European Group Says Pretty Much Everyone is Lying About Efficiency
An environmental group in Europe is saying most of the world’s automakers are lying about misreporting emissions and fuel economy on tests that are intentionally unclear and designed with several loopholes for carmakers to exploit.
“Like the air pollution test, the European system of testing cars to measure fuel economy and CO2 emissions is utterly discredited. The Volkswagen scandal was just the tip of the iceberg and what lies beneath is widespread abuse by carmakers of testing rules enabling cars to swallow more than 50 (percent) more fuel than is claimed,” Greg Archer, clean vehicles manager at Transport and Environment, said in a statement.
Specifically, the Brussels-based group says that Mercedes A, C and E class and BMW’s 5 Series cars pollute up to 50 percent more than the automakers report. Emissions claims and real-world emissions for most cars could differ by up to 50 percent by 2020, the group says.
The 18-page report relies heavily on information gleaned from the International Council on Clean Transportation’s test that measured emissions from different worldwide vehicles — including Volkswagen’s diesel cars and BMW’s diesel X3.
In addition to polluting more than the automakers claim — up to 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2030, the group says that the additional fuel costs paid by drivers will add up to more than $1 trillion in 15 years.
Transport and Environment said automakers routinely game the emissions system tests by over-inflating tires to create lower rolling resistance, disconnecting the battery to reduce engine load, using unique (or illegal) engine management systems and under-reporting by 4 percent the emissions levels, which is allowable under guidelines.
Both BMW and Mercedes (and others) have denied any wrongdoing.
Basically, it’s all made up, according to the group.
More by Aaron Cole
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It's probably human nature to game the system to get the best possible results on any test. The problem is that wildly inflated test results really screw up the cost/benefit calculations. I came to the conclusion that EPA fuel efficiency numbers were close to useless in calculating even the relative efficiency of two cars. Fuelly provides a different set of less optimistic fuel efficiency numbers, but in the end I couldn't calculate where fuel prices would have to be for the more expensive hybrid or diesel powertrain option to pay for itself. Glad I decided against paying extra for fuel efficiency assuming a $3.50/gallon price point considering the price I paid was half that for the last 2 fill-ups. Apparently the European test results are even more useless for estimating operating costs.
The use of the term "emissions" creates a lot of confusion around these parts. CO2 emissions = fuel economy. The European fuel economy cycles are extremely optimistic (compared to the EPA ratings, they are often 20-30% higher) and more prone to gaming (they use on-road testing to optimize results.) But just because automakers are playing to the test does not mean that they are cheating -- the Europeans could fix this by revising the test. NOx is a different matter. NOx can be reduced with technology. VW's failures are likely due to cost cutting -- effective urea systems and better catalytic converters would have cost more money.