Volvo was 'wondering'

Volvo insiders say Volkswagen's apparent ability to certify its turbo-diesel engines for USA's unique EPA emission requirements had the Swedish brand "wondering" years before #Dieselgate broke.

The man in charge of the development of the marque's 'Cluster 90' premium cars and longtime Volvo engineer, Kent Falck, told motoring.com.au that his colleague examined available technologies and put VW's success down to unique "intellectual property".

"How many diesel cars have we sold in the USA up until today?" he asked rhetorically.

"None. No one can [meet the EPA's standards with the technology available at that time]", he stated.

"We sat in a room and reviewed all of the facts and figures... Whatever we had, with our specialists and decided we can't manage it [meet EPA emission limits]. How are the others doing? We didn't know..."

"We had the same suppliers. We have Bosch. We have Denso. We are working with the same. So we knew [then] that technology does not exist [to meet EPA]," Falck explained.

Nevertheless, Falck said his colleagues did not suspect foul play on VW's part.

"I will not say so. There is always intellectual properties in the world, like Powerpulse [Volvo new anti- lag system for turbocharged engines] is our IP. And [back then] there might be something out there we were not aware about, that we weren't allowed to buy.

"We were wondering how [VW was doing it]," he said with a smile.

But the company stopped short of flagging its concerns with authorities or industry bodies.

"From our perceptive, with our knowledge and our experience, we can just take care of ourselves. We can't do it [meet the emissions] so we can't introduce the [diesel] cars [into the USA]," he recalled.