Campaign Group calls for 30 “dirty diesel” models to be investigated for alleged emissions cheating

The breaking of the Volkswagen Emissions Scandal has naturally resulted in other car makers coming under the spotlight for allegedly bending or breaking the rules for emissions testing. Several other manufactures have already been accused by regulators, but independent research conducted by a transport and environment campaign group suggests the scandal is very wide indeed.

It is claimed that some 30 more “dirty diesel” vehicles have produced “suspect” results, with evidence of some allegedly employing defeat devices as well.

It has to be pointed out that the testing regimes used are very standardised and can easily allow for rules to be “bent” or “cleverly utilised” for legitimate reasons. The question though is whether manufactures are intentionally using “excuses” available to them to justify any alleged method of passing emission testing with vehicles going on to emit far higher pollutants in real world conditions.

It’s all speculation at this stage, and we can only relay the information from the research to you.

The three methods identified to allow far higher real-world emissions are:

The research says that “thermal-windows” and / or “hot-restarts” applied in the following models:

Source: motoringresearch.com/car-news/not-just-vw-30-dirty-diesels-accused-emissions-cheating

Will this mean more claims?

It’s too early to tell, and we have to stress again that there is a fine line between what is seen as breaking the rules, and what is seen as perhaps “bending” the rules for seemingly legitimate reasons. Manufactures are allowed to employ “thermal-windows” and the argument about “hot-starts” resulting in higher emissions is a long standing one.

The key is whether the use of “thermal-windows” has been used specifically to manipulate emissions results, and / or whether the difference between “hot-starts” and “cold-starts” is being manipulated by software in the emissions controls systems.

One thing we know for sure is that the automotive industry is going to be closely scrutinised for a long time in the wake of the Volkswagen Emission Scandal where 11 million vehicles worldwide were fitted with emissions cheating software.