According to Bild am Sonntag, the German government has found no less than five illegal devices for switching off emissions controls in Mercedes’ new Euro 6 diesel engines, so far placed under the hoods of around one million vehicles.
A Reuters article noted that Mercedes parent Daimler objects to the position that the devices are illegal. The German government has already ordered Mercedes to recall its Vito vans with the 1.6 liter diesel; the transport minister met with Daimler’s CEO today and ordered Mercedes to recall 774,000 vehicles to correct “prohibited shutoff devices.” However, Daimler is not being fined by Germany, despite prior threats of penalties of billions of euros, and will not need to make any hardware changes.
The global diesel scandals began in Germany with Audi, which reportedly developed software to cheat on government diesel emissions testing; Volkswagen adopted the cheats and was forced to recall vehicles in Europe and North America. Fiat Chrysler has also been accused of having “cheats” in some of its engines, but an article Allpar suggests that the blame likely lies with suppliers, including Bosch. Daimler is still protesting that its software cutoffs are legal, but also uses Bosch as a major diesel supplier.
David Zatz has been writing about cars and trucks since the early 1990s, including books on the Dodge Viper, classic Jeeps, and Chrysler minivans. He also writes on organizational development and business at toolpack.com and covers Mac statistics software at macstats.org. David has been quoted by the New York Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Detroit News, and USA Today.
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