Diesel emissions scandal
Scandals relating to higher-than-reported emissions from diesel engines began in 2014 when the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) reported discrepancies between European and US models of vehicles.
Independent tests carried out by the German car club ADAC proved that, under normal driving conditions, diesel vehicles including the Volvo S60, Renault's Espace Energy and the Jeep Renegade, exceeded legal European emission limits for nitrogen oxide (NOx) by more than 10 times.
The test only came into force in 2017, with critics saying that car firms lobbied fiercely to delay its implementation due to the high cost of meeting stricter environmental controls.
[3] Conservative Internal Market spokesman Daniel Dalton[4] – who led the legislation through the European Parliament – described the previous regulations as "at best patchy and at worst ineffective."
In addition, two former executives (Oliver Schmidt and James Robert Liang) have pleaded guilty in US court and sentenced to prison terms.
The Porsche Panamera equipped with the VW-EA897 engine, made by Audi, exhibited an 8.3-fold limit violation with an average NOx emissions of 1,498 mg/km, according to DUH.
A tested Porsche Cayenne, emission standard Euro 6, exceeds the limit by 2.4 times at +10 to +16 °C with an average of 191 mg NOx/km after the software update.
An examined Audi SQ5 plus 3.0 TDI with emission standard Euro 6, with the same engine generation (EA897evo) as the Porsche Cayenne, emits an average of 441 mg NOx/ km at outside temperatures between +4 and +11 °C.
It also announced that it will make the measurements results available to law enforcement agencies, the European Antitrust Authority and all concerned stakeholders and their lawyers.
At the same time the DUH renewed their criticism of the Federal Motor Transport Authority and of Andreas Scheuer (Head of Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure), who according to the DUH-President on the one hand restraint documents about the detected defeat devices in the vehicles, despite final convictions for disclosure, and secondly prevent officially ordered hardware retrofits.
[15] Earlier, Feb 2018, German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported that US authorities investigating Mercedes have discovered that its vehicles are equipped with illegal software to help them pass United States' stringent emission tests.
[19][20] In September 2019, Daimler was fined 870 million euros in Germany for "negligent violation of supervisory duties" in relation to not fully complying with emissions regulations.
They were accused of colluding with Robert Bosch GmbH and LLC to produce defeat software to hide the cars' true emissions.
[26][27][28] Despite the facts, Opel denied using defeat devices, called the tests "untrustworthy" and "incomprehensible", and one of the scientists involved in testing the car and discovering the discrepancy, Professor Jan Czerwinski from the Bern University of Applied Sciences, was pressured into issuing a statement to a news agency saying that "the facts could be distorted, incomplete or tendentious for various reasons".
[29] At the same time, Opel started clandestinely pushing an engine software update that limited NOx emissions in Zafiras that were already on the road, and was caught doing so by Belgian journalists from the VRT news station.
In connection with the mentioned software, Emanuele Palma, a diesel drivability and emissions senior manager at Fiat Chrysler, was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, to violate the Clean Air Act and to commit wire fraud.
[41] In 2022 FCA US, formerly Chrysler Group, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the US, commit wire fraud, and to violate the Clean Air Act.
[45] Cummins was found to have installed devices designed to bypass or disable emissions controls on 960,000 Dodge and Stellantis RAM pickup truck diesel engines between 2013 and 2023.
[53][54] Furthermore, their "NOx trap" devices did not run cleaning cycles below 50 kilometres per hour (31 mph), causing those filters to clog and become ineffective.
[53] In September 2015 Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said it would be difficult for an automaker to conceal internally an effort to falsify vehicle emissions data, as happened at Volkswagen AG: "I don't think you can do something like this hiding in the bushes.
[59] In January 2024, Toyota temporarily suspended shipments of over 10 vehicle models after discovering irregularities for certification tests for a number of its diesel engines.
[45] Cummins was found to have installed devices designed to bypass or disable emissions controls on 960,000 Dodge and Stellantis RAM pickup truck diesel engines between 2013 and 2023.
[65] In 1973 Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Toyota, and Volkswagen had to remove ambient temperature switches which affected emissions, though the companies denied intentional cheating and said that strategies like enriching fuel mixture during cold engine warm-up periods could reduce overall pollution.
[67][68] In 1996, GM had to pay a near-record fine of $11 million, and recall 470,000 vehicles, because of ECU software programmed to disengage emissions controls during conditions known to exist when the cars were not being lab tested by the EPA.
[69] The model year 1991–1995 Cadillacs were programmed to simply enrich the engine's fuel mixture, increasing carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned hydrocarbon (HC) pollution, any time the car's air conditioning or heater was turned on, since the testing protocol specified they would be off.
[72] Eben Moglen has suggested in 2010 to make proprietary software source code in general accessible to the public, to curb cheating.
