Renault recalls cars to adjust emissions
Print Edition
RENAULT said yesterday it was recalling thousands of vehicles to make engine tweaks as the French carmaker grapples with emission levels found to exceed anti-pollution norms in some of its cars.
Some 15,800 diesel vehicles are being recalled due to an error “detected and corrected” in mid-2015, Renault’s head of engineering said, broadly confirming an earlier announcement by the ecology minister.
France’s second-biggest auto manufacturer — in which the French state owns nearly 20 percent — is under the spotlight after it emerged last week that anti-fraud investigators had raided several company sites.
Amid fears Renault could be caught up in an emissions scandal similar to the one engulfing Germany’s Volkswagen, officials announced that no pollution cheating software was found on Renault cars.
However, a French government-appointed commission said the company’s diesel cars had failed pollution tests.
Director of Engineering Gaspard Gascon-Abellan said yesterday that Renault had discovered in July “a calibration error” in the emissions cutting system of its diesel engines.
The problem led to nitrogen oxide and sulphur not being properly eliminated so that the particle filter was “completely losing its efficiency,” he said at Renault headquarters.
The error was fixed at the start of September and the recall began two months later, according to him.
The recall concerns Renault’s diesel Captur model produced in Europe between February and September last year.
Earlier Ecology Minister Segolene Royal, whose portfolio includes transport, said on RTL radio that Renault was recalling 15,000 new vehicles “to check them and adjust them correctly so that the filtration system works” in all temperatures.
“New cars must meet the norms,” she said, adding that the adjustment could be quickly done. “To correctly adjust an engine takes half a day,” she added.
She also said other carmakers found to have exceeded the norms had agreed to appear before the commission but declined to name them.
The commission, set up in the wake of the VW case, tested vehicles from a total of eight foreign and French brands, finding carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions from Renault cars to be too high, as well as those in some non-French models.
Thierry Bollore, Renault’s deputy director for competitiveness, also insisted during yesterday’s news conference that the company “respects all the norms.”
Technical plan
Renault on Monday pledged to draw up a “technical plan” over coming weeks to bring down harmful emissions.
It involves improving pollution cutting systems in diesel engines to be modified through a software update from July. “There will be a proposal to customers but not a recall since the vehicles conform,” Bollore said.
Renault sales director Thierry Koskas insisted Monday that the company was not cheating but acknowledged a problem had emerged between test and real conditions on the road.
“I want to restate this very firmly,” he said, presenting the group’s 2015 sales results. “We are not using any software or other (fraudulent) methods.”
“In test conditions, we respect emissions norms,” he added.
“But when we are no longer in test conditions, there is indeed a difference between real conditions and control conditions, that is a fact,” he said.
Renault had already said last month that it would spend 50 million euros (US$54 million) on emissions reduction after German consumer body Umwelthilfe found “frightening” pollution levels when testing a Renault Espace Diesel model.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
