Cars in the EU have to take emissions tests to make sure that they do not produce excessive amounts of pollutants. This can be an inconvenience for car manufacturers. Therefore, they sometimes attempt to manipulate the results of their tests. This is to make their lives easier, and to make it easier to sell cars.
New Manipulations
Investigators have already found evidence of cheating by Volkswagen. In 2015, evidence came to light that Volkswagen had been under estimating the CO2 that their cars were releasing. Now, the European Commission believes that it has evidence to prove further emissions tests manipulation. This time, they believe that car manufacturers are deliberately over estimating their emissions.
Scientists working for the EU Commission believe that several companies are over stating the amount of pollution their cars produce. This is in the hope that the commission lowers the targets in the future. If the targets become easier to meet, then companies will be able to meet them with greater ease, and sell more cars as a result.
Laying Blame
The Commission has not named any specific companies yet. However, it has revealed that it believes multiple brands are using the same technique to raise their emissions. They choose cars with low batteries to test – artificially using more fuel and raising emissions.
Since September 2017, car makers have needed to use the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) testing procedure. This is harder to cheat than the old test, and was introduced after the Volkswagen scandal.
Making Changes
The fact that car companies have simply found new ways to cheat raises important questions. What more can be done to test car emissions? What can be done to ensure companies don’t cheat again? Do companies have any real desire to lower emissions?
The commission hopes that its new ‘Real Driving Emissions’ test will resolve some of these questions. This test will test cars outside of lab conditions, in real world scenarios. If companies want their cars to pass these tests, they will need them to be truly non-polluting. All that is left to determine is how much car manufacturers really care about the pollution their cars produce.