Why Diesel Cars Are Spoiling Your Summer

(Bloomberg) -- Europeans aren’t just sweating through the long, hot summer. City dwellers may be coughing and wheezing more, too.

Diesel vehicles, which still command nearly half the market for new cars, are left with barely any pollution controls when temperatures soar above 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), according to France’s Petroleum and New Energies Research Institute. That means smog-inducing nitrogen oxide emissions that were at the center of the Volkswagen AG scandal spew into the environment unchecked.

“There are higher emissions of nitrogen oxides because the setups don’t work as well when it’s very hot,” said Gaetan Monnier, who heads the unit that led random government probes of cars after the VW scandal. “The atmosphere is also more reactive during a heatwave, making the level of cars’ emissions even more of an issue.”

Carmakers have been under scrutiny since the 2015 scandal that revealed VW had rigged the emissions setup in some 11 million diesel cars globally, the main emitters of nitrogen oxides. While sales have dropped as consumers fret over driving bans, diesels still made up 45 percent of new vehicle sales in Western Europe last year. Excessive emissions of the pollutant linked to premature deaths and respiratory problems have prompted the European Union to sue France, Germany, U.K., Romania and Hungary in May after failing for years to comply.

On-road tests have shown emissions clean-up systems start to reduce their effectiveness in cold temperatures as well as above 30 degrees.

Paris, which plans to banish all petrol and diesel cars from the city center by 2030, stopped older cars from driving during five days because of heat-related air pollution this summer. The municipality also limited speeds and discounted the price of public transport. The cities of Strasbourg and Lyon restricted the most polluting cars from town centers as well.

The French capital cooled off on Thursday, after reaching 36 degrees this week, while the heat endures in Berlin and Munich, home of BMW AG, with highs of 35 degrees forecast, according to the Weather Channel. London, which is extending its ultra-low emissions zone, has seen top temperatures of 33 degrees this summer.

Carmakers downplayed the concerns. While some diesel antipollution systems don’t perform as well in extreme temperature conditions, they still have an effect, a spokesman for Renault said. Since the VW scandal, automakers have faced criticism on their broad interpretation of rules that allow them reduce or turn off emissions systems to protect the engine.

Diesel Fixes

To improve vehicles on the road and stave off growing public backlash, carmakers like Daimler AG and Ford Motor Co. have agreed to recalls for fixes to improve emissions levels. Investigations into practices continue.

As of September, the EU is switching to a new testing procedure to close the gap between emissions readings in test labs and real-world driving.

High temperatures, strong sunlight and air pollutants lead to the generation of ozone, a corrosive gas that is a component of smog, said Charlotte Songeur, a spokeswoman for the agency that monitors air quality in the Paris region. “Nitrogen oxides in the air mainly come from road traffic,” she said. “And a big portion of these come from diesel cars.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Ania Nussbaum in Paris at anussbaum5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tara Patel at tpatel2@bloomberg.net, ;Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Elisabeth Behrmann

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