Update on VW Diesel Emission Investigation

After I posted my last entry on this blog, “Volkswagen, Diesel Emissions, and Regulatory Failure,” Bloomberg published an article on its website, “VW's Emissions Cheating Found by Curious Clean-Air Group,” which explains how the VW diesel emission issue was discovered.

Briefly, according to the article, the International Council on Clean Transportation (“ICCT”), a non-governmental organization headquartered in Washington, DC with other offices in San Francisco and Berlin, decided to test certain American versions of diesel cars in order to demonstrate that U.S. stricter emission standards could be met. In Europe, there were questions about the lab test for emissions of the European versions of these cars. In other words, the researchers were not initially suspicious of Volkswagen.

The researchers asked for help from West Virginia University’s Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions since it had the right equipment to measure emissions while a car is being driven. The testing demonstrated the excess emission of nitrogen oxides from the VW cars. This was not the case with a BMW, which was also tested.

ICCT’s press release on this matter can be found here.      

Meanwhile, press reports (here and here) indicate that VW has told its U.S. dealers to halt sales of 2015 model year diesel cars and the 2016 diesel cars have not yet been certified by the EPA for sale. VW dealers must be fuming.