Dieselgate Fall Out Continues: EU Lawmakers Vote to Bolster Auto Industry Oversight

Earlier this week, in more fall out from Dieselgate, EU lawmakers voted 585 to 77 in favor of a draft bill that would bolster EU oversight of the auto industry and allow the European Commission to fine car makers up to 30,000 Euros ($31,923.00) per vehicle for emissions violations. At the heart of the Dieselgate issue, as most of you know, is the use of “defeat devices” which are illegal under EU law. However, a legal loophole allows the auto industry to use software to scale back emissions controls when needed to protect car engines.

The new measures will eventually take diesel cars off the roads, European Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska said during the legislative session. “Diesel will not disappear from one day to another. But after this year of work … I am quite sure they will disappear much faster than we can imagine.” It remains to be seen whether this is really true.

Under the bill, the Commission would get powers to carry out vehicle spot-checks and levy fines, while national authorities would be able to peer-review each other’s decisions. EU member states will have to fund emissions testing centers and can levy fees from the auto industry to do so. The law still needs to be finalized in negotiations between EU lawmakers, the Commission and member states. The law does not create an independent testing agency, much to the disappointment of NGOs such as Transport & Environment (T&E), which had advocated strongly for such an agency. Noting the system is broken, T&E recently said:

“Reform is necessary because EMIS [the Parliament’s Dieselgate inquiry committee] has shown the current system is riddled with inconsistent, slack and distorted interpretations of the rules by member states, which are favouring their national carmakers or treating vehicle approval as a commercial activity. In Europe Volkswagen still claims it has acted legally, and it has not been fined or prosecuted by the German, UK or Spanish authorities that approved its cars. Neither is Fiat being required to clean up its engines after extensive arguments with Germany about whether turning down the exhaust controls after 22 minutes is legal (a test lasts 20 minutes). This is despite it being investigated in the US over the same vehicles that were approved for sale in Europe by Italian, UK and Dutch authorities. (The only exception to this inaction by regulators is France, where the authorities are investigating Renault and Peugeot-Citroën for emissions cheating.)”

The structure T&E had recommended would look something like this, shown in the figure below:

T&E further notes:

“Only an independent authority with a clear mandate, distant from political meddling, can ensure that checks happen as intended and law breakers are penalised. The Commission would still have effective enforcement powers, for example, in coordinating the new Forum on Enforcement and having the final word in disputes among member states. Meanwhile, responsibility for vehicle tests would sit with the separate, independent authority.”

Now that this seems less likely to happen, I wonder if even more energy will be focused on the global independent watchdog group that is being formed to test real-world car emissions (of which T&E is a part) as well at the Clean Checker Vehicle Program that was announced just last week by the mayors of London and Paris. These two programs have the potential to be much more far-reaching and impacting to the auto industry than the legislation being considered at the EU level. Not only are they global in reach and beyond the confines of Europe, the public relations risk to the industry is much higher as these initiatives further expose those vehicles that do not comply with emissions norms. That is something that is going to matter to consumers around the world.

Tammy Klein is a consultant and strategic advisor providing market and policy intelligence and analysis on transportation fuels to the auto and oil industries, governments, and NGOs. She writes and advises on petroleum fuels, biofuels, alternative fuels, automotive fuels, and fuels policy.