France’s anti-fraud and consumer protection agency DGCCRF has released a new report that alleges that Renault has been (may have been?) falsifying vehicle emissions test data for the last 25 years.
The report, very notably, claims that all top executives — including CEO Carlos Ghosn — have most likely known of this.
Is this true? Hard to say at this point — though, things certainly aren’t looking good for Renault. The company referred to the Libération article that broke the news as “unbalanced,” it should be noted.
A company statement read:
“Groupe Renault has acknowledged the publication of an unbalanced national newspaper article related to the ’emission’ case. This article alleges to quote selected excerpts from a report drafted by the DGCCRF.
“Groupe Renault will not comment on a current investigation, the latter being confidential by nature and Renault having as yet no access to the case. As a consequence, Renault cannot confirm the veracity, completeness and reliability of the information published in said article. Renault will prove its compliance with the regulations and reserves its explanations for the Judges in charge of investigating this case.”
Here’s more from Deutsche Welle (obviously, a German news source):
“On Wednesday, the French daily ‘Libération‘ published excerpts of a report by the agency that suspected that Renault — like Germany’s Volkswagen — used a ‘fraudulent device’ so its engines would pass pollution tests.
“The report stated ‘the carmaker deceived consumers over the verifications conducted and in particular over the regulatory certification of the emission of pollutants.'”
The report continued: “The results give rise to suspicions that a special device modified the performance of the motor to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions during the specific conditions of certification tests.”
As a reminder, in addition to the ongoing Volkswagen diesel emissions cheating scandal and this one from Renault, Fiat-Chrysler has also been dealing will allegations that it has employed illegal defeat devices. Presumably, the issue is so widespread because the ability to make diesel cars “cleaner” and compelling enough for buyers had reached a sort of max threshold. The option was seemingly to either give up on diesel or cheat.
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