A diesel model by the German automaker Volkswagen AG (VW) fitted with an engine that was found by US environmental authorities to have cheated an emissions test has cleared a laboratory emissions test by Taiwan’s Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), with further on-the-road tests to be conducted soon.
The EPA yesterday said that it conducted the test last week on a newly manufactured VW Golf vehicle equipped with a 1.6L turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engine and found no emissions violations.
The test results of the car’s air filter, particulate filter, exhaust gas recirculation system, catalytic converter, vent valve and electrical system were in accordance with emissions regulations, the EPA said.
Photo: Bloomberg
A second round of tests, including laboratory and on-the-road tests, is to be conducted shortly on two used VW Golf 2.0 TDI cars — the model found to have been equipped with sophisticated software that circumvented the US emissions tests — in addition to the VW Golf 1.6 TDI tested in the first round, and the results are expected in two weeks, the EPA said.
The second round of tests would utilize a portable emissions measurement system (PEMS) to assess “in-use” emissions and fuel economy, the EPA said.
Asked whether the first round of tests included only the VW Golf 1.6 TDI model rather than the affected Golf 2.0 TDI model, the EPA said that the two models shared the same engine and many parts.
If any suspected emissions violations or large differences between laboratory and on-the-road tests are found, the EPA said it would request VW Taiwan to recall the defective models.
The EPA quoted VW Taiwan as saying it would recall problematic models if the company’s German headquarters decided to do so, adding that a compulsory recall could be enacted and the company would face an NT$10,000 fine for each defective car it sold and refused to recall.
There are 1,865 VW vehicles in Taiwan that are suspected of being affected by the emissions violations scandal, including the Golf 2.0 TDI, VW Passat 2.0 TDI and Audi A3, the EPA said.
The EPA said it would expand the scope of its investigation to include Audi diesel models that the company on Monday said were fitted with the cheating software.
The emissions violation scandal broke out in the US last month as VW TDI models were found to be equipped with software that could cheat exhaust emissions tests. The software allegedly suppresses emissions controls when on the road to produce more torque and get better fuel economy, at the expense of emitting up to 40 times more nitrogen oxide than allowed by current US laws.
The EPA said that Taiwan’s emissions test is based on EU standards rather than US ones, and the EU plans to include the PEMS — the adoption of which is not legally required in any part of the world — as a compulsory test method in 2017, and the EPA expects to follow suit.
Currently, there are 730,000 diesel vehicles in Taiwan, and the EPA said it would conduct random inspections even on models not engulfed by the VW emissions scandal.
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