EMIS hearing 16 June 2016

Learning from the truck industry

In the afternoon of the same day, Prof Dr-Ing Kai Borgeest followed his invitation to the Committee of inquiry into Emission Measurements in the Automotive Sector (EMIS). Working for the Aschaffenburg University of Applied Science in Germany, and specialized in electronics in vehicles and around combustion engines, his appearance at EMIS was somewhat remarkable, as MEPs found his answers crucial in understanding the matter at hand and at times referred to his answers at the hearings that followed. Prof Borgeest started by stressing that the car industry could learn from the achievements the truck industry has had in reducing emissions of heavy-duty vehicles and the surrounding legislation. He also stated that the current temperature levels the tests take place at do not make sense as they in essence exclude driving conditions for about half of the year for Northern European countries. When asked whether he was surprised about anything concerning the Dieselgate allegations, the only thing he specified was that it took so long for someone to confirm his long-harboured suspicions that something fishy was going on. A lot of the test results from car engine emission testing can so far only be explained by the presence of defeat devices in the car engines, according to the professor, and he suspects that knowledge leading to this conclusion was also available to national authorities like the German Kraftfahrtbundesamt (KBA). In order to make the software easier to audit and detect software-based defeat devices, Prof Borgeest furthermore proposed deposit rules for ECU (Engine Control Unit) software and obligations on manufacturers to fully document the software source code.