nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

[robert99]

Health experts lambast ‘deceitful’ carmakers as data suggests 97% of vehicles fail to meet NOx emissions standards in real-world conditions.
Revealed: nearly all new diesel cars exceed official pollution limits

Ninety-seven percent of all modern diesel cars emit more toxic nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution on the road than the official limit, according to the comprehensive set of data yet published, with a quarter producing at least six times more than the limit.

Surprisingly, the tiny number of models that did not exceed the standard were mostly Volkswagens, the carmaker whose cheating of diesel emissions test which emerged last year sparked the scandal. Experts said the new results show that clean diesel cars can be made but that virtually all manufacturers have failed to do so.

 

[ledboots]

I have always thought that deisel cars smell like Mac trucks, and seemed to be very pollute-ish, but I was really shocked at the VW thing.

 

[robert99]

It's not only VW - though the VW bosses who allowed it to be done should be strung up -
"Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi have joined the growing list of manufacturers whose diesel cars are known to emit significantly more pollution on the road than in regulatory tests, according to data obtained by the Guardian.

In more realistic on-road tests, some Honda models emitted six times the regulatory limit of NOx pollution while some unnamed 4x4 models had 20 times the NOx limit coming out of their exhaust pipes."
Four more carmakers join diesel emissions row

 

[robert99]

Mitsubishi Motors admits cheating fuel tests since 1991 - BBC News
Mitsubishi Motors admits cheating fuel tests since 1991 !

Mitsubishi Motors: How did it falsify its fuel economy data? - BBC News
Mitsubishi Motors has admitted rigging data on some of its models' fuel efficiency. About 625,000 cars sold in Japan were affected, and the production of the relevant models has been halted.

The inaccurate tests involved 157,000 of its own cars - the ek Wagon and eK Space - as well as 468,000 vehicles produced for Nissan - the Dayz and Dayz Roox.

What has Mitsubishi done?
Car companies try to outdo each other on how fuel-efficient their models are. It impresses consumers because it's good for the environment, and it's easy on the wallet at the petrol station.

Fuel efficiency is tested by putting cars on what is essentially a treadmill where they run at a certain speed and fuel consumption is measured.

Mitsubishi appears to have overinflated the tyres, which gave better results on the fuel efficiency test.


Imagine inflating your bicycle tyres to the maximum and going up a hill, then letting half the air out and going up the same hill again. It's much harder. The extra muscle you need gives you an idea of the extra fuel that a car would burn through.

 

[Second Summer]

I hope relevant authorities are on the ball, writing out fines that actually hurt. It would be nice to see this level of criminal activity punished properly.

 

[Joe]

What has Mitsubishi done?
Car companies try to outdo each other on how fuel-efficient their models are. It impresses consumers because it's good for the environment, and it's easy on the wallet at the petrol station.

Fuel efficiency is tested by putting cars on what is essentially a treadmill where they run at a certain speed and fuel consumption is measured.

Mitsubishi appears to have overinflated the tyres, which gave better results on the fuel efficiency test.


Imagine inflating your bicycle tyres to the maximum and going up a hill, then letting half the air out and going up the same hill again. It's much harder. The extra muscle you need gives you an idea of the extra fuel that a car would burn through.

(Emphasis added.)

Well, this is appalling.

But I have to wonder what knucklehead designed tests that could be so easily cheated/defeated. Also, why checking the tire pressure was not part of the tests.

 

[Joe]

Volkswagen seriously made a PowerPoint presentation on how to cheat emissions tests

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/b...in-06-showed-how-to-foil-emissions-tests.html

 

[robert99]

They're giving it the old "everyone one was doing it" excuse,
"In a court filing, the company lawyers, as part of a defense in a shareholder lawsuit, suggest that the discrepancy was common knowledge within the industry. “The vehicles of all manufacturers exceed various emissions limits in normal street use,” Volkswagen lawyers said in a court filing, which was obtained by The Times. They further argued that the differences between road emissions and lab emissions were tolerated by regulators."

 

[Andy_T]

Well, they are not wrong on this. It seems that everybody has been doing this to some extent, but VW might have been especially blatant about it (and VW has been the manufacturer leading at pushing diesel engines as "clean" for use in cars in countries with strict exhaust laws).

I must say that I was very surprised when - shortly after the VW diesel scandal was made public - some other car manufacturers (I think I remember BMW and Mercedes making such statements) stated publicly that they were appalled and had not done anything similar.

My thinking (having worked in the automotive industry for some decades) was that in their case, I would try to stay as silent as possible, and wait for further tests....

I remember that when the first "TDI" (VW label for direct-injected turbo diesel engines) engines came to the market, they were discernible by their characteristic, downward-sloped exhaust pipes. When I asked an engineer why those cars had these exhausts, his answer was that the standard test foresees that the testing sensor is placed at some distance behind the exhaust, and by directing the exhaust pipes to the ground, they could make sure that less exhaust fumes hit the sensor in the standardized test. And that was not some special secret (like the embedded cheat programs now incriminated), but simple physics obvious to the people performing the test...

 

[robert99]

Let me have a really wild guess here - how the emissions tests are done, was devised with the "help" of the car lobby in Brussels, Washington DC etc?

 

[Andy_T]

I doubt that any major law is passed today without the "help" of the respective lobbies.... still it is my understanding that safety and emission standards are devised by agencies that want to challenge the car manufacturers.

The governments that decide whether and when to adopt these standards, however, also have the well-being of the automotive industry as one of their considerations.

 

[robert99]

"well-being" or "bending over backwards not to upset the burghers of Munchen"