If there were any illusions that Volkswagen’s emissions-test cheating wouldn’t spark a broader investigation into diesel-car emissions, please allow us to disallow you of them. As reported by the Financial Times, the EPA is going to begin testing pretty much every diesel car model sold today, from all manufacturers, to determine whether companies not named VW also cheated the system. Should anything be found, the EPA will conduct further testing on more examples of a given model. But the EPA already warned automakers that it would start shaking up its testing procedures—what’s interesting is how the agency plans to go about acquiring cars for its experiments.
In order to compare real-world and lab-generated emissions results, the EPA will rent or borrow cars to test rather than receive them from manufacturers. That eliminates any pre-test fiddling by an automaker. To compensate owners for giving up their diesel ride, the EPA will provide them with a loaner as well as free oil changes or car washes. It’s all very clever, but then, the EPA has a lot of cleverness to make up, at least in the public’s perception.
So who’s caught up in this tougher round of emissions testing? Everyone who sells a diesel-powered passenger car in the U.S., basically, with BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, General Motors, and Land Rover all being looked at, 28 different car models in all. Nearly every non-VW, diesel-producing automaker has denied cheating its emissions data. But given how far Volkswagen’s ruse extended, well, obviously the EPA isn’t going to just take manufacturers at their word.
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