In an as-yet unreleased—officially, at any rate—letter, the EU’s industry and climate commissioners Miguel Cañete and Elzbieta Bienkowska outline evidence of widespread manipulation in the car industry of new emissions tests, known as the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP), used to measure fuel consumption and carbon dioxid emissions from passenger cars, as well as their pollutant emissions.
The letter and what the commissioners call a ‘non-paper,’ were sent to the Austrian presidency of the EU, the chair of the European Parliament environment committee, and the lead MEP on the legislation for new car carbon dioxide targets. While the non-paper does not name any specific car manufacturers, the findings of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), which conducted the analysis that exposed the potential cheating, were based on 114 data sets.
