Dieselgate drives more scrutiny

The process of gaining bureaucratic approval of new vehicles has become tougher since the Volkswagen ‘Dieselgate’ scandal broke last September, one of Ford’s most senior global engineers has revealed.

While careful to avoid naming Volkswagen or use the term Dieselgate, which refers to VW’s decision to sell diesel engines fitted with a defeat device that cheated on NoX emissions, the vehicle and engineering manager of Ford Performance Tyron Johnson spoke of the increased amount of official scrutiny being applied to new vehicles since last September, the time when the scandal first became public.

Speaking while in Australia for the local launch of Ford's new Focus RS, Johnson revealed the hyper-hatch had been subject to drive-by noise testing three times before being homologated.

“Because of the events of one of our major competitors recently, the officials in all the countries are looking at what the OEMs are doing in terms of anything you want to homologate, for example drive-by noise,” Johnson explained.

“They look at it very, very closely. So we actually had to do the drive-by noise test three times, because the officials wanted us to do it three time because they wanted to make absolutely sure we actually passed the test.

“Throughout the program we actually had to redesign the exhaust system two and a half times to get the noise we wanted and to get the drive-by noise that’s required by law in the various countries around the world.”

Johnson said the increased scrutiny was not an issue for Ford, which had also wound up its own level of internal compliance checks since last September.

“I think it’s appropriate that the regulators are spending time looking at a lot of things.

“It is not just the sound that is scrutinised more. It is everything being scrutinised more. The officials are just looking at everything much more closely.

“The companies are looking at their test results much more closely – not just Ford, but all companies.

“They are saying ‘we are 100 per cent sure this is correct, but let’s be 110 per cent sure’.”

Johnson downplayed the additional cost such added processes added to vehicle development programs, instead citing the organisational headaches it generated.

“It’s just another frustration, another thing that you have to do,” he said.

“It slows you down a little, because it is part of people’s time to do this stuff. Someone has to spend time doing it and if they are spending time doing this then they are not spending time doing something else, which is what they were supposed to be doing.

“I have to figure out how I get the other thing done if they are doing this.”

Asked how the European automotive engineering community regarded Volkswagen’s decision to purposely cheat emission regulations, Johnson was cautious in his response but also clearly unimpressed.

“You are asking a difficult question for me because I don’t want to throw any one else into it,” he said. “There are some very good players and there are some less than very good players.”

He then added: “If they had made an honest mistake that is one thing, anyone can make a mistake. That’s not what they did.”