Vehicle emissions testing must become as relevant and trusted as safety checks for new cars, the boss of Volkswagen in the UK told the House of Commons Transport Select Committee on Monday.

 

The car company’s managing director Paul Willis was speaking after it was revealed that almost 1.2M of the manufacturer’s diesel powered vehicles in Britain contain software designed to cheat emissions tests.

 

Mr Willis admitted that the emissions testing regime was “old fashioned, not fit for purpose and in need of reform”. He added that the regime on safety “is much closer to the real world” and praised the work of independent testing such as EuroNcap which produces star ratings based on real world tests of a car’s performance.

 

He was challenged by Committee member Will Quince MP as to what assessment had been made to ensure that those software modifications haven’t affected vehicle safety. Mr Willis initially replied: “Safety is a completely different issue”.

 

But Mr Quince later raised the issue of trust, saying: “We’ve got a software issue. If we can’t trust you as an organisation in terms of emissions testing the public has a right to ask can we trust you in terms of safety?”

 

Mr Willis replied: “We have a duty to the public and consumers to reassure them that our cars are safe. There is no indication that this emissions issue relates to safety of cars.” But he admitted that trust has to be rebuilt with motorists. “We need transparency and openness and have a big job to do.”

 

On Monday the Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin told Parliament that a programme to retest affected vehicles will be carried out by the Vehicle Certification Agency, to compare real world driving emissions against laboratory performance. He added that he met with EU transport ministers last week to push for real world driving emissions to be introduced as quickly as possible. 

 

But Labour’s Shadow Transport Minister Lilian Greenwood said: “Patrick McLoughlin said nothing in his statement about the thousands of people whose health has suffered, or about motorists who bought these cars in good faith and now potentially face higher fuel costs.

 

“Transport ministers were warned last October that emission levels were higher than claimed but did nothing.”

 

♦ Transportation Professional’s October issue, published next week, includes a technical paper about the challenges of reducing vehicle emissions.

 

(Photo: Alvey & Towers)