The ministry claims that dirty diesels have been “restored to a type-approved condition”.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf After a report on possible defeat devices in 150 old diesel models, the Federal Ministry of Transport and the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), which is responsible for approval issues, defend their actions.
The authorities said that only limit values that were determined under laboratory conditions on a test bench applied to the vehicles concerned. These are generally easier to comply with than in normal vehicle operation, which is the current standard when measuring emissions.
A spokeswoman for Volker Wissing’s (FDP) Federal Ministry of Transport told the Handelsblatt that if the KBA found “a deviation from the approved vehicle type” for individual vehicles, “the type-approval-compliant condition” has meanwhile been “restored by means of a software update”.
The KBA also explained to the Handelsblatt that since the measurements “numerous recalibrations of the control software have been carried out in recall campaigns or manufacturer updates”. If cars have been improved, “further restrictive administrative measures are not permitted due to type approval law,” said a spokesman for the Flensburg authority.
On Wednesday, a report by the “International Council on Clean Transportation Europe” (ICCT Europe) caused manufacturers and authorities to explain themselves again almost eight years after the start of the diesel affair. According to the report, 77 percent of diesel models with the emission standards Euro 5, 6b and 6c have suspiciously high nitrogen oxide emissions. In around 150 models, the values are so high that, according to the ICCT, the vehicles “almost certainly have a prohibited defeat device”.
13 million cars with extremely high nitrogen oxide emissions
The report covers more than 200 Euro 5 and Euro 6 diesel car models, of which around 53 million vehicles were sold in Europe between 2009 and 2019, most of them by the Volkswagen Group. A report by the ICCT in 2015 got the diesel scandal rolling.
“Further restrictive administrative measures” are “not permitted due to the type approval law,” the authority announced.
(Photo: dpa)
According to the new report, around 13 million cars with “extremely” high nitrogen oxide emissions are still on Europe’s roads. Depending on the test, the ICCT considers at least three or four times the official limit value to be extreme.
The auto industry is assuming significantly lower numbers. The Association of the Automotive Industry criticizes that the ICCT report is based “exclusively on data that has been outdated for a long time”.
In fact, the ICCT numbers are not based on their own surveys, but on a large test database and secondary evaluations of emissions tests by authorities and organizations that have been running since 2016. A year earlier, the diesel manipulations at Volkswagen had become known.
>> Read about this: Suspiciously high nitrogen oxide emissions: Study considers defeat device in 150 models to be very likely
Until 2017, the fuel consumption and emissions of passenger cars in the EU were checked according to the so-called “New European Driving Cycle” (NEDC), a purely laboratory test on a test bench that is considered relatively imprecise. In response to the diesel scandal, the procedure was tightened several times, and today tests are carried out on the road under real conditions.
ICCT Managing Director: “Manufacturer’s software updates have not led to any significant improvement”
ICCT Managing Director Peter Mock points out that current measurements of thousands of diesel vehicles, which were checked for their emissions from the side of the road while driving past, confirm the high values of the official tests from previous years. “These current measurement data suggest that manufacturer software updates have generally not led to any significant improvement in the emissions behavior of the vehicles,” says Mock.
In addition, the manufacturers have also often improved with so-called “thermal windows”. With this technology, cars emit more nitrogen oxides outside a certain temperature range than permitted.
>> Read also: Software update for cheat diesel is not enough: That means the court decision for drivers and manufacturers
According to the industry, this is necessary to protect the engine from damage at extreme temperatures. Environmental organizations see it as a tool to make car emissions appear lower under test conditions than they are in real traffic.
The European Court of Justice has rejected the arguments of the car manufacturers in several judgments and recently simplified the possibility for consumers to claim damages. At the beginning of May, the Federal Court of Justice, Germany’s highest criminal court, will negotiate the consequences of the ECJ ruling for claims for damages. Around 1900 revisions and non-admission complaints are pending at the BGH. The Department for Transport said the ECJ’s decision had “no immediate impact on the agency’s remit”.
According to the ECJ, car manufacturers will in future have to pay customers compensation if an illegal defeat device is used in the vehicle for exhaust gas cleaning. Until now, plaintiffs only had a chance of claiming damages if they were deliberately and intentionally deceived by the manufacturer in an immoral manner. So far, this only applied to the VW EA189 diesel engine – the engine with which the diesel scandal began in September 2015.
Models with this engine reappear in the current ICCT paper. A VW spokesman explained: “All Volkswagens comply with the legal limit values of the emission standards that applied at the time of their first registration.” None of the vehicles from the VW Group mentioned in the report contain “an impermissible defeat device”.
More: Environmental aid raises new allegations against the auto industry.