EPA officials, in a joint probe with California’s regulatory agency, determined that Volkswagen had inserted a sophisticated algorithm in the cars’ emissions software that could detect when a vehicle was undergoing emissions testing.
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“The effectiveness of these vehicles’ pollution emissions control devices is greatly reduced during all normal driving situations”, said the Environmental Protection Agency’s notice to the company.
“Utilizing an annihilation gadget as a part of autos to sidestep clean air norms is unlawful and a risk to general wellbeing”, said Cynthia Giles, the EPA’s right hand director for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
The EPA called on VW to fix the cars’ emissions systems, but said auto owners do not need to take any immediate action.
USA and California environmental regulators said Friday they are investigating whether Volkswagen deliberately circumvented clean air rules on nearly 500,000 diesel cars.
The German automaker said in a statement it is cooperating with the investigation, but declined further comment. It is likely that owners will receive a recall notice from Volkswagen in the future, it said.
There are 482,000 four-cylinder VW and Audi diesel cars sold since 2008 involved in the allegations.
The EPA and the California Air Resources Board uncovered the defeat device software after independent analysis at West Virginia University raise questions about the cars’ emissions levels. In our comparisons of popular, mainstream models that sell in the largest numbers, the diesel vehicles in the class use more petroleum and produce more Carbon dioxide than the best gasoline-powered vehicles. The models include the VW Jetta, the Beetle and the Golf from model years 2009 through 2015, the Passat from 2014-2015 as well as the Audi A3, model years 2009-2015.
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“Working with US EPA we are taking this important step to protect public health thanks to the dogged investigations by our laboratory scientists and staff”, said Air Resources Board Executive Officer Richard Corey in a statement.
