "pounds". Even Jeremy Clarkson said in a column some years ago that small cars could be luxurious and comfortable, similar to what Aston Martin tried with the Cygnet, it's just a matter of interior design and proper suspension tuning. With so little mass to go around, a little 80HP engine would make it feel as quick as a regular 300HP car weighing 1500kgs. There you go: more luxurious, faster, more economical, more ecological and cheaper if the industry around composites developed enough so the economy of scale and do it's thing. Or think about the Volkswagen XL1. Same operating concept only taken a bit further, focusing on aerodynamics as well this time:

Maybe we're at the limit of what can be realistically done with a mass-produced internal combustion engine. If this is true, then there's absolutely no sense in increasignly stringent emission and fuel consumption regulations. They'll just keep causing what we've just seen: automakers responding with cars that can only match such regulations theoretically through defeat devices. Unless there's a serious re-think about other elements of the car besides the engine, I think we're truly :censored:ed. This emissions scandals will keep on popping up, regulations will keep having no real-world consequences and cleaner air will keep being just a dream. Re-thinking personal transportation as a whole is also something that should be considered but I think I've bored ya all enough with this long-ass post .

No worries for the long post - all makes sense!

You're right about turbocharged engines. The idea behind them is to get the performance of a larger engine with economy equivalent to the smaller engine.

Unfortunately, too many of them get the economy of the larger engine with the power and response of the smaller one... at least until the boost comes in!

I think some of it at least is the way in which engines are being downsized. I've seen some pretty good economy from say, VW's 1.2 TSI engines - 50-odd mpg, which isn't bad. But those are four-cylinder, and I think three (and two) cylinder engines don't help the economy cause because of the way they feel and the way they develop their power. They can feel a little rough at low revs, which makes you think the engine is labouring, so you change down (and use more fuel). Most of the time, they're actually fine at low revs (perfectly capable, in fact), but the weird offbeat thrumming probably means people drive them at higher revs where they're smoother, and it knackers economy.

Of course, that only applies to smaller downsized engines. With bigger ones - distinctly uneconomical EcoBoost F-150s etc - it's a pure air/fuel thing. You want performance, you've got to use the fuel.

The fix as far as I'm concerned is mild hybrids - tiny battery, starter/generator electric motor, conventional engine. You can use an appropriately-sized engine for the size/weight of car, or maybe even slightly smaller, but make up for the performance deficit with an electric motor instead of chucking extra fuel in turbo-style.

My old Honda Insight used such a system: small car, 1-litre engine, electric assistance. Made 20% more power (and about 50% more torque) than a usual 1-litre car, but drank fuel like a particularly economical 1-litre car. It was quite amazing in some cases - if you were driving up a hill and needed more power, it would use more electric power than petrol power, so you'd be able to hold your speed up the hill but the insta-mpg meter would continue to sit on the nail of 50mpg. Press the throttle harder, it'd use even more electric power. The real-world economy of that thing is still higher than any other non-plugin car, no matter how modern, that I've driven.

We're not even close to the limit of the ICE. Modern road-going ICE's have a thermal efficiency of around 30. F1 cars' ICE have a TE of nearly 50%. This is why motorsport IS important to developing road cars.

As @CarBastard says, it's not so much a matter of theory but of cost too. Regular road-going internal combustion engines may never get to 50% thermal efficiency, because the effort and expense required would make the car in question unsaleable. And possibly not very nice to drive - worth remembering that the design requirements for an F1 engine are much, much slimmer than for a road car engine - they don't have to work (almost at all) at low revs, they don't have to last for hundreds of thousands of miles (even though they now have to last the best part of a season, or whatever it is), etc.

Motorsport is absolutely important to developing road cars, on that you're correct - but internal combustion probably shouldn't be where that development now takes place. The potential for motorsport to improve something more broadly useful for the future - such as electric powertrains or batteries - is much greater. Given an electric motor can be over 90% thermally efficient, its starting point is already twice as efficient as the very best combustion engines.

Honest to God, I think Mazda is one of the better companies in terms of lightweight design and good engine building - the Mazda3 tips the scales at around 2800 pounds and the MPG difference between the 2.0 Skyactiv and the 2.5 Skyactiv are negligible (30/41 vs 29/40 respectively). The Mazda6 isn't that bad with gas, either.

Actually, IIRC, Mazda has one of the best fleet averages right now.

Mazda has a term for it: "Rightsizing". It basically means using an engine appropriate in size to the car you're putting it in. What a funny, crazy idea...

 

[Obelisk]

Mazda has a term for it: "Rightsizing". It basically means using an engine appropriate in size to the car you're putting it in. What a funny, crazy idea...

The funny thing about that is they have a turbo I4 in the bigger SUVs in the Mazda line.

 

[homeforsummer]

The funny thing about that is they have a turbo I4 in the bigger SUVs in the Mazda line.

Suspect that's necessity and economics more than anything - being an independent manufacturer, Mazda can't really afford to develop a larger (e.g. V6 engine) so boosting an existing turbo four is the easier route.

 

[IforceV8]

VAG pleads guilty to 3 felonies in US court. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-idUSKBN16H1W4?il=0

 

[Dennisch]

The German fraudulent diesel Cartel, I mean the German car manufacturers have agreed to reduce the NOx emissions by 25-30% by altering the software in 5 million diesels to prevent a ban of diesels in the German cities.

 

[Dotini]

The German fraudulent diesel Cartel, I mean the German car manufacturers have agreed to reduce the NOx emissions by 25-30% by altering the software in 5 million diesels to prevent a ban of diesels in the German cities.

I think they need to do a bit better than that to avoid their calamitously colluding criminal cartel being brought down a few more pegs. There are tens of millions of diesels operating on the roads of Germany.

 

[Dennisch]

I think they need to do a bit better than that to avoid their calamitously colluding criminal cartel being brought down a few more pegs. There are tens of millions of diesels operating on the roads of Germany.

Correct, but I think only those 5 million are breaking the rules designed for them.

 

[Tornado]

The fix as far as I'm concerned is mild hybrids - tiny battery, starter/generator electric motor, conventional engine. You can use an appropriately-sized engine for the size/weight of car, or maybe even slightly smaller, but make up for the performance deficit with an electric motor instead of chucking extra fuel in turbo-style.

It always seemed curious that GM abandoned that simple-ish setup that they came up with for the full size trucks around 2010. There were obvious improvements to the kind of driving that the Tahoe/Silverado/Suburban always do worst at, without nearly the outlay required to design a completely new drivetrain package. Granted it added a big whack to the upfront cost, but they probably could have made it much cheaper if they were giving it a go today and had designed the current generation around it. And people are clearly willing to pay the cost for Ecoboost F-150s to get 5.0L V8 mileage anyway.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I've heard of 7-liter Z06 Corvettes getting 30mpg or better on the highway. It seems to me that a large normally aspirated engine with a large amount of torque in a light-weight car is the best way to go in terms of fuel efficiency. Lean out the fuel mixture and ride the low end torque in a steep overdrive gear. High RPM & Boost both require a substantial increase in fuel (richer-than normal fuel mixture) to reduce detonation, which reduces fuel economy and increases emissions. Mazda is absolutely doing it right, in my opinion, with the 2.5L Skyactiv. Non-hybrid, non-turbo, larger-than-usual displacement, lighter-than-usual overall weight and stellar economy.

I feel like Hybrids are only really effective at reducing fuel consumption and emissions in city conditions, they seem to actually be detrimental during sustained highway speeds. I would love to see somebody work out a turbo-compound engine with a "super-cruise" mode. Also, I've always wondered if a exhaust-turbine could be used as a high-rpm electric generator....seems like it would be an effective way of recovering exhaust energy to produce electricity...

 

[homeforsummer]

It always seemed curious that GM abandoned that simple-ish setup that they came up with for the full size trucks around 2010. There were obvious improvements to the kind of driving that the Tahoe/Silverado/Suburban always do worst at, without nearly the outlay required to design a completely new drivetrain package. Granted it added a big whack to the upfront cost, but they probably could have made it much cheaper if they were giving it a go today and had designed the current generation around it. And people are clearly willing to pay the cost for Ecoboost F-150s to get 5.0L V8 mileage anyway.

Absolutely. In retrospect it'll probably be seen as one of those really shortsighted business decisions when virtually all non-plugin vehicles end up being mild hybrids anyway - which seems fairly likely, given it's a pretty low-hanging fruit as far as economy and emissions are concerned.

Very few drawbacks either. Petrolheads get to continue enjoying combustion vehicles for a while longer, mild hybrids happily work with manual transmissions, and you can have a nice hit of low-down torque without sacrificing mid-range or top-end power.

In trucks specifically, the weight penalty is proportionally lower than it is in a smaller vehicle too - though given the mild-hybrid and turbocharged Suzuki Swift I drove recently was about 900kg, it's not much of a weight penalty for regular cars any more either.

I feel like Hybrids are only really effective at reducing fuel consumption and emissions in city conditions, they seem to actually be detrimental during sustained highway speeds.

Yes and no. Depends on the hybrid, and really it varies from car to car. The aforementioned Swift mild hybrid was doing around 60mpg UK (/50mpg US/4.7L per 100km) at 70mph - effectively, it was operating mostly like a normal car, perhaps with a bit of hybrid assistance now and then, but not enough of a weight penalty to make it any worse than a non-hybrid equivalent.

The old second-gen Honda Insight (the five-door fastback one) did about the same on an old 50-mile two-way highway route I used to use for testing economy, again sitting at 70mph - and a pretty much identical figure to two or three 1.6-litre turbodiesels I drove along the same route at the same speed.

Diesel has kind of adopted this reputation for being a "highway" technology and hybrid as a "city" one, but given so many modern hybrids have been designed for maximum aerodynamic efficiency they're generally very economical at higher speeds as well as lower ones. Driving style matters too of course - hybrids are a little less adept at shrugging off poor technique than diesels - but driven "normally", most hybrids are pretty frugal whatever the conditions.

 

[TenEightyOne]

A former VW engineer has been jailed for his part in the scandal. BBC.

 

[Tornado]

But US District Court Judge Sean Cox opted for a harsher penalty of 40 months and a $200,000 penalty, saying he wanted to send a message to others in the car industry.

Because nothing sends a message to a multinational corporation like throwing the book at a single guy.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Because nothing sends a message to a multinational corporation like throwing the book at a single guy.

I mostly agree, but the flip-side is that if you don't prosecute people who act for a company knowing that what they're doing is against the law then you preserve the "only following orders" argument as a defence. Company staff who act illegally should know that their actions are accountable personally as well as corporately.

The obvious problem in this case is that the companies themselves don't seem to be taking proportionately similar hits.

 

[Tired Tyres]

I mostly agree, but the flip-side is that if you don't prosecute people who act for a company knowing that what they're doing is against the law then you preserve the "only following orders" argument as a defence. Company staff who act illegally should know that their actions are accountable personally as well as corporately.

The obvious problem in this case is that the companies themselves don't seem to be taking proportionately similar hits.

You don't think 50-60 billion Euro fines for VAG so far, fully 25% of the stock market value of the group isn't a big enough hammer?

Data from a Radio Le Mans podcast interview with a German reporter immediately before Porsche announced they were pulling out of WEC.

 

[TenEightyOne]

You don't think 50-60 billion Euro fines for VAG so far, fully 25% of the stock market value of the group

Source? The most I can find is 20 billion and the value of the company is listed by Forbes at 79 billion.

I still don't see how cutting a shareholder dividend is proportionate (definitely the word I used) to taking 200,000 off one individual and removing their liberty for 3 years.

 

[Tired Tyres]

Source? The most I can find is 20 billion and the value of the company is listed by Forbes at 79 billion.

I still don't see how cutting a shareholder dividend is proportionate (definitely the word I used) to taking 200,000 off one individual and removing their liberty for 3 years.

It's not then. Locking up the guys at the top would be then. As for fines and values, your numbers are 25% so I think I probably aren't remembering correctly. As for source, that was the Radio Le Mans podcast I mentioned.

 

[Liquid]

Germany has an election coming up soon. Something interesting from one of Merkel's speeches.

Image: "We have 15 million diesel owners in Germany. [...] We must do everything to stop this ban and the depreciation/obsolescence which goes with it."

Tweet: "Modern diesels are really great, environmentally-friendly cars." Chancellor Merkel in the Election Arena on diesel.

 

[Dennisch]

Spoken like a true politician.

Germany should force their automotive sector to put all their effort in getting rid of diesels by 2025 tops.
With the current development of hybrids and EV's it should be possible.
If they don't the Koreans and Japanese will take over the European market.

Germany already lost their most valuable asset when it comes to cars. Their reliability. And the emissions scandal isn't helping their case either.

Edit.

And as I posted that, VW announces that they will invest €70 billion in electric vehicles, of which €20 billion goes to the cars, and €50 billion goes to battery development.

I feel like an Oracle.

 

[daan]

Found this a rather interesting story and comparison.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/how_toxic_is_your_car_exhaust

 

[Dennisch]

Found this a rather interesting story and comparison.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/how_toxic_is_your_car_exhaust

It was quite the read, and sadly, hardly surprising that most manufacturers still think so lightly about the environment.

 

[homeforsummer]

Lots of reports in the automotive media recently that new car CO2 figures in the UK have gone up by 0.8% in 2017 compared to 2016.

The reason for this is being put down to the decline in diesel sales, amid consumer confusion over whether diesel drivers will be heavily penalised by the government in the coming years, itself stemming from the fallout of the dieselgate scandal.

I found this report interesting, in that it suggests that it isn't the decline in diesel sales that's to blame, but the increase in sales of crossovers and SUVs - vehicles that can produce 10-20% more CO2 than the non-SUVs they're based on. Between 2016 and 2017, sales of such vehicles rose by about 5%.

It makes me think it's incredibly disingenuous of a company like JLR to suggest that falling diesel sales are the issue when it shifted over 600k mostly-SUVs in 2017, 16% up on 2016.

Consumers may buy what they wish and that seems to be SUVs right now, so it's unsurprising JLR is doing well out of it, but if your company is selling record numbers of bigger, heavier, less efficient cars, you can't turn around and say the government is the one at fault for making diesels less appealing.

 

[Touring Mars]

The New York Times recently revealed that a research group (called EUGT) funded by VW, Daimler and BMW had conducted unethical research using humans and monkeys in an effort to challenge the WHO's classification of diesel fumes as a carcinogen...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42858668

 

[MatskiMonk]

The New York Times recently revealed that a research group (called EUGT) funded by VW, Daimler and BMW had conducted unethical research using humans and monkeys in an effort to challenge the WHO's classification of diesel fumes as a carcinogen...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42858668

I'd be curious to know what was unethical about this... or at least, what is unethical about this that makes it newsworthy compared to regular goings on in other industries.

 

[danimac]

That's very sad if true. Also speaking of monkey's these fools apparently tested on humans too. I'ts disgusting and wrong if they really did this. Most likely did. They thought it would cost more or be to hard to actually create cars that would produced less carbon footprint emissions so they cheated and got caught. Now its cost them way more than they could ever have imagined. Greedy SOB's.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/29/controversy-german-carmakers-tested-exhaust-fumes-humans/