The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Friday that it would introduce major changes to its diesel tests to avoid a repeat of Volkswagen's cheating by installing a software that allows the vehicle to pass lab tests but spews emissions when driven.
The agency wrote to vehicle makers that it would add on-road testing that uses driving cycles and conditions found in normal operations. It would be in addition to the standard emission test cycles that the EPA is using.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said that the agency would also aggressively look into the other models to ensure there is no hidden software device or other methods to defeat the emission system. The German carmaker easily cheated EPA for seven years because the agency's testing procedures and predictable ad outdated, reports Associated Press.
It was not EPA that discovered Volkswagen's cheating but West Virginia University researchers who used on-road testing. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson called EPA's failure to protect the public for seven years as "sleeping at the switch."
However, EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality head Chris Grundler defended the agency. He points out that diesel vehicles are less than 1 percent of overall car emissions of nitrogen oxides and other pollutant. He insists, "It's not a question of equipment or technology or capability. It's a question of where we deploy those resources."
According to the New York Times, Volkswagen resorted to cheating to beat Toyota by becoming the world's biggest carmaker by tripling it sales in the U.S. in 10 years. "By 2018, we want to take our group to the very top of the global car industry," the paper quotes Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn - who resigned after the cheating scandal - at the opening of the company's first factory in the U.S. in decades in 2011.