Many European diesels failed pollution tests, since 2007

According to the New York Times (NYT) yesterday, European officials were well aware that VW diesels did not adhere to pollution limits “for years” before the recent emissions cheating scandal, and in fact, diesels of other brands across the industry had similar, if not worse, problems. Testing began in 2007, which found that diesels were emitting far more nitrogen oxides on the road than in laboratory testing. Furthermore, the NYT report states that “a VW Golf that met regulatory standards when tested in the lab exceeded those limits by nearly three times when tested on the road. But that was markedly better than a car made by Renault, the Clio, whose emissions exceeded regulatory limits by as much as seven times…”

LONDON — European officials knew that Volkswagen diesels fell short of pollution limits years before the company became engulfed in an emissions cheating scandal, records show.

And they also knew that diesels across the industry had problems that were similar, if not worse.

The European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch, performed road tests on emissions from seven diesel cars starting in 2007, but it did not reveal what cars or manufacturers had been involved in the tests when it published the results in 2011 and 2013. Internal documents obtained through the European equivalent of a Freedom of Information request, along with records recently made public by the commission, detail the results.

The tests were not intended to identify carmakers violating the rules. Rather, they were aimed at identifying the shortcomings of conducting pollution tests solely in laboratories and also assessing equipment used to test emissions on the road.

The vehicles were tested by the Joint Research Center, a branch of the European Commission that bills itself as an “in-house science service.” Nina Kajander, a spokeswoman for the center, cautioned against drawing conclusions from specific models that were tested.