The major car manufacturers have agreed on a common software for the AdBlue dosage. One goal: to deceive the US authorities.
Sometimes a few e-mails are enough to distress a global corporation. “No one wants to report the true motivation to the authorities (CARB, EPA),” says an electronic presentation sent by a VW manager after a meeting with experts from Daimler, BMW, Audi, Porsche and Volkswagen. The said e-mail, written in October 2006, can be found among many other e-mails and minutes in the pleadings sent by the VW Group in an addendum two weeks ago to the EU Commission and the Federal Cartel Office in Bonn. The Wolfsburg reported cases in which they may have violated antitrust law, because they had agreed with the German competitors.
The documents bring to light a fact that neither the judicial authorities in the USA nor the public prosecutor’s offices in Germany have examined so far – but which could put the diesel scandal in a new light. Because they seem to prove what has happened since the revelations of MIRROR about the cartel of the five major car brands (30/2017) as a suspicion in the room is that the major German car manufacturers have not only coordinated and advised on technical details, but that they are the manipulation of emissions and thus the fraud on customers and government agencies not only accepted, but perhaps even agreed jointly.
After
MIRROR
-Information they even co-ordinated a common software platform with the supplier Bosch, in which cheat functions for the individual manipulation of exhaust emissions in the basic version were already created.
In addition, they arranged a big deception maneuver: They wanted to above all not inform the US environmental authorities CARB and EPA, why they do not reduce the emission of nitrogen oxides more. In every detail, they agreed what excuses they wanted to offer the US Environmental Protection Agency for the low levels of AdBlue in their vehicles, which can reduce their nitrogen oxide emissions. They agreed to conceal one important reason: that the use of smaller tanks saves space and money.
Starting in 2006, the working group, in which Porsche lacked its own diesel technology, began to develop a software platform for engine control developed by Bosch for all manufacturers. It should be supplemented with a dosing function. Thus, the urea should be so precisely dosed in all diesel cars that in the approval tests of the authorities enough AdBlue would be injected into the exhaust stream to comply with the limits. In real driving, a more economical dosage was possible. This dosing strategy, according to a letter from VW in 2006, is moving at least in legal gray areas.
In fact, the agreement went Furthermore. It is documented in writing in the documents for the Cartel Office. It reads like an appointment for common deception.
So that the authorities did not become suspicious, Daimler, BMW, Audi and Volkswagen discussed in the working groups the advantages and disadvantages of individual cover-up maneuvers. The goal of the discussions: The cartel brothers did not want to contradict each other, otherwise the US authorities would probably have asked and perhaps even investigated.
The hitherto unknown notes and mails reveal a contempt for laws, environmental regulations and the authorities that monitor their compliance. This is evidenced by the e-mail from a VW employee. In all openness, he writes on the subject of urea consumption: It is not at all “about technology, but about their most skillful representation before the authorities.”
The letter was addressed to the colleagues at Daimler, with whom the VW man sat in one of the 60 working groups of the five car makers. His group has a particularly sensitive issue at the time: it was about how companies deal with the far too small AdBlue tanks in their diesel vehicles. And how they can avoid the authorities coming to grips with it.
Modern diesel vehicles need the urea mixture to clean the exhaust gases. In sufficient quantity injected into a special catalyst (SCR), it causes toxic nitrogen oxides to be converted to nitrogen and water.
But exactly here was the problem: Other working groups had already determined at this time, for reasons of space and cost as small as possible AdBlue tanks in the vehicles to obstruct. At the same time, customers should not have to refuel AdBlue between the inspection intervals of 16,000 kilometers in the US and up to 30,000 miles in Europe. That was forbidden in America. In Europe, carmakers’ sales teams insisted that customers should have as little exposure as possible to the urea mixture. The solution to the self-created dilemma: The consumption of urea had to be adjusted.
Exactly this was discussed in detail in the working group together with Bosch: Back then, Bosch supplied a common software module for the manufacturers. It was a kind of basic equipment for the control of engines, which could be modified and extended by each individual car manufacturer if necessary. In 2006, this basic software was to be supplemented with the special dosing function for AdBlue, because the corresponding cars were about to be launched on the market. In September, Daimler submitted a concrete “functional proposal for online dosing”. “The proposed function is a coordinated (VW, Audi, Daimler, BMW) base, which should be implemented,” it says in the corresponding protocol.
It was about two different variants: A so-called level control, which was also referred to as storage operation. In this function, enough urea should be injected into the catalyst to achieve “highest efficiencies.” This mode, which emerged from an internal BMW presentation from 2007, seemed apt to pass even difficult tests such as the US “FTP-75 Cycle” approval test.
In addition, a so-called online dosage was provided. It regulated the consumption of AdBlue in normal driving and with high NOx emissions. It was supposed to dose precisely and, in an illegal variant, could obviously also be used to increase the amount of urea enough to last as many kilometers as possible. It was accepted that the efficiencies of the catalyst were lower and the emissions of toxic nitrogen oxides higher.
Greater problems prepared the secretive, the dubious features camouflage as well as possible in the software and disguise the backgrounds before the US authorities. Because significant interventions in the emissions of vehicles are banned in the US, unless there is a valid reason. They must be reported to the authorities when registering the vehicles. If this does not happen, manufacturers must expect harsh penalties.
Exactly in this context, the VW manager wrote the sentence that could now bring the corporations additionally under pressure: “All want a limitation because of the limited size of the urea tank.No one wants the true motivation of this limitation of HWL-metering (urea-water Solution) to the authorities (CARB, EPA). ”
This shows that the German carmakers knew perfectly well that they could get into trouble with the US authorities with their software. The aim was therefore to inform the authorities that there is a switchover in the software for certain exceptional situations. However, the real reasons and the extent of the intervention should obviously be concealed.
VW suggested two variants In dealing with the authorities to consider: In the first variant, the car managers wanted to argue that too much AdBlue in the catalyst at high emissions could cause the urea mixture as a toxic “NH3-slip” exiting the exhaust pipes. If you were to tell the authorities about it, you may be able to switch it over, “writes one member of staff. Moreover, it was “at least a physical explanation and not an arbitrary shutdown” that would entail sanctions.
However, such an argument also has disadvantages, the employee continues. For example, the authorities might insist on installing a second or larger catalyst to prevent the escape of ammonia. That would have been expensive for the carmaker.
In the second variant, the authority should be explained that “the limitation of urea takes place depending on operating variables such as (speed, injection modes, altitude …) and to an extent that is legally permissible or at least not detectable in one of the defined emission cycles “.
The managers in their paper also point out the risk for this argument: “Limiting speed, quantity and, in particular, injection modes obviously has nothing to do with any physics of completely engine-independent reduction of urea, if the authorities become aware of such a limitation. These dependencies immediately reveal pure out-of-test-cycle detection. ” In concrete terms, this means that the authorities may have thundered fraud in the form of a prohibited automatic shutdown and imposed severe penalties on the corporations.
The discussions about the right tactics and the exact range of functions take several months. At the end of December, VW announced that the disputed dosing functions should be implemented. Which of the car manufacturers used or modified the functions in their vehicles in the years that followed remains open in the report to the Cartel Office.
BMW says the term “online dosage” is not to be equated with an inadmissible reduction or illegal behavior, but with a pinpoint dosage. An inadmissible switch between test and real operation did not exist at BMW. That would make BMW different from other manufacturers. Bosch, Daimler and VW do not want to comment on ongoing proceedings.
It’s clear: The documents should be unpleasant, especially for VW. Just now, VW and Audi have had to pay over € 20 billion in penalties and compensation in the US for illegal defeat devices.
Following the cartel dispute, several customers filed lawsuits in US courts against the automaker for violating US antitrust and consumer protection laws. They can be extended to a class action suit. The lawyers write: “The accused are repeat offenders against US laws.”
On the other hand, no agreement will help anymore.