Mercedes C 220 CDI emits FORTY times the legal levels of NOx

Researchers at Holland’s TNO have discovered that the latest Euro 6 Mercedes C 220 CDI BlueTech emits 40 times the legal levels of NOx.

VW’s dieselgate issues have engulfed the German company in recent months after they admitted to fitting a defeat device to their diesel-engined cars to lower emissions.

VW are keen to let the world think that dieselgate is the work of just a handful of rogue employees, and the rest of the car industry is proclaiming they’ve never used a defeat device on their cars. But that doesn’t mean they’re not using the regulations to get away with murder.

Dutch researchers at TNO have revealed that tests on a new Mercedes C 220 CDI BlueTech – a Euro 6 car – saw emissions of NOx up to 40 times legally permitted levels. But it’s not due to a defeat device, say Mercedes.

The ridiculous levels of NOx in the C-Class were recorded at temperatures below 10 degrees centigrade (50F), and it seems that at temperatures at that level the NOx cleaning ability of the C-Class is disabled to ‘Protect the Engine’, which is obviously more important than protecting the humans.

Germany’s Spiegel says:

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.

That means that for most of the year in Northern Europe – including the UK, where the average temperature is below 10C for five months of the year – Mercedes diesel cars are spewing out levels of NOx that are frankly alarming, and starts to explain why, despite ever tougher emissions regulations, the levels of NOx in our cities has hardly changed over the years.

It really is time to get a grip on real emissions, and stop pretending we need to cut CO2 levels above all else.