German carmaker Daimler has opened an internal investigation into the way it certifies diesel exhaust emissions in the US.
The Mercedes-Benz brand owner said it was conducting the probe at the request of the US Justice Department.
It comes just days after Mitsubishi was forced into a humiliating confession emissions data may have been altered by its engineers working on a joint venture with Nissan in Japan.
In Britain, Government tests run in collaboration with German engineers show Volkswagen is the only maker to have employed deceit devices in its emissions systems, but diesel models from other manufacturers wildly exceed test levels when examined in real world conditions and not in highly controlled laboratory tests.
Models tested and shown to be over laboratory emissions limits for NOx included Ford Focus, BMW 3 Series, Jaguar XE, Nissan Qashqai, Vauxhall Astra and Volvo V40.
They were sourced from hire fleets, used the same batch of diesel in tests and were run pre-warmed as starting from cold and monitoring will give lower readings.
So far as possible the real world tests mimic typical on-road driving and now these form the basis of new laboratory tests due to come in by 2019.
In a response, the SMMT said, “The differences between the results from official laboratory tests and those performed in the ‘real world’ are well known, and industry acknowledges the need for fundamental reform of the current official test regime, which does it no favours.
“SMMT and industry support the introduction of the proposed new and more onerous test, RDE, which will help to reflect better ‘real world’ driving.
“Once it is fully adopted, all car models newly approved from next year will have to pass this on-road test, as well as a more representative lab test, if they are to be put on the market. This will require significant additional investment by manufacturers but will add greater transparency so consumers can be more confident industry is delivering on air quality while providing ever greater choice.”
This week, Volkswagen announced it was going to buy-back about 500,000 affected models in the US as part of an agreement with legislators but with penalties and payments will cost the German car maker about £2 Billion and the total bill is heading towards £12.7 Billion. VW in the UK has said it will not be compensating buyers of its cars which breached regulations as the “fix” is simpler to achieve. Lawyers are looking at the VW claims on behalf of car owners. In Germany, regulators have ordered the recall of 630,000 VW, Opel, Audi, MB and Porsche models to correct settings on systems which allow higher than expected NOx emissions to prolong the life of certain components. There are suggestions this recall could be widened to more models and countries. Long term effects could hit finance houses which stand to loose when the affected cars reach the used market at the end of PCP terms. | VW loss tops £3.2 Billion |
Volkswagen has announced a 4.1 billion euros (£3.2 billion) operating loss for 2015. Europe’s largest automaker took a 16.2 billion euros hit to pay for its diesel emissions test-rigging scandal. VW in September admitted cheating on emissions tests for 11 million vehicles worldwide since 2009 in its biggest-ever corporate scandal, which has wiped billions of euros off its market value, forced out its long-time chief executive and damaged VW’s global image. Volkswagen was forced to postpone its results announcement in February amid uncertainty about the financial impact of the scandal until it reached an outline deal with US regulators offering to buy back or potentially fix about half a million polluting diesel cars and set up environmental and consumer compensation funds. |