GM Falls Under Scrutiny For VW Like Emissions Software In EU

We’ve suspected for some time that more automakers would be caught up in the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal, and the first new perpetrator has apparently been identified: General Motors. GM CEO Mary Barra’s insists that VW-style software cheating on emissions tests “is not a condition that exists in our vehicles,”  but the German environmental group Umwelthilfe has sponsored tests that throw that claim into serious doubt [English press release in PDF format here].

In testing of the Opel Zafira 1.6 CDTi, performed at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, GM’s diesel engine passed NEDC cycle NOx tests performed on a two-wheel (single-axle) rolling road but emitted two to four times the Euro6 limit for NOx when the same test was performed on a four-wheel rolling road. This strongly indicates that a software “test mode” exists for this engine, although Opel insists that “The software developed by GM does not contain any features that can detect whether the vehicle is being subjected to an emissions test.” But, says International Transport Advisor Axel Friedrich,  “I have no normal, technically plausible explanation for the emission behavior of the Opel vehicle.”

TheSteve - 10/23/2015 3:15:42 PM

+4 Boost

Readers might be missing the big picture here: It doesn't matter if the engine meets emission laws using "cheat software", or whether it does so any other way, but only while under very specific conditions that are exactly like lab test scenarios, and exceeds legal limits under real-world use.

Regardless how a manufacturer does this, they did it with the express intent of passing the emissions lab test rather ONLY, than operating within legal limits in the real world. If this is the sin, then VW is not the only guilty party.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This does not diminish or downplay VW's criminal actions, dishonesty, ethical breaches, etc.

TomM - 10/24/2015 8:46:49 PM

+1 Boost

As in all other cases - when these "standards" were developed - they were done so based on a method of testing them - and THAT is what car makers are required to do. Real world testing may have nothing to do with that method - and - as in the case of the Fuel Mileage testing in the USA - it may not remotely cross over into the real world. However - deliberately producing systems that ONLY work during testing is different from the norm - and that is what VW is guilty of.

Still - I have said in the past - that as a matter of course - ALL car makers test the cars of other manufacturers as a method of responding to their competition. In Europe - where Diesel Engines outsell GAS engines because of the price of fuel - I am completely sure that a number of manufacturers studied the VW "clean diesel" because it was claimed to do something that others were unable to do. (Ie - meet the standards without a urea based additive). And I am sure that the software "solution" was discovered long ago by VW competition. Whether other companies decided to respond in kind is something yet to be discovered.