New test results published yesterday showed that dozens of diesel cars from multiple manufacturers fail to meet specified European emission targets. Vehicles from Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo, and Jeep were all tested in real-world conditions — and all of them found severely wanting. The average Mercedes Benz produced at least 2.2x more NOx than the official Euro-5 level and 5x more than the ecological Euro-6 emission standard allows. Honda’s diesels emitted between 2.6x and 6x more NOx than allowed.


Mazda and Mitsubishi both failed the test as well. Out of 50 vehicles that supposedly met Euro-6 levels and 150 Euro-5 diesels, just five vehicles out of more than 200 emitted real-world particulate levels that matched their in-house lab tests. The difference between these manufacturers and VW, thus far, is that none of these other companies stand accused of using a so-called “defeat device” to hide their failures. They didn’t need to.