Mercedez Benz News German Paper Reports Diamler May Have Used Defeat Device In Their Diesel Vehicles

[William Maley]

It seems Volkswagen wasn't the only German automaker that was using a defeat device in their diesel vehicles. Over the weekend, German paper Bild am Sonntag obtained documents that revealed Diamler may have been using illegal software modifications to pass emission tests. U.S. investigators looking into Daimler found two engine management functions,

• Slipguard: Recognized whether or not the vehicle was being tested in a lab
• Bit 15: Turned off the emissions cleaning after 26 kilometers (16 miles) of driving

Bild also cited emails from Daimler engineers questioning whether or not the functions were legal or not.

“The authorities know the documents and no complaint has been filed, The documents available to Bild have obviously selectively been released in order to harm Daimler and its 290,000 employees," a Diamler spokesman told Reuters.

The spokesman declined to comment on the content of the documents, saying that it " had agreed upon strict confidentiality with the Department of Justice."

Diamler has been under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and Stuttgart prosecutors over allegations of possible cheating.

Source: Bild via Reuters

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[David]

OUCH, Diesel bullet #2, death to Diesel it would seem.

[riviera74]

1 hour ago, dfelt said:

OUCH, Diesel bullet #2, death to Diesel it would seem.

It's all about that NOx issue.  Maybe it is time to go EV instead.  Either way, this will cost a LOT of $$$$ for the Germans especially.

[David]

Wonder how many Diesel auto's this will affect in the US?
I also wonder how Bosche is not being penalized and forced to pay a fine since they created and sold it to both VW and MB?

Crazy 

[ccap41]

13 minutes ago, dfelt said:

Wonder how many Diesel auto's this will affect in the US?
I also wonder how Bosche is not being penalized and forced to pay a fine since they created and sold it to both VW and MB?

Crazy 

It's only if they knowlingly sold them something to cheat with that it should come back to them, imo. 

If they're contracted out a part to do X, Y, and Z and they make it to the specs but the other company does whatever they want with it they shouldn't be held accountable unless they knew it was involved in illegal activity. 

[David]

OK, so MB dropped Diesel auto's for the 2017 model year and has decided to no longer offer Diesel in the US at all. This must be because they knew they would be caught with their hand in the cookie jar of Lies about Diesel Emissions.

Looking at the news reports, MB states that Diesel was 3% of sales for the last couple years covering 2016 and 2015.

2016 = 380,752 auto's sold in the US, 3% is 11,423

2015 = 380,461 auto's sold in the US, 3% is 11,414

2014 = 366,589 auto's sold in the US, 3% is 10,998

Based on news stories that seem to indicate that MB has used this for model year auto's sold from 2014 to 2016 means we have a potential pool of 33,835 Diesel auto's that the cheat software was used in.

This could cost MB big time especially since VW had been doing it in engines since 2009, makes one wonder how far back this goes for MB. Keeping number constant, at 8 years of diesel pollution at 10K cars a year this could affect 80,000 Diesel MB auto's here in the US. 

One has to also wonder if the cheat software is in any of the medium and large size diesel auto's they build and sell here.

6 minutes ago, ccap41 said:

It's only if they knowlingly sold them something to cheat with that it should come back to them, imo. 

If they're contracted out a part to do X, Y, and Z and they make it to the specs but the other company does whatever they want with it they shouldn't be held accountable unless they knew it was involved in illegal activity. 

Boche wanted protection from VW for building the software and devices, one has to figure they knew it was wrong when they turned around and sold it to MB to use as well. I wonder how far back MB used this same software in their auto's?

[2QuickZ's]

I'm not sure how the Euros do it but the U.S. OEM's typically do their own calibrations regardless of who is providing the controller.  I'm not saying that is the case here as I just don't know for sure.  The possible exception may be the Cummins diesels in the Rams and Titans.  Since the Cummins name is all over the vehicle, my guess is they would want some role in the calibrations.