Volkswagen scandal: Our emission readers are based on input and real-time adjustment, says Volvo

No cheating software in Sweden, says Volvo's business analytics chief

As Volvo is getting into big data and analytics in a big way, the company was happy to explain to Computing how its fuel emission reporting systems work, explaining that they utilise engine management systems based on input and real-time data to adjust the control of emissions in a practice that is "standard in the business".

Speaking to us at Teradata's Partners 2015 conference in Anaheim, California today - in the wake of the 'cheat software' scandal that still engulfs fellow car maker Volkswagen - Volvo's director of business analytics, Jan Wassen, enthused about the company's eight-year journey into big data and analytics, through which it has used Teradata software and services extensively.

"When we started the journey, we based it on warranty and quality data," said Wassen. "We're continuing along that path, and are right now installing prediction models for failures to see if any component failure is starting to move up. It's a prediction model, and we predict reject rates, with a massive amount of analyses made every week.

"One of the first cases we came across was an engine that actually set the fault code wrongly - software was being downloaded and uploaded that was not necessary, and [finding that] saved us around $4m dollars. That's just one use case," said Wassen.

When Computing asked if Volvo had similar systems to measure and report its fuel emissions, Wassen was happy to respond: "What should I say? The vehicle in itself naturally measures emissions, and has control mechanisms for that," he said.

"This is not like the analytics models that run in - in this case - engine management systems that are based on input and in real-time adjust the control parameters for the injection and the emission... That is standard in the business, I would say."

Wassen was keen to point out that diagnostic readouts for the car's powertrain, which is involved in measuring emissions as it generates the car's power and delivers it to the road surface, is a particular focus for Volvo.

"The area [on which] we have spent the most energy, and we're most advanced [with], is power train control, so if we have any issues we offload that diagnostic data," he said.

"Right now, we do it when the vehicle comes in for service. But in the future we'll do it as soon as the vehicle is connected and we [can] also apply analytics on that. There's not more I can say about emissions."