The car industry’s efforts to stop the EU more accurately measuring the pollution of plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) risks setting up another major emissions scandal, T&E has said. Ten years after Dieselgate, carmakers are again trying to pass off their vehicles as cleaner than they actually are – but this time they want lawmakers to make the practice legal.
PHEVs emit almost five times the CO2 in the real world thatn official tests claim, the latest EU data shows. The gap is due to the vehicles being driven less on the battery and burning more petrol than official tests show. The EU has set ‘utility factors’ to gradually tighten the gap, meaning that in order to comply with EU CO2 targets, carmakers would have to increase their sales of battery electric cars to compensate for higher PHEV emissions.
The carmaker and engine supplier lobby groups have called on EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to drop the PHEV utility factors set for 2025 and 2027. This would allow the industry to claim that PHEVs emit far less than is the case. T&E said the result could be hundreds of thousands of extra polluting cars being added to European roads by 2035 when the industry should be transitioning to zero-emission vehicles.
“Ten years ago the Dieselgate scandal showed that carmakers didn’t have any issue with fraudulently altering the emissions of their vehicles. They didn’t care about public health, consumer confidence or legal consequences. Now, they are once again trying to cheat consumers with claims their vehicles are cleaner than they actually are. The only difference is they want EU law to allow it. The Commission must say no and stay the course to zero-emission electric cars,” Lucien Mathieu, cars director at T&E said.
Consequences of Dieselgate
The Dieselgate scandal was uncovered in 2015 when carmakers were found to be using illegal “defeat devices” to cheat regulatory tests while their diesel cars emitted up to 10 times more toxic air pollution on the road. While the US fined carmakers and forced them to buy-back or fix the vehicles, in Europe up to 19.1 million suspiciously emitting cars are still being driven. As a result of these remaining vehicles, 81,000 premature deaths will occur between now and 2040, as will 55,000 cases of asthma in children.
Despite requirements for EU member states to investigate and take action, too little has been done. T&E and a coalition of organisations are calling on European lawmakers to use the current revision of the ‘roadworthiness package’ legislation to remove highly polluting vehicles. It said this should ensure systematic fleet screenings and roadside inspections are carried out based on real world emissions to identify and remove the highest emitters. Periodic technical inspections should be run for vehicles over 10 years old on a yearly basis, and the export of these vehicles should be stopped.
“Dieselgate is the encapsulation of what is going wrong in the automotive industry. It shows the appeal of short-term profits over long-term plans but also how carmakers weren’t made accountable for their actions. Now, 10 years later, the industry has not learned and keeps trying to hide its actual emissions. The roadworthiness package must deliver accountability, while Europe must draw a line at further concessions to PHEVs”, Lucien Mathieu added.
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