Germany keeps pressure on Fiat

The risk of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) cars being pulled from Germany’s showrooms just got greater after Germany’s transport department (KBA) yesterday filed an official complaint with the European Union.

FCA became the centre of an intra-European turf war after it snubbed KBA demands for a meeting week, a move defended by Italy’s own transport minister.

Italian Transport Minister, Graziano Delrio, chided the KBA for disrespecting European Union procedural law by not addressing the emissions complaint directly to his department, which certified the 500X 2.0-litre turbo-diesel in question for type approval.

Now the KBA has taken that to heart, filing official complaints about alleged fraud from FCA over the model’s NOx emissions with both the Italian government in Rome and the European Commission headquarters in Brussels.

The report filed by the KBA carries the subject “Illegal Shutdown of the Fiat 500X”, and has supporting accusations from automotive software supplier, Bosch, suggesting the car uses software, applications and calibrations that “may not appear within the law”.

It has reiterated its threat to pull the type approval of the 500X 2.0-litre turbo-diesel and reserved the right to cancel the type approval of all FCA products unless the car-maker complies with its investigations.

FCA continues to argue that its cars fully comply with EU laws, even though the KBA accuses the company of using software that shuts off the car’s NOx-cleaning software after 22 minutes – about two minutes after the standard NEDC test time.

It also bears noting that FCA owns Magneti Marelli, the giant electronics supplier that is a rival to the German-owned Bosch, and that the KBA is belatedly and frantically scrambling to control the emissions cheats and loophole dodges from its own domestic car-makers Volkswagen, Opel and Mercedes-Benz.

The KBA has not threatened to pull the type approval of any of its emissions-troubled domestic car-makers, even at the height of Volkswagen’s Dieselgate crisis, but it fired the threat across FCA’s bows after the car-maker dismissed its demand to front up for a grilling at a meeting of KBA investigators.

Yet the latest shot in the burgeoning war between the German government and the FCA could get serious for the car company. Under EU law, the Italian government alone is responsible for the emissions compliance of a Fiat model, and its type approval must be accepted by the other 27 member states.

It’s not only the KBA that has noted unusual emission behavior from the 500X diesel beyond 22 minutes. Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport magazine also found it emitted up to 1055mg of NOx per kilometre – more than 13 times the maximum under EU6 regulations – during a 100km real-world driving test. It ranked last in the magazine's multi-car emissions test.

Ironically, given whose breach it was that ignited the current diesel passenger-car crisis, the Volkswagen Golf 2.0-litre turbo-diesel was the cleanest of the cars tested.

While both the Golf and 500X models had storage-type catalytic converters that burn off NOx once the right engine temperature has been reached, the Fiat’s switched off after 22 minutes.

The test found the car’s maximum NOx levels came while running at 130km/h, but it also posted 820mg of NOx at urban traffic speeds.