Amid the ongoing debacle of Volkswagen's cheating scandal on emissions testing, reports have claimed that other car companies are also cheating by setting up their vehicles to pass tests for government regulations while causing much more harm to the environment during real-world situations.
According to a report by the British daily The Guardian, Honda, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz and Mitsubishi have shown to significantly release more nitrogen oxide pollution in real-world situations compared to regulatory tests.
The newspaper also reported that diesel vehicles from Fiat, Jeep, Hyundai, Nissan, Renault and Volvo all released significantly more nitrogen oxide to the environment in realistic conditions compared to when the vehicles are undergoing regulatory tests.
However, Emissions Analytics CEO Nick Molden called the reports as "rubbish." The Guardian based its report on data acquired from Emissions Analytics.
According to Molden, higher nitrogen oxide readings during real-world tests are unsurprising, and that this does not indicate that the car companies are involved in any illegal activities.
While The Guardian said that no evidence of the other car companies using illegal means to bypass regulations such as the defeat devices have been found in the vehicles of Volkswagen, Molden and other industry experts are saying that such reports places regulatory tests, which occur under heavily controlled conditions, on the same level as real-world driving.
The regulatory tests are not meant to reflect real-world conditions, with the lab test standards almost never being achieved once the vehicle is released to highways and city streets.
As such, while testing 200 diesel vehicles, the cars were found to emit four times the standard limit, but it is still all legal.
"There would be differences between a certification test and a real world test," said West Virginia University research professor Arvind Thiruvengadam, who was involved in uncovering the emissions test cheating of Volkswagen. Thiruvengadam said that he would already be happy if cars are releasing only five times to six times the permitted levels, but only in extreme conditions. For highway driving, nitrogen oxide emissions would be expected to be lower than the standard levels.
It is therefore more difficult to actually catch automobile manufacturers that are trying to cheat regulatory tests, which happened with Volkswagen that was able to include the defeat devices in their vehicles for years. Molden and Thiruvengadam are both looking for changes in emissions testing to have the tests reflect real-world driving situations, not within heavily controlled lab conditions.
