Why do none of these Auto News articles mention the International Council on Clean Transportation, the catalyst for this whole affair coming to light?
------------------------------------------------------------
There were discrepancies in the European tests on the diesel variants of the VW Passat, the VW Jetta and the BMW X5 last year, and the results didn’t add up. The VWs were spewing harmful exhaust when testers drove them on the road. In the lab, they were fine.
But Peter Mock, European managing director of the International Council on Clean
Transportation, suggested replicating the tests in the U.S.
The U.S. has higher emissions standards than the rest of the world and a history of enforcing them, so Mock and his American counterpart, John German, were sure the U.S. versions of the vehicles would pass the emissions tests, German said. That way, they reasoned, they could show Europeans it was possible for diesel cars to run clean.
“We had no cause for suspicion,” said German. “We thought the vehicles would be clean.”
German and his group were actually trying to prove exactly what VW has been claiming for years: that diesel is clean. They asked West Virginia University for help. The school’s Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions had the right equipment -- a portable emission measurement system to stick in the car trunk, attached to a probe to shove up the exhaust pipe. German’s group, funded mostly by foundations, didn’t.
Testers drove the monitor-equipped diesels from San Diego to Seattle because if Volkswagen had gamed the emission test, they couldn’t be sure how, German said. In another cheating case years ago, he said, long-haul trucks were equipped with devices that allowed the engines to gradually discharge more and more harmful nitrogen oxides the longer the vehicle cruised at the same speed. The more emissions, generally speaking, the greater the engine power. The 1,300-mile trip under varying conditions would expose any such scheme in the VWs, German said.
Meanwhile, the California Air Resources Board tested the vehicles in their laboratories and they passed.
Then German received the results of the real-world tests. “We were astounded when we saw the numbers,” he said.
On the open road, the Jetta exceeded the U.S. nitrogen oxide emissions standard by 15 to 35 times. The Passat was 5 to 20 times the standard. “It was shocking,” German said.
The BMW X5 passed the road test.
The CARB and the EPA opened an investigation into VW in May 2014. Talks between the parties went on for several months, with VW trying to replicate the West Virginia University results. The company said it had identified the reasons for the higher emissions and proposed a fix. That resulted in a recall of nearly 500,000 U.S. vehicles in December to implement a software patch.
CARB continued to test VW cars after the recall began. It was concerned that real-world road tests couldn’t confirm that the software patch was working. Sure enough, nitrogen oxide emissions were still in violation of California and U.S. laws. The agency shared those findings with Volkswagen and the EPA on July 8.
At the same time, regulators were considering whether to certify VW’s 2016 models for sale -- a routine process for most automakers. Regulators said they wouldn’t approve the cars unless the company resolved the questions about real-world tailpipe pollution. VW engineers continued to suggest technical reasons for the test results. None of the explanations satisfied regulators, who indicated the models wouldn’t be certified.
“Only then did VW admit it had designed and installed a defeat device in these vehicles in the form of a sophisticated software algorithm that detected when a vehicle was undergoing emissions testing,” the EPA said in its letter to VW Friday.
“We have no idea if this is also going on in China and Europe but we definitely think the question should be asked, especially since the agencies in those places don’t have the expertise and the legal authority that they have here in the U.S.,” German said.
Also blows a hole in the theory that the EPA is on a protectionist witch hunt. The EPA had nothing to do with this.
