Germans in shock over diesel car exhaust tests done using humans

● Experiments are widely condemned ● Monkeys also exposed to fumes

Public criticism of the German car industry has escalated following reports that diesel exhaust tests were carried out on monkeys and humans.

The chairman of Volkswagen said the tests involving monkeys were “totally incomprehensible”. The German government condemned the reported experiments and as well as others involving human volunteers as subjects.

Revelations of the tests add a twist to the German auto industry’s attempt to move past Volkswagen’s scandal over cheating on diesel tests and the resulting questioning of diesel technology across the industry. Volkswagen chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch said the tests must be “investigated completely and without reservation”.

A report by the New York Times found a research group funded by major German auto companies commissioned experiments in which one group of monkeys was exposed to diesel exhaust from a late-model Volkswagen.

Another group was subjected to fumes from an older Ford pick-up vehicle.

The experiments were carried out in 2014 before Volkswagen was caught using software that let vehicles cheat on emissions tests. They were intended to show modern diesel technology had solved the problem of excess emissions.

But according to the New York Times report, the Volkswagen car in the tests was equipped with illegal software that turned emissions controls on while the car was on test stands and off during regular driving.

Volkswagen admitted using the software in 2015. The Volkswagen scandal led to public scrutiny of diesel emissions as regulators discovered other companies’ vehicles also had higher emissions on the road than during testing, though not necessarily through illegal rigging. The industry has had to fend off calls for diesel bans in German cities with high pollution levels.

The New York Times report was followed by one in Monday’s edition of the Stuttgarter Zeitung daily. The report said the now-closed research group also commissioned tests in which humans were exposed to nitrogen oxides – a class of pollutant. The group reportedly said the tests showed no effect on the subjects.

The German government condemned the reported tests on animals and humans. Transport minister Christian Schmidt had “no understanding for such tests … that do not serve science but merely PR aims”, spokesman Ingo Strater told reporters in Berlin.

He called for the companies concerned to provide “immediate and detailed” responses and said a ministry commission of inquiry that was set up after the emissions scandal broke would hold a special meeting to examine whether there were any other cases.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said “the disgust many people are feeling is absolutely understandable”.

“These tests on monkeys or even humans can in no way be ethically justified,” Mr Seibert said. “They raise many critical questions for those behind these tests and these questions must urgently be answered.”

The governor of the German state of Lower Saxony – a major shareholder in Volkswagen – added his voice to calls for quick answers.