Volkswagen successfully lobbied for changes to proposed new European emissions tests designed to more accurately reflect ‘real world conditions’, a newspaper report said.
According to the New York Times, a VW group executive argued against a provision to measure cold start emissions and another requiring special, high-speed tests for cars designed to be driven fast.
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“Such topics must be deleted,” he wrote in an email last year to the European Commission included among documents made public by the commission after a request by Corporate Europe Observatory, a Brussels-based advocacy group.
The new tests, still to be debated in the European Parliament, will be the first in Europe to require screening car pollution outside of a laboratory and in road tests meant to more closely reflect real driving, the paper noted.
The paper said the email was written by the VW official on behalf of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) and that a spokeswoman for the group could not say whether other automakers had lobbied on the same topics.
In the email, the VW executive wrote that automakers “cannot agree to a regulation including undefined topics like cold start or high speed”, adding that both “must be deleted”, the New York Times said.
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By GlobalDataA spokeswoman for the European Commission told the paper the commission still intended to develop a plan to measure cold starts in future addendums to the regulation, which is scheduled to take effect in 2017. “The commission is developing a specific cold start test,” she wrote in an email, “which better reflects emissions in real driving scenarios like short city trips.”
A VW spokesman said in a statement sent to the paper the email sent by the VW executive to the commission last year was “part of the normal exchange of expertise that is part of every lawmaking in the EU”, adding it was sent by the VW executive on behalf of the automakers’ trade group during technical discussions and “should not qualify” as lobbying by Volkswagen.
The paper also said Audi executives, specialising in emissions certification, had also helped two committees draft new laboratory test procedures led by a member of the German transport ministry while VW had also asked for more flexibility in making larger passenger vehicles like vans and buses meet existing rules though it dropped the proposal after its emissions scandal broke.
The report said environment groups want cold start testing included because that is when emissions are highest, before catalytic converters and other control devices start to work while automakers wanted ‘cold start’ better defined and ultimately asked for the provision to be dropped. The high-speed test proposal has been watered down to 91mph with the odd burst to 100mph with automakers arguing there are now few roads in Europe where really high speeds are common.
Lawmakers are likely to reject new tests seen widely as making it easier for automakers, the New York Times added, and rejection will require redrafting of the proposals.
