EPA to begin tougher emission testing on vehicles

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that the penalty for Volkswagen could amount to as much as $18 billion.

Since diesel cars represent only about 1 percent of new-vehicle sales in the USA, they have not been prioritized for extra scrutiny until now, the official said.

“We are upping our game”, Chris Grundler, head of transportation and air quality at the Environmental Protection Agency, told reporters in a teleconference.

Environment Canada is working closely with the EPA and would impose penalties on VW if warranted, spokesperson Mark Johnson wrote.

For 482,000 US owners of certain Volkswagen and Audi models, clean diesel seemed like a good idea. The Sacramento complaint said 77,000 of those vehicles were sold in California.

Discovery of Volkswagen’s defeat device software also prompted a rash of class-action lawsuits from customers.

Alongside Mr Mueller’s appointment, the supervisory board also approved changes to the management structure – aimed, the company said, at scaling back complexity and strengthening brands and regions.

Any new testing will include investigations that will uncover any software created to fool emissions testers, Grundler said.

It’s not the first time the EPA has had to change testing to make sure automakers are playing by the rules. That gives an unfair advantage to cheaters, Oliver said. This was only being done in large trucks since they account for far more air pollution than small ones, but now it is going to be implemented for all vehicles in the US. The agency declined to be more specific.

“They don’t need to know”, he said, adding that engineers had “come up with a few clever ways” to outfox any manufacturers trying to cheat on the tests.

Q. Should owners of the affected vehicles be scared to drive their cars? “We need a guarantee that cars of German manufacturers are in line with the norms, without manipulation”, he told Der Tagesspiegel in an interview to be published on Sunday.

The company has set aside more than $7 billion to remedy the problems with its cars.

In another blow to the company, which has seen a massive drop in its share price, Switzerland has put a temporary ban on the sale of VW models affected by the software manipulation.

“We have called on the European Union to conduct a Europe wide investigation into whether there is evidence that cars here have been fitted with defeat devices”.

“In 2005, in Toronto, the province issued upwards of 50 smog alerts”. “So there’s a real cost to society”. Another possible fix is adding a urea tank to the exhaust after-treatment system to lower emissions of nitrogen oxides to the required level. The closure of a few coal fired plants and de-industrialization of the northeastern USA were also factors. But the standards had not achieved expected reductions in carbon monoxide pollution. “Everyone we’ve spoken with feels that they’ve been lied to by Volkswagen“. If Volkswagen opts to bring the cars into compliance by reprogramming the engine control unit so the cars are always operating with full emissions controls, both the acceleration and the fuel economy of the auto are likely to suffer.