ust in case you’ve been living
under a rock for the last few
months: the entire automotive
industry is in the middle of its worst
environmental scandal in decades.
Volkswagen has been caught
systematically cheating on emissions
tests, while many more car
manufacturers have faced similar
accusations, with tens of millions of
vehicles affected all over the world. But
how dangerous are the pollutants
involved? Who’s to blame for ineffective
testing? And how much can we trust
companies to tell us the truth about the
cars that we drive?
The whole mess began on 18
September 2015, when the United States
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA)publicly accused Volkswagen of
using carefully-designed software to
circumvent diesel emissions testing.
“A sophisticated software algorithm
on certain Volkswagen vehicles detects
when the car is undergoing officialemissions testing, and turns full
emissions controls on only during the
test,” EPA wrote in a damning report.
“This results in cars that meet emissions
standards in the laboratory or testing
station, but during normal operation
emit nitrogen oxides, or NOx, at up to
40 times the standard.”WHAT A STINKER
Traditional emissions tests work by putting
cars onto a stationary test rig in controlled
laboratory conditions, where speed,
engine operation, air pressure and even the
position of the steering wheel are defined
in advance. Volkswagen’s device
supposedly monitored for those conditions
and when it detected them it would ramp
up its emissions-scrubbing system into
overdrive to comply with the test’s
requirements. When the test was over, the
cars would go back to belching out air
pollution in vast quantities again.
The requirements for NOx
emissions differ around the world,J
WHAT DID VOLKSWAGEN DO WHEN ITS CARS DID
NOT MEET EMISSIONS STANDARDS? IT DECIDED
TO CHEAT. DUNCAN GEERE INVESTIGATES THE
SCANDAL AND FINDS OUT WHETHER WE COULD
EVER CLEAN UP THE AIR IN OUR CITIES...
AC E
'CHEAT MODE'
ILLUSTRATOR: GLUEKITSC CE
SCISCISCIEENCEENCENCCEEEEE