EMISSIONS TESTING
Cheating is not uncommon
Three weeks ago if someone had dared to insinuate that Volkswagen had deliberately cheated on the emissions certification of 11 million of its cars, they would have been dismissed as a crackpot. But since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States released its damning assessment of Volkswagen’s trickery, the question on everyone’s lips is simply “What the %^&* were they thinking?”
What has emerged since that Sept. 18 release is a tale equal to any crime syndicate sleaziness, especially in Europe where VWs are engineered, developed and tested. Indeed, to fully understand why Volkswagen cheated, you have to understand how accepted such subterfuge is in European emissions testing.
For starters, the one constant has been the loopholes built into the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) testing. For instance, in determining their cars’ resistance, automakers can tape up all the headlights and other cracks in their bodywork to improve aerodynamics. They are also allowed to run their engines on lower viscosity — more slippery — oil. Hell, they are even allowed to pry the brake pads away from their discs lest that last nano-fraction of friction cause them to emit a gram more noxious gas.
And since NEDC tests allow the roads used to have a grade of up to one per cent, most emission test facilities have a downhill slope. Unlike in the United States, where most emissions tests are performed by the automakers themselves, many European automakers subcontract their testing to third parties, who, as you might imagine, have a vested interest in producing results showing how clean their employers’ cars are. One such subcontractor bragged, for instance, that repaving its test track had improved emissions and fuel economy results by between 3.1 and 4.7 per cent, thanks to a smoother surface. NEDC’s testing regime is notoriously unrealistic on acceleration and speed, so it’s well known the program doesn’t even begin to reflect real-world driving.
How effectively do these loopholes mask actual real-world nitrogen oxide output? One study by the Brussels-based Transport and Environment group compiled the results of six independent tests and found that fewer than 20 per cent of the diesel-powered cars tested — just 23 out of 137 (not all of them VWs) — in realworld driving conditions managed to meet European NOx emissions standards.
Another study tried to account for the effect of the NEDC’s “flexibilities” (the study’s authors seemingly couldn’t bring themselves to call them loopholes) have had on Europe’s determined effort to reduce automobile-produced carbon dioxide.
By comparing automotive CO2 production in 2002 with the improvements manufacturers had claimed by 2010, the authors were able to determine that European automobile fleets had reduced their average production of CO2 by some 26.8 grams per kilometre. The only problem was that technological advancement could only explain 17.7 g/km of those improvements, the study’s authors noting the remaining “gap of 9.1 g/km cannot be attributed to technology deployment.” In other words, fully 34 per cent of all the improvements European automakers claimed in CO2 reduction between 2002 and 2010 were the result of the “flexibilities” — let’s just call them institutionalized cheating, OK — permeating NEDC testing.
Had Volkswagen tried to be more devious, it could have easily achieved most of its performance goals simply by programming its now famous “defeat devices” to pump out four times the American standard and, if caught, claim innocently that it had erroneously “flashed” the European algorithm into their computers. Almost assuredly the result would have been a slap on the wrist compared with the existential crisis it now faces. Instead, it decided to treat our atmosphere as its own personal toxic waste dump. That’s how blasé it had become regarding cheating emissions regulations.
Was concern of a performance hit behind VW’s decision to cheat emissions tests? Many have speculated that when Volkswagen TDIs are forced to comply with North American emissions standards, there will be a significant loss in performance.
TheFastLaneCar website rigged a test to find out, strapping a 2011 Jetta TDI to a dynamometer to emulate Volkswagen’s “cheater” mode. Though its methodology might not be perfect, the results are interesting.
In full noxious gas mode, the 2.0L Jetta pumped out a peak 138.5 horsepower and 260 poundfeet of torque. When TFLCar tried to emulate EPA laboratory testing procedures, however, the peak dropped to 136.5 hp and 228.4 lb.ft. Though the loss of two horsepower is hardly earth shattering, the 31.6 lb.-ft. drop in torque is dramatic, since low-end torque is a diesel’s calling card.
It makes you wonder how many VW owners will bother to update their TDIs when a recall is finally issued, doesn’t it?