The Dieselgate of the Volkswagen Group seems like a genuine soap opera, with no prospect yet of solution. In an article published by the German newspaper Handelsblatt have discovered the origins of the Dieselgate. A software of electronic management of engine is created by Audi and Bosch in 1999 with a very different goal to which it is subjected in the engine EA189. Every good idea has a dark side or a potential to be used to do evil. The Dieselgate was born as a method to reduce the noise of a TDI motor.
The existence of this software was discovered a few days ago the u.s. attorneys are investigating the Dieselgate.
Bosch and Audi developed it in 1999, with the aim of improving the acoustic comfort of the motor TDI pump-injector. Engines known for their performance in noisy and harsh at times, that conflicted with the premium positioning of Audi. To try to mitigate the little refinement acoustic of these engines, the software modified some of the parameters of combustion entering what they called “acoustic mode”. It was effective, but had the side effect of increasing the emissions of pollutants of the propellant turbo.
The engineers designed then a function that deactivated this “acoustic mode” when the car could detect that it was on a bank of rollers, with the aim of producing fewer emissions. According to the German newspaper, Audi ended up discarding the software used to reduce the noise of the engines, for its illegal side effect. The idea was secluded away in some drawer, in the back of the mind of some engineer. Years passed, and in around 2005, the Volkswagen Group began the development of the TDI engines, family EA189.
Bosch warned Volkswagen of the illegality of the use of the software that had been developed with Audi in 1999.
Piech wanted to attack the u.s. market with its TDI engines, and by putting the limit to their workers, requiring them to comply with strict emission limits of the diesel in the U.S. the Fruit of despair, and exhaustion of ideas, any engineer rescues the idea of Audi, with the aim of not losing your work. Magically, all the EA189 comply with the strict regulations Tier2Bin5 of the us EPA, making it more clean combustion when the car detects that it is in a bank of rollers.
Martin Winterkorn – who happen to Piëch to the head of the Volkswagen Group – I knew of the existence of this “defeat device”. And the group of engineers that deployed in the EA189 he was still working for the VAG Group in its majority. An american university has uncovered the existence of the device, and as they say, the rest is history. A story that will pass a huge bill to Volkswagen: they have already announced losses of 4,000 million dollars in 2015, and the repair of the bulk of cars affected or has begun.
Source: The Drive
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