2002 Volkswagen Passat Turbo on 2040-cars

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VW Jetta TDI dyno shows HP loss trying to recreate cheat mode

Volkswagen is working on a fix for diesel-engined vehicles that are out of compliance with emissions regulations in the US and other countries. We're told that engineers will be presenting a solution internally sometime this month, but that doesn't mean we'll actually see it in the wild this month. One big question we have about the coming fix is, will it affect the car's performance? That question relates to another we have about the engine as it is: How much performance would the 2.0-liter diesel lose right now if it were turned down to pass US emissions? The Fast Lane Car tried to sketch some answers by going to a shop in Denver, Colorado to run a 2011 Jetta TDI with a six-speed DSG transmission on an all-wheel-drive dyno. The thinking was that if you ran all four wheels the car would think it was on the road, whereas if you ran only two the car might think it's being tested. We'll get straight to the numbers: the stock sedan is quoted at 140 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque. When run with all four wheels turning it produced an uncorrected 114 hp and 214 lb-ft at the wheels. When run with just two wheels in motion the Jetta got 113 hp and 188 lb-ft at the wheels. Reading the graph, we're told that power differences between the two runs were as much as 15 hp and 32 lb-ft. You'll need to take some salt with these numbers, though, because the dyno and test protocol in the video are nothing like those used by the EPA. The shop attempts to trick the Jetta into 'emissions testing mode' by using the front wheels only for the two-wheel-drive run, but we have a feeling the software code at issue is far more sophisticated than that, since the ICCT, UVA, the EPA, and CARB investigated the situation for more than a year and couldn't figure out. Also, the technician adjusts for being a mile above sea level with a correction factor of 1.2 applied to horsepower and torque, which inflates the disparity in the final power differences over the two runs. Go to YouTube and read the lengthy comments on the video left by Andrew Price for a more thorough dissection of what could explain TFL's disparities. You can watch the video above, and feel free to try and dissect the results yourselves in the comments below. Related Video:

VW joins Daimler's protest of new A/C refrigerant as EU deadline for compliance passes

The case of Dupont and Honeywell's refrigerant R-1234yf is doing the exact opposite of keeping things cool. The two chemical companies have spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing R-1234yf to replace R-134a, the new refrigerant shown to be 99.7-percent kinder to the environment than the one it is meant to succeed. Part of that development has been years of testing by governments, outside safety agencies and automakers to approve the chemical for use in cars. It passed the protocols necessary for the European Union to declare that new and significantly revised cars from 2013 onward needed to use R-1234yf, and mandated that every car as of 2017 must use it.
Enter Daimler AG. The automaker created a head-on collision test with a B-Class at their Sindelfingen test track that would lead to the pressurized refrigerant being sprayed on the engine. The result in 20 out of 20 test was that the refrigerant burst into flames as soon as it hit the hot engine, while Daimler says that R-134a does not catch fire in the same test. Another unexpected result of the R-1234yf test was the release of hydrogen flouride, a chemical far more deadly to humans than hydrogen cyanide, emitted in such amounts that it that turned the windshield white as it began to eat into the glass.
Said a Daimler engineer in a Reuters piece, "It was scarcely believable. The most complicated lab tests conducted using the most sensitive measuring instruments around found nothing and all we do is drive a car around a couple of times, open a tiny hole in the refrigerant line and the next thing you know the car is on fire." So Daimler said it wouldn't use the refrigerant, and it recalled the cars it had already shipped with R-1234yf.

Electrify Expo is an all-electrified auto show like the old days

In late July, Autoblog swung by Washington, D.C. to check out the Electrify Expo. Now in its third year of nationwide shows, the Electrify Expo calls itself “North America's largest electric vehicle festival filled with over 1 million square feet of the world's top electric brands.” At every stop, visitors can find out about, crawl around in, drive and ride just about any personal conveyance that uses a battery for propulsion. Truth be told, when the show's PR team reached out to us with an invite, we only considered going after finding out about an area showcasing battery-electric tuner cars. EV tuning is undoubtedly going to be huge—eventually—which got us curious about these early days. We figured weÂ’d brave whatever the rest of the expo was to find out whatÂ’s the equivalent of nitrous for a Tesla. See, the EV event scene is still such that one never knows if theyÂ’ll show up to a mix of science and county fairs with a few cars on display just for truth in advertising, or if theyÂ’ll show up to a parking lot with 26 cars, 10 of them locked, 10 of them homemade, and 6 guarded by promotional hires desperate to tap all your identifying info a tablet before dispensing dubious and superficial information. Which is to say, we didnÂ’t expect much. And that makes us chuffed to report: Electrify Expo is great. We hadnÂ’t been strolling the lot outside the old RFK Stadium for five minutes before thinking, “This feels like an old-school auto show!” The exclamation to that point came from a group of four who cut me off to reach the C40 Recharge in the Volvo booth, one of them exclaiming as if he were the group expert and as if his friends were deaf, “THATÂ’S THE LEAST EXPENSIVE ONE! AND ITÂ’S BEEEE-YOUUUUU-TI-FULLLLLL!” I wasnÂ’t there to judge, I was there for the enthusiasm. Automakers had built small, simple, open booths, parked cars in them, then provided visitors the kind of interactions that will do the most good for anyone wondering about or interested in an EV. We only saw two cars that were off limits, the new Volkswagen ID.Buzz and the Ford F-100 Eluminator. Volvo wouldnÂ’t let me get an espresso from their chic little trailer, either, unless I visited the EX90 Experience trailer first. Otherwise, it was a free-for-all. Tesla had a large booth full of cars. BMW had two i7s open for everyone to sit in, next to the Ford booth with that Eluminator and an unlocked Mustang Mach-E GT and F-150 Lightning showing their cooler-chest-frunk trick.