In early 2014, the International Council on Clean Transportation began working with researchers at West Virginia University’s Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines, and Emissions (CAFEE) to follow up on reported discrepancies in the emissions of Volkswagen diesel vehicles. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) had previously subjected the vehicles to rigorous emissions testing in the laboratory, and the vehicles had all passed with no indication of any problems. The CAFEE researchers did their emissions test in the field and produced some very different results.[i]

The researchers discovered that when operating in the real world, the vehicles produced emissions that fell far outside the limits allowed for diesel vehicles to be certified in the United States. After more testing, the researchers discovered a sophisticated software application that used environmental data from the vehicle, such as the absence of movement from the steering wheel, to determine when the vehicle was being … Read more...