Feds Say They'll Tighten Emissions Tests to Catch Cheaters
Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency said this week that they’ll change regulations to hopefully catch carmakers who cheat on emissions tests in the future.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told reporters at a Wall Street Journal forum Tuesday that the agency would be “upping its game” to stop automakers like Volkswagen from creating two dramatically different emissions cycles for its cars — a cleaner “testing mode” and a dirtier real-world mode. The agency said it would also crack down on automakers who lie about real-world fuel economy.
“Writing regulations takes time,” EPA’s director of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality Chris Grundler told the Detroit News. “When you are working in the rapidly changing environment that we’re in right now, we want to make sure that we are agile enough and flexible enough to change with those times.”
The EPA has cracked down on five different automakers recently for misstating fuel economy figures. In addition to Ford and Hyundai, the agency has forced BMW to restate its mileage for its Mini Cooper Hardtop and Mercedes has been forced to lower its fuel economy figures for two of its cars.
Ironically, the EPA opposes a proposal that could have helped to uncover the malicious code in Volkswagens that helped those cars skirt the rules.
Of course, there may be some mileage in just testing the cars themselves, instead of relying on self-reporting automakers. But we’re not smart like them.
(Photo courtesy Coolceasar/Wikimedia Commons)
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Another diversionary tactic to draw attention away from the ecological damage the EPA did with the King Goldmine spill near Silverton, Colorado.
By 'upping their game', it will be interesting to see if that means they begin testing vehicles themselves or fund a 3rd party on a consistent basis to do so.
This all sounds to me like the EPA is asleep at the wheel, not enforcing the rules already on the books. I would think that the EPA would spot-check the most popular diesel engine in the market for the last 5 years. Even if they didn't suspect cheating/fraud, I would think the EPA would like to see how its benchmark requirements fair in the real world. Maybe the EPA should have a bounty for whistleblowers and/or people who bring cheating to the EPA's attention.
Thank you for that link at the bottom of the article about the epa opposing ecu software dissemination. I had wrongly assumed that they were in favour of having this access, and that they didn't see that it would only open up the aftermarket tuning game to more players. The wired article was really unsympathetic to that argument. I think that speaks poorly of their understanding of the topic at hand. This is a complicated industry, making the most complicated consumer goods out there, you'd think that editors would assign stories to writers with a decent background in it. Sometimes you need an expert.