The German manufacturer has said the majority of the 8.5 million cars in Europe can be repaired this year, but an unspecified number will have to wait until 2017. The study shows Germany’s Volkswagen produces some of the cleanest cars.
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Volkswagen has fixed only one in ten cars affected by the emission scandal in the UK. Even if they have the lowest NOx emissions average out of 230 diesel vehicle models analyzed, the engines from Volkswagen still had twice as many nitrogen oxide emissions in real-world driving than the standard would allow.
Almost 1.2 million vehicles fitted with the software to cheat emission tests were to be fixed; however, Volkswagen has run short of the target to fix it within a year.
The European Transport & Environment Commission has made a report that compares real world driving emissions to the Euro 6 standard for NOx (nitrogen oxide) emissions for diesel engines.
“The failure to penalize VW in Europe is the tip of the Dieselgate iceberg with an estimated 29 million grossly polluting modern diesel cars now in use, a number that is still growing”, the T&E said in a report.
The NGO urged a recall of all harmful diesel cars and the institution of a European watchdog “to stop EU member states protecting their national champions and to ensure the single market for vehicles operates in the interests of all citizens”.
They found that Fiat and Suzuki were at the top of the list of vehicles that are supposed to meet Euro 6 standards, followed by vehicles from the Renault-Nissan group and General Motors’ Opel-Vauxhall.
The German auto manufacturer admitted in September 2015 to installing so-called “defeat devices” in 11 million diesel cars that enabled them to pass emissions tests they would otherwise have failed. The sales of Volkswagen cars has fallen in the United Kingdom and other countries after the scandal broke out.
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The Euro 6 emissions standard has a limit of 0.08g per kilometer; it is a significant reduction from the previous Euro 5 standard which allowed 0.18g per kilometer. The European Environment Agency said in a 2015 report that nitrogen oxide was responsible for around 72,000 premature deaths in Europe.
