Today, it became a matter of official record what I wrote nearly a year ago: Large-scale emissions cheating has been an industry-wide practice for decades, an open secret only absolute auto amateurs were not privy of. This truth has been (at least partially) disrobed by the man who was in charge of setting the industry norms in Europe, former EU Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen. In a hearing of an investigative committee of the EU Parliament, Verheugen said it was “general knowledge” that what is measured in the labs, and what actually comes out of the tailpipes of millions of cars, stands in no relationship. How this problem is handled the world over stands in no relationship either.
“There has been general agreement that the test results in the lab do not correlate with regular driving,” Verheugen told the committee with Germany’s Handelsblatt taking notes. “Everybody knew that.”
