That can’t be right!
A huge multinational corporation taking advantage of its customers and outsmarting the worlds government’s and knowingly causing further damage to the environment. Who’d of thunk it?
Well that’s exactly what the VW Auto company has been doing for years and would still be getting away with it if it wasn’t for the International Council on Clean Transportation, which wanted to investigate why there was such a clear discrepancy between in house static tests and on road performance for several of VW’s diesel vehicles. Working with researchers at West Virginia University, they took a number of the VW diesel cars, fitted them with exhaust emission testing equipment and simply drove them from San Diego to Seattle. Not exactly rocket science! In fact most of the equipment required, in sitting on the workbench at your local mechanics workshop.
So why doesn’t our EPA do this as part of their standard emissions testing procedure?
Because they simply take the manufactures word for it. Manufactures conduct their own emission tests and present their finding to each governments relevant authorities and in most cases they take their word for it.
The US EPA said that in comparison to the official test results, the on road NOx emissions from the affected cars were 15 to 35 times the legal standard.
In a slightly perverse way you have to admire them. The concept and the software is pure genius. The car’s steering and brake sensors send a signal to the computer system to tell it when it’s undergoing static testing and switches to clean economy mode and reduces the exhaust emissions. This is probably the greatest dilemma faced by today’s auto vehicle manufacturers. How do you reduce exhaust emissions, improve fuel economy and still provide the peak performance we all expect from the modern motor vehicle?
Surely when computer engineers walked in to the VW executives offices and laid out there plan the bosses must have thought they’d struck gold. I suppose for a number years they had, but the gold rush is over now.
Volkswagen’s new CEO, Matthias Mueller, was quoted on Wednesday as telling German newspapers that so far as they know a few software developers tampered with the pollution control systems on their diesel engines and that the top executives did not have any involvement in the process. Really Matt, you expect us to believe that.
What Cars are Effected and How Do You Find Out?
To the best of our knowledge so far the vehicles that have been sold in Australia with the 1.6-litre and 2.0-litre diesel engines, 54,745 Volkswagen cars including the Golf, Polo, Passat and Tiguan along with 5148 Skoda’s and 17,256 Volkswagen commercial vehicles.
IMPORTANT TO KNOW
All affected vehicles are safe and able to be driven. As soon as the technical solutions to service the vehicles are identified and available in the various markets, all customers will be notified by Volkswagen Group Australia.
None of the petrol powered, V6 or V8 engine or new seventh-generation, Volkswagen Golf TDI models are affected by the issue.
Volkswagen Passenger Cars Affected