According to records filed in the case, Achtemeier conspired with mechanics in garages and operators of truck fleets to disable the anti-pollution software installed on diesel trucks.
Coconspirators who wanted to disable their trucks’ pollution control hardware system—a process commonly known as “deleting”—sought Achtemeier’s help to trick the truck’s software into believing the emissions control systems were still functional, a process known as “tuning.”
Monitoring software on a deleted truck will detect that the pollution control hardware is not functioning and will prevent the truck from running. Achtemeier disabled the monitoring software on his client’s trucks by connecting to laptops he had provided to various coconspirators. Some of the coconspirators would pass the laptop on to others seeking to have the anti-pollution software disabled on their trucks. Once the laptop was hooked up to the truck’s onboard computer, Achtemeier could access it from his computer and tune the software designed to slow the truck if the pollution control device was missing or malfunctioning. Achtemeier could “tune” trucks remotely, which enabled him to maximize his environmental impact and personal profit.
Nah, there’s no way long haul truck owners are going to spend money just to be assholes. There’s got to be profit in it somehow.
The EGR and DPF systems used in diesel trucks cause (or caused, it’s been a while since I last looked it up) a big reduction in fuel mileage. I think it was a 2 or 3 MPG reduction.Doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up when you are running 200,000+ miles a year per truck. With the system running I believe the average fuel mileage for the trucks in our company is around 6 to 8 MPG depending on the route.
Additionally the systems are expensive as all get out to repair and maintain. When the DPF and DEF systems on my truck went out, the truck was down for 3 months waiting on parts, and from what I heard from our mechanic, the final repair bill was around $15,000USD.
That said, the fines for bypassing the emission systems are big enough that it’s really not worth it, but some owner operators don’t realize it as many don’t run their trucks like the businesses they are. They just know this is expensive as hell and they can reduce the cost by bypassing them.
I think it’s worth noting that this is an environmental benefit, not only an economic one. In other words, it’s not that people defeating the emissions control devices are making their trucks purely worse for the environment for their own selfish benefit; it’s that they’re making a trade off between increased ‘regular’ (for lack of a better term) pollutant emissions like NOx/SOx/particulates, and decreased greenhouse gas emissions (CO2).
I’m not saying they’re altruistic – obviously they do it to save money (at least until they get caught and fined) – but I am saying that we can’t just assume it’s bad without first doing the math and making a value judgement about what sorts of emissions we care about.
Geeking out about an edge case where not having the fancy emissions controls is better: using biodiesel
There are also more complicated considerations, such as how getting rid of these emissions controls and retuning the engine may also allow it to run on higher percentages of biodiesel. The trade-offs associated with that are not only the fact that the fuel becomes carbon-neutral (net CO2 emissions go to zero, at least for the percentage of the fuel that is bio- instead of dino-), but also that biodiesel naturally has zero sulfur in it (which means zero SOx) and burns cleaner (fewer particulates) and hotter (more NOx) than dino-diesel. On top of that, more NOx could be a bad thing or a good thing, depending on whether you’re driving in a NOx-limited or VOC-limited regime.
In other words, using 100% biodiesel in an urban environment (VOC-limited) is IMO enough to actually justify preferring not to have the fancy emissions controls for legit environmentalist reasons: the better efficiency in general (as the parent comment mentioned), zero net greenhouse gas emissions, zero SOx, irrelevant NOx, and all at the cost of only moderate particulates (more than would be emitted from a vehicle with a DPF, but less than would be emitted if the same car were burning dino-diesel).
Of course, none of those benefits occur unless you actually seek out B100 (or at least, significantly higher percentages than the B5 that normal diesel can be blended up to), and that’s a motivation much more associated with the hippie types that drive VW TDIs and old Mercs, not truckers.
I genuinely would like to know if the increase in CO2 emissions is worth the decrease in NOx emissions, but acid rain is a now problem and climate change isn’t.
Climate change is absolutely a now problem, it’s affecting far more people right now than acid rain ever has or ever will, it’s costing trillions and you’re already paying for it in taxes, insurance, and other ways. The fact that people don’t understand it or appreciate how significant it is doesn’t mean it’s not a “now” problem, it just means it’s not a problem that’s ever going to get fixed because people like you don’t and won’t ever consider it a “now” problem. Enjoy the challenge of struggling your way through the increasingly impossible economy, it’s not going to get better.
Don’t quote me on it, but I believe that the emissions tech is efficient enough that even with the increased fuel consumption there is an overall reduction in emissions across the board. That was my understanding when the tech was first being fazed in back in the mid to late ‘00’s. Whether that was true or just propaganda, don’t know. I just knew that full compliance was required to run in California and a few other states.
My understanding from past reading is that there’s a history of diesel trucks pulling off emissions control hardware to increase their MPG somewhat, so they save money on fuel. First ran into it when reading about the practice in Europe, but also happens here in North America.
I don’t know whether it’s possible to tweak the computer-controlled system to achieve a similar effect, but it’d make sense.
It’s more than just reprogramming, the delete process also includes removing the hardware itself.
At, that’d do it then. Thanks.
Im with you. I’d love to know why.
I’ll have to reread the article to get the details, but here’s a 5 year old Car and Driver article talking about the 2019 Dodge Ram 3500’s complicated exhaust system it needs in order to meet emissions. So my guess is it’s rather expensive to stay compliant.
Edit: Nvm, it’s a pretty short article that doesn’t say much, but it does include pictures of it.
I’m doing some reading here, too. Seems like the additional maintenance expense caused by the exhaust recirculation can be expensive over the life of the vehicle. This isn’t just maintaining/reparing the EGR system, but also maintaining/replacing other engine components that have a shorter lifespan due to the emissions controls. This makes sense to me.
It sounds like a pretty poor solution, but then we haven’t meaningfully innovated on the internal combustion engine for how many years?
Define “meaningfully”. There have been several different types of innovations in recent years depending on how you look at it.
Mazda made a gas engine that can switch from spark plug ignition to compression ignition. Though I don’t think they brought it to the states.
Nissan made an engine that can vary its compression ratio on the fly. Something no other engine can do to my knowledge.
Hyundai made a cam shaft that can vary the length of time it opens and closes the valves rather than just varying the time that they open.
There’s a company called Speed of Air that designed piston heads that have dimples in them like a golf ball. Those dimples apparently can significantly improve the engine’s power and, more importantly, its efficiency. Though I don’t have a video link talking about that. Just their site.
Porsche also designed a 6 stroke engine. Though I’ll have to watch the video again as I don’t remember much about it.
If you want to get more experimental, someone made something called a rotary vane engine.
People are definitely still trying to find ways to improve the internal combustion engine. It’s just this technology takes time to reach the mainstream, if it ever does.