Industry News: EPA To Become Stricter In Emission Tests

[William Maley]

The Environmental Protection Agency is becoming stricter as to how they test for emissions in light of the Volkswagen Diesel scandal. On Friday, the agency's Office of Transportation and Air Quality announced they would be conducting more spot checks of light-duty cars and trucks to make sure that automakers haven’t been cheating on tests. Automakers were notified of the changes via a letter. The EPA wouldn't go into detail about the changes.

 

“They don’t need to know. They need to know that we will be keeping their cars a little bit longer,” said Christopher Grundler, director of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality.

 

In the letter, the EPA states may test a vehicle “using driving cycles and conditions that may reasonably be expected to be encountered in normal operation and use.”

 

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required), The Detroit News

View full article

[G. David Felt]

About time, the EPA should be real world testing the auto's rather than using preset levels under preset conditions that do not relate to real life.

 

If the EPA tested all auto's I doubt they would find more than a 1/3 of them that actually produce the stated MPG on the sticker.