Emissions from most diesel cars in Europe greatly exceed laboratory testing levels Real-word driving produces up to 16 times more emissions, causing 2,700 premature deaths across the EU Date: September 21, 2018 Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Summary: A new study reports finds that in Europe, 10 major auto manufacturers produced diesel cars, sold between 2000 and 2015, that generate up to 16 times more emissions on the road than in regulatory tests.
This was disclosed years ago but the emissions are still lower than comparable cars produced elsewhere. I have one of those cars. Unfortunately for people looking to sell on, the selling price has collapsed due to the mus-selling advertising. Fortunately I've never sold on a car. Car owners in the US got compensation, us in Europe did not - don't know why.
It's a shame that there's no link to the study - I'd be interested in the methodology and more specifically whether the other manufacturers had a VW-style "cheat" mode. It's not surprising that there's some difference between official emissions tests and regulatory ones. The regulatory tests are performed on a rolling road and are limited in their scope. That's one of the reasons why it's also really difficult to match official fuel consumption figures in real world driving. Where I understand VW came unstuck and left themselves open to punishment is that they had a specific "cheat" mode where NOx emission controls were only switched on for the test. It's not clear from the brief summary whether this is suspected to be the case for the other manufacturers.
Yes, but it doesn't (or perhaps doesn't even attempt to) tackle the question of why. Is this the result of a deliberate attempt by manufacturers to "cheat" on the test (like VW did) by having emissions equipment which only becomes active during the test ? This is illegal and would lead to multi-billion dollar fines and penalties. Is it the result of manufacturers optimising their vehicles for performance on the test, so not cheating per-se but setting various parameters on the engine management to excel on the test ? This is a grey area. Is it a result of a poor test design and that the laboratory-based test simply cannot simulate real-world driving ? If this is the case then the tests need to be redesigned. A more careful reading of the abstract leads me to think that the MIT scientists did no new research themselves.... ...but instead used the research already done by ICCT and ADAC and extrapolated and reinterpreted the results. https://www.theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT_NOx-control-tech_revised 09152015.pdf
