VW Defeat Device: Political OBSESSION with CO2 is the root cause

There is no real excuse for the VW Defeat Device scandal, but it’s political obsession with CO2 emissions that has pushed VW in to such extreme deceit.

The VW Defeat Device scandal continues to grow, and although there can be no excuse for such blatant fraud by a much respected – and very able – car maker, it’s not hard to see why VW felt compelled to cheat to achieve unattainable (in the real world) emissions.

Yes, VW – along with many other European car makers – lobbied for diesel-engined cars to get favourable tax treatment as governments looked at how to hit CO2 reduction targets after the Kyoto agreement, and they were right to do so. Or at least they were right about CO2 and diesel cars.

As a result, governments have based their car tax systems on the CO2 output of cars, pushing buyers in to diesel cars in the process, but have taken little interest in the stuff that comes out of the tail pipe of a car that really matters – NOx and particulates – until more recently. And that’s where VW – and others – have found themselves between a rock and a hard place – trying to get low CO2-emitting diesels to also emit low levels of NOx and particulates.

As a result, Europe has become obsessed by diesel cars – which now account for over 50 per cent of sales, up from around 10 per cent pre-Kyoto – despite them being a costly option for just about anyone who drives less than about 10k miles a year; the extra cost of both diesel cars and diesel fuel means only high-mileage motorists will ever find a diesel cost-effective.

But factor in the tax breaks – especially for company car drivers – and diesel car make a lot of sense, even if they are responsible for the poor air quality in out cities.

CO2 emissions aren’t the problem for cars – it’s NOx and particulates.

More than five years ago we highlighted how foolish the obsession – and tax treatment – of CO2 emissions is, and nothing much has changed in the meantime.

Governments are continuing to focus on CO2 emissions, despite the assertion that CO2 emissions from cars is causing global warming being nothing more than a theory. There is still much conflicting evidence about whether or not we are responsible for global warming by pumping CO2 in to the atmosphere, but can anyone truly believe that the man-made CO2 contribution to greenhouse gases – which amounts to not much more than around 0.25 per cent of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – is really responsible for global warming? Do we believe our atmosphere is that fragile?

To give that further perspective, it’s estimated that about 15 per cent of man-made CO2 comes from cars, lorries, planes, ships and other vehicles, so if we guesstimate that half of that is from cars that means the total contribution by cars to man-made greenhouse gases is around 0.02 per cent. Is it really worth obsessing over such a small number?

It’s time for a complete overhaul of emissions testing for cars – with the focus on NOx and particulates, NOT CO2 – which will sound the slow death of the diesel engine and the rise and rise of the petrol-engined plug-in hybrid and, certainly for many, a renewed interest in electric cars.