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ERD50 · 10-09-2015, 04:05 PM

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Originally Posted by REWahoo

Damn rogue engineers are spreading evil everywhere...

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Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi have joined the growing list of manufacturers whose diesel cars are known to emit significantly more pollution on the road than in regulatory tests, according to data obtained by the Guardian.

In more realistic on-road tests, some Honda models emitted six times the regulatory limit of NOx pollution while some unnamed 4x4 models had 20 times the NOx limit coming out of their exhaust pipes.

“The issue is a systemic one” across the industry, said Nick Molden, whose company Emissions Analytics tested the cars. The Guardian revealed last week that diesel cars from Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo and Jeep all pumped out significantly more NOx in more realistic driving conditions.

Four more carmakers join diesel emissions row | Environment | The Guardian

You left out an important clause:

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There is no evidence of illegal activity, such as the “defeat devices” used by Volkswagen..

All this is saying is that the EU's standard test-bed test does not match 'real world' drive tests. No cheating.

And the reality is, it isn't easy to design a standard test to reflect 'real-world' usage, as usage varies so much. Just like a laptop hours-of-battery per charge spec - it depends a LOT on how you use it.

I was thinking about this earlier - a standard test like this has a fixed series of starts/stops, accel/decel, cruise at various speeds, etc. But if I have a car with a powerful engine, I might routinely accel much faster than the test. And if I have a modest power car, it might mean I'm a much more conservative driver. But the test (AFAIK), never pushes the car to it's max acceleration. And even that isn't 'fair' - maybe I bought that car but don't drive it like that.

Defining a standard test is not easy, and it's unlikely to ever be 'fair'. We can hope it is good enough though. An alternative is for these tailpipe sniffers to be installed on all cars 24/7, and you would get taxed annually on your own emissions. No, I'm not suggesting we go there.

-ERD50