Renault under cheating investigation

While the German government has done everything it could to keep its cheating car-makers out of harm’s way at the EU, the French government is urging its prosecutors to investigate Renault.

And to make that even more incredible, the French government owns 19.73 per cent of Renault.

Mercedes-Benz and Opel both punched through a EU testing loophole that allowed them to switch off their air-cleaning exhaust-gas recirculation (EGR) systems for diesel engines when it was too hot or too cold, and the German government asked them to do a recall.

Renault has done the same thing and the French government has sent its files across to its prosecutors, suspecting that the tweak broke the law by manipulating the laboratory-based emissions tests.

"It is now up to the courts to determine what further action to take over the suspected breaches," the government said in a statement released yesterday. The government also said Renault wasn’t the only one of its car-makers under investigation.

Other than Volkswagen (which still denies its Dieselgate cheat broke EU law), no other car-maker has been even referred to a prosecutor, much less prosecuted, though the German government has tried to take Fiat to task through the EU.

Renault, like so many other car-makers in Europe, has issued a statement insisting it has done nothing wrong and is confident that the legal process will clear its technology.

"Our vehicles are all and have always been homologated in accordance with the laws and regulations," Renault said in a statement yesterday.

"Renault reasserts its determination to enforce its rights to defend company's corporate interest, as well as its employees and shareholders.”

Its engine technology came under scrutiny when post-Dieselgate real-world tests on public roads by France’s Environment Department found Renault cars emitting higher levels of NOx than the maximum allowed under EU law.

Like many others, Renault has trodden a fine line between what is an illegal “defeat” device designed to identify lab tests and circumvent then (like Volkswagen did) and taking advantages of loopholes in the law designed to protect the air-cleaning systems to keep them working for a minimum of 160,000km.

Renault told a French investigating committee earlier this year that its EGR could clog the turbos, so it programmed a very narrow thermal window for it to operate in. That window is believed to be between 17 degrees and 35 degrees, and the system is shut off below 17 and above 35, ostensibly to protect its longevity.

Obviously, much of Europe spends a lot of its time operating below 17 degrees, so Renault’s NOx emissions rocket skyward in winter and in high summer.

Police conducted raids of Renault’s head office and its research and development department, along with its engine group, and interviewed senior officials and engineers after the independent test findings.

The process now will be that prosecutors are obliged to carry out further investigations into Renault’s thermal switch system and will then decide whether or not to bring in a judge to carry out a formal investigation, which could lead to a full-blown trial.