Responsible Parties Pile Up As Dieselgate Continues
Brian O Sutter
Recalls
Environmental advocacy groups have been saying for a lot longer than last September that car engines produce a lot more emissions under realistic conditions than in test labs, including diesel and gasoline engines alike. Both Volkswagen and the rest of the industry have been trying to counter this claim by saying that the defeat device is an exception instead of a rule, but their protests have been growing less and less credible as more people are starting to pay more attention to vehicle pollution.The Latest Suspect
Some months after Dieselgate first broke, the French government raided Renault’s corporate headquarters, apparently in connection to its attempts to circumvent emission standards. Nothing much has surfaced yet from that aside from Renault’s sudden desire to recall certain vehicles to make them compliant with pollution regulations, but their stocks fell from the rumors alone.
Now, however, more concrete news has surfaced regarding Daimler, the company that owns Mercedes Benz. A Dutch company, TNO, has uncovered a device on their diesel vehicles which shuts down pollution filters when the temperature drops below 10 degrees Celsius, or around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
A vehicle equipped with this device will operate normally during an emissions test, which is maintained at a constant 22 degrees Celsius, but when it’s used during mildly cold temperatures which are found throughout most of Europe during at least part of the year, the vehicle will emit the unfortunately familiar figure of over 40 times the legal limit in NOx.
The Responses
The official response from Daimler states that this temperature sensitive device is not an attempt to circumvent regulations but rather a perfectly legal way to switch engine modes in a way that protects it from cold weather. It is therefore nothing like VW’s defeat device and shouldn’t be treated as such.
Not everyone is buying that argument, however. One New Jersey resident has already initiated a class-action lawsuit against the company, alleging that the company is prioritizing the health of its engines over the health of its customers, and it likely won’t be the last one.
Meanwhile, the response by governments and regulators in Europe has continued to be more tepid than one might have expected from a market where over half of all road vehicles are diesel-powered. The people assigning punishments seem to be more interested in making sure the scandal is over and done with as quickly as possible rather than punishing those responsible and ensuring future cars can meet more realistic standards.
Instead, it’s becoming clear that the European emissions testing model has been riddled with loopholes that allow every automaker who sells in Europe to overproduce emissions. Rather than simulate real-world conditions, the tests allow manufacturers to do things like tape up the corners of headlights to create a more aerodynamic frame and drive along a one-degree decline in order to fudge the emissions numbers, and as such the reason Volkswagen and other automakers are actively cheating is to get their diesels past the EPA’s far stricter (though still unrealistic) standards.
As such, it may be that the only way these car manufacturers will face real consequences for their actions is from the public fines and private civil cases of Americans, and that’s despite how diesel personal vehicles have barely made any inroads here at all. Still, if European automakers expect to win back any of the consumer trust they’re losing both here and in Europe, they’ll need to move quickly and decisively to fix their mistakes.