Emissions cheating goes global: France and Britain also investigating automakers

With US headlines about the latest on emissions cheating from Volkswagen, and now an investigation of Fiat Chrysler, the past week has not been a great one for diesel cars. Now, two automakers are subject to diesel investigations in Europe.

|
Christian Hartmann/Reuters/File
A logo is seen on a Renault automobile displayed outside a dealership in Boulogne, near Paris.

The past week has not been a particularly pleasant one for advocates of diesel cars.

Volkswagen agreed to plead guilty to criminal counts related to its diesel-emissions cheating and pay $4.3 billion in fines, while U.S. prosecutors arrested one of the company's executives and indicted five more.

Fiat Chrysler was accused by the EPA of using software in its diesel vehicles that violates the Clean Air Act, and now the Justice Department is reportedly investigating its conduct in the matter.

But the U.S. government is far from the only one busy with probes related to diesel emissions.

In Europe, two automakers are now subject to diesel investigations in two separate countries.

Renault and FCA are under investigation for possible violations of emissions standards in France and the U.K., respectively, reports Reuters.

On Friday, U.K. Department of Transport officials said they were urgently seeking information from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding its accusation against FCA.

The EPA said Thursday that FCA failed to disclose eight separate software routines that affect diesel engines' emissions.

That failure to disclose auxiliary emission-control devices, or AECDs, is a violation of the Clean Air Act.

However, so far the EPA has not labelled any of the eight AECDs "defeat devices," as it did the software used by Volkswagen to cheat on emissions tests for seven years.

The AECDs were discovered during 2017-model-year certification of Ram 1500 pickup trucks and Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs equipped with FCA's EcoDiesel 3.0-liter V-6.

More than 100,000 of these vehicles from past model years were sold with this engine, meaning they could also have the suspect software, the EPA said.

While British officials seek more information on FCA's alleged emissions cheating, French officials have begun an investigation into possible emissions-rules violations by Renault.

Renault issued a statement Friday in response to the investigation, saying that its cars are "compliant with all applicable standards," and that "Renault vehicles are not equipped with cheating software affecting anti-pollution systems."

French officials began testing cars randomly last year in response to the Volkswagen diesel scandal.

While no "defeat devices" were found in these sweeps, officials did say that Renault models exceeded emissions limits.

This story originally appeared on GreenCarReports.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Emissions cheating goes global: France and Britain also investigating automakers
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2017/0117/Emissions-cheating-goes-global-France-and-Britain-also-investigating-automakers
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe