ADAC boss car tester praises diesel with Euro 6d temp emission standard: “All-clear for the diesel”

05/02/2018

ADAC chief car tester praises diesel with emission standard Euro 6d-temp “all-clear for the diesel”

DPA

Anti-exhaust-demonstration in Leipzig

The new emission standard Euro 6d-temp makes the diesel suddenly clean. In an interview, ADAC chief tester Reinhard Kolke explains how the auto industry succeeded in achieving the allegedly impossible – and which disadvantages motorists still have to accept in the vehicles.

Reinhard Kolke

ADAC

Reinhard Kolke is head of the ADAC technology center in Landsberg am Lech.

mm: Mr. Kolke, the car industry has high hopes for new diesel models, that meet the Euro 6d-temp emission standard, Rightly? They examined the vehicles.

Reinhard Kolke: The results are excellent. The diesel cars investigated do not emit more nitrogen oxides than comparable petrol engines – in the lab and on the road. That’s excellent. If this continues, we can give the all-clear for the diesel. The manufacturers obviously understood.

mm: How did the manufacturers make it?

Kolke: That’s best engineering, but not rocket science. The key is that manufacturers consistently rely on SCR catalysts and the adequate addition of urea (Ad Blue). Some manufacturers still combine the SCR catalytic converter with a storage catalytic converter.

mm: This is not really a new technique.

Kolke: The technology has been known for 20 years and it has been working in trucks for ten years. It has also been standard for export vehicles for some time now. For a long time, however, the manufacturers said: “That’s what we’ll save on passenger cars in Europe”. But finally the technology comes with us in the production vehicles.

mm: Why not just like that?

Kolke: It is due to 100 percent of the new, stricter emissions legislation, that the technology is now used nationwide and also does what it should. The EU had never wanted to clean the air only in the laboratories, but not on the street. It turns out that a strong state of the industry must look massively on the fingers. This insight is basically disappointing.

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mm: Can motorists really rely on the new emission control system? Or are new loopholes conceivable, which only one sees – such as an automatic detection of mobile exhaust gas measuring systems?

Kolke: We need to constantly evolve our testing methods so that we and other controllers remain unpredictable for manufacturers. Even the Federal Motor Transport Authority can now better recognize whether it is deceived. But manufacturers should not afford such exhaust gas scares too often.

mm: Are drivers with a Euro 6d temp diesel now safe from driving bans in inner cities?

Kolke: Yes, they are on the safe side. These diesel are in terms of nitrogen oxide cleaning on the level of gasoline.

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