My advice to Germany: scrap rules for real Vorsprung durch Technik
Engineers must be free to apply technology in new ways rather than cheating dry EU regulations
IT’S a badly kept secret that the ingenious minds of the motor industry are not just engineering cars, but the regulations too. Taping up door sills; overinflating tyres; switching off airconditioning; casting out spare tyres, components, and even the driver, during testing. The latest Volkswagen disclosures are just more to add to the list of test trickery.
Welcome to the murky world of regulations; fridges tested with no food, vacuum cleaners tested with no dust, and washing machines tested at inaccurate temperatures. The regulators clearly live in a place that looks nothing like the real world and manufacturers are taking advantage.
It is no surprise that the real-world emission tests of cars have fallen short of those achieved in test conditions.
Injecting urea into the exhaust system and switching on additional emission controls in the lab may seem acceptable between the lines of regulations, but it’s mad if you are trying to engineer a better car.
Regulations often offer little more than a smokescreen for manufacturers to hide behind. They are a form of control which stifles progress. When half a million people across Europe a year die from the polluted air they breathe, it is serious stuff.
Real progress comes from engineers having the freedom to apply technology in new and inventive ways. Rather than seek incremental improvements based on a dry EU dictate, they should be set free to engineer radical change: new fuel systems, new energy sources, new materials, new designs – not just new test methods — which smash restrictive targets.
Germany is a wonderful market for Dyson where, despite the dominance of bagged vacuum cleaner manufacturers, it is the market leader. But German firms do tend to dominate industries — cars and domestic appliances being two examples.
As a result they have more votes when it comes to EU rules, and they tend to act in concert, outnumbering the few of us who are not German. Such an approach does not come naturally to the British, who correctly think that these are murky tactics.
I believe this is part of the reason that Dyson is being forced to take the European Commission to court with a judicial review into the regulations imposed on vacuum cleaners.
It is the vacuum equivalent of this “va-va-voom” saga, as it is unsuspecting consumers who are being tricked by the very regulations that are supposed to empower them.
When setting out with the noble ambition of improving the efficiency of vacuum cleaners, the Commission wanted to limit the power of wattage of vacuum motors. This made sense as this is what affects the energy the machine draws from the wall. Yet Dyson was the only manufacture to support the proposal.
Surprisingly, a strong German lobby wanted to test virgin vacuum cleaners in a sterile laboratory without dust, fluff, grit, dust mites, skin cells. Why would they be so keen?
German manufacturers still rely on old fashioned bagged vacuum cleaners for their profits. These machines lose suction as the pores fill with dust and so by testing them empty, in the lab rather than the living room, their performance can be overstated.
Once you start using them at home, however, suction can fall, performance drop, and energy consumption increase. What was an “A grade” machine, can languish much lower down in the alphabet.
Needless to say, they got their way. Vacuum manufacturers have since gone even further to scoot around the regulations through engineering trickery. Some German manufacturers for instance have developed machines which ramp up the motor power as the bag fills up with dust. The energy rating, of course, is taken before the bag contains any dust.
I think this is wrong. I like the idea of greater clarity for consumers, but poor regulation, which does not reflect real-life, is not the way to do it.
The phrase Vorsprung durch Technik translates roughly to mean advancement through technology. But really it is a sneaky way of implying that German products are better.
Volkswagen once led the way in testing: the “people’s car” was the first to be tested in a wind tunnel and the first to traverse millions of miles before finally being put on the market.
This latest turn represents more than a bump in the road for the firm, but Volkswagen should not get special treatment because of its dominance in Germany, and therefore Europe. In fact this is an argument for greater independence for Britain. Germany making rules for German companies is fine, but don’t let them dominate us.
‘Regulations often offer a smokescreen for car firms. They are a form of control which stifles progress’