By Christopher Grundler, Director, Office of Transportation and Air Quality
Last month,*Volkswagen admitted to EPA and the California Air Resources Board*that the company employed a sophisticated device to cheat U.S. emissions standards in certain diesel cars, including the*Audi A3,*Beetle, Golf, Jetta, and Passat. We take this matter very seriously. It’s not only a violation of the Clean Air Act, it threatens public health and the credibility of the industry.
Our goal is to complete a comprehensive investigation and to*take the appropriate steps to ensure that this never happens again.*We are now testing for defeat devices and other compliance issues for model year 2015 and 2016 light-duty diesel vehicles from all manufacturers.*On September 25, we notified all auto manufacturers*that our testing will include additional evaluations designed to detect potential defeat devices.
We employ a*rigorous, multi-layer process to*test and certify new vehicle*models before they can be sold, and for testing vehicles that are in production and on the road. But technologies evolve and circumstances change, and we’re constantly looking at ways to improve our compliance and oversight programs. Over the past 45 years, our oversight and testing program has developed new tools and new techniques to adapt to technology advances so we can deliver on the agency’s mission.
In the late 1990’s, the heavy-duty industry deployed defeat devices in a large number of trucks, resulting in a settlement valued at over $1 billion. We’ve done extensive on-road testing audits for compliance with the newly implemented greenhouse gas emissions standards. This effort resulted in an enforcement action and ultimately a record-setting settlement with Hyundai/Kia,*and significant fuel economy adjustments by*Ford and other vehicle manufacturers.
Our testing and oversight*includes*both in-lab testing using dynamometers and on-road testing in real-world conditions.*Both*are necessary*as part of an active robust program. This provides a multi-layered oversight approach focused on:
More information for owners of affected vehicles may be found here:*http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/cert/violations.htm
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Last month,*Volkswagen admitted to EPA and the California Air Resources Board*that the company employed a sophisticated device to cheat U.S. emissions standards in certain diesel cars, including the*Audi A3,*Beetle, Golf, Jetta, and Passat. We take this matter very seriously. It’s not only a violation of the Clean Air Act, it threatens public health and the credibility of the industry.
Our goal is to complete a comprehensive investigation and to*take the appropriate steps to ensure that this never happens again.*We are now testing for defeat devices and other compliance issues for model year 2015 and 2016 light-duty diesel vehicles from all manufacturers.*On September 25, we notified all auto manufacturers*that our testing will include additional evaluations designed to detect potential defeat devices.
We employ a*rigorous, multi-layer process to*test and certify new vehicle*models before they can be sold, and for testing vehicles that are in production and on the road. But technologies evolve and circumstances change, and we’re constantly looking at ways to improve our compliance and oversight programs. Over the past 45 years, our oversight and testing program has developed new tools and new techniques to adapt to technology advances so we can deliver on the agency’s mission.
In the late 1990’s, the heavy-duty industry deployed defeat devices in a large number of trucks, resulting in a settlement valued at over $1 billion. We’ve done extensive on-road testing audits for compliance with the newly implemented greenhouse gas emissions standards. This effort resulted in an enforcement action and ultimately a record-setting settlement with Hyundai/Kia,*and significant fuel economy adjustments by*Ford and other vehicle manufacturers.
Our testing and oversight*includes*both in-lab testing using dynamometers and on-road testing in real-world conditions.*Both*are necessary*as part of an active robust program. This provides a multi-layered oversight approach focused on:
- Testing both pre-production prototypes and production vehicles on the dynamometer, which provides accurate, reliable and repeatable measurements that can be used to compare against the standard, and across vehicle types;
- On-road testing*using portable emissions monitors (PEMs) that measure emissions during real world driving situations.*In recent years, on-road PEMs testing has been focused on heavy duty diesel vehicles, which account for roughly 40 percent of the NOx pollution from on-road sources.* (By comparison light duty diesel cars account for about 0.1 percent of NOx pollution from on-road sources.)
- Laboratory audits ensuring that manufacturer, contract, and other agency test labs conform to testing protocols and data quality standards, so that the data EPA gets from these sources (including the data manufacturers provide to EPA) meet standards and that results can be compared among labs; and
- Holding manufacturers accountable for their actions through rigorous enforcement of the Clean Air Act, which provides a strong deterrence against cheating and helps maintain a level playing field for the vast majority of automakers that play by the rules.
More information for owners of affected vehicles may be found here:*http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/cert/violations.htm
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