Leave VW TDIs Alone, Study Reveals Other European Diesels Far More Polluting

Sep 21, 2016 08:29 AM EDT | Sovan Mandal

The diesel scandal seems to be getting murkier just when everyone thought they have already seen the worst of it. The revelation to this effect comes from Transport & Environment (T&E), a non-governmental agency that found nearly every diesel vehicle sold in Europe pollute several times more than the minimum allowed as per set limits, Green Car Reports stated.

Ironically, it is Volkswagen that has been found to have the least polluting cars when it comes to complying with the now prevalent Euro 6 emission regulations. However, the VW diesels were still found to be polluting twice more than what Euro 6 regulations allow.

If that sounds alarming, others have been found to be worse offenders. For instance, Fiat and Suzuki were found to be emitting 15 times more nitrogen-oxide (NOx) in real-world usage than what the Euro 6 rules allow for. While that makes both Fiat and Suzuki to have the worst polluting cars in Europe, others such as Renault-Nissan aren't too far off with average NOx emission that is 14 times more than what Euro 6 allows.

What should be even more worrisome is that nearly all are belching more hydrocarbons than the maximum prescribed limit, which makes us to believe we might have already reached the point where diesel cars can't be adjudged to be environmentally safe anymore.

Renault might have already woken up to the fact and has also admitted they might be left with no option but to stop selling diesel powered vehicles in Europe altogether. There has already been a marked shift towards launching pure electric vehicles off late which essentially are zero-emission vehicles.

Others too might be forced to follow suit given that the future emission norms are only expected to get stricter than ever before.

All models tested by T&E have, however, been allowed to ply on European roads after due clearance from regulators. This also undermines the efficacy of the lab testing method currently in use that seems to be of little use than the real-world emissions testing method that T&E used to single out the polluters.

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