奔馳柴油門被測出來了

forbes.com

Europe’s auto industry is desperately trying to paint dieselgate as an isolated lapse of judgement by Volkswagen, while Volkswagen is desperately trying to paint dieselgate as the work of a “couple of engineers” lacking parental supervision. The transparent paint-job has received a huge crack today when Germany’s Daimler AG was found using the defeat device Daimler’s mustachioed CEO Dieter Zetsche has sworn not to exist.

Except that Daimler doesn’t call it a defeat device. In tests by Netherland’s official automobile inspector TNO on behalf on the Dutch Minister of the Environment, a C-Class Mercedes C220 TDi BlueTec was found emitting more than 40 times the amount of cancer-causing NOx than in the lab. After Dutch TV picked up the tough to ignore scent, the Stuttgart automaker complained that the tests were done at temperatures below 10 degree centigrade (50 F).

Germany’s Spiegel Magazne writes why:

“There is, says Mercedes, a shut-off device in the engine management of its C-Class diesel cars that stops the NOx cleaning under these and other circumstances. This is for the protection of the engine, and permissible, says the Stuttgart automaker.“

A look at the climate stats shows that in Holland, temperatures where the C Class switches off its diesel catalysator are common, except in the heights of summer. In the cool parts of Europe, Daimler’s diesel cars spew unmitigated NOx.