EU lawmakers rejected plans Monday to introduce road tests from 2017 to help evaluate diesel car emissions, arguing that the proposed measures are too weak and would undermine existing EU standards, according to dpa. EU member states want to introduce road testing in addition to the existing laboratory tests, as these often do not accurately reproduce actual vehicle emissions and can be manipulated. German carmaker Volkswagen has been engulfed in a scandal after admitting that it had installed software in its diesel-powered vehicles to evade emissions tests. The environmental committee in the European Parliament opposed the introduction of real driving tests, arguing that the proposed measures would increase the permitted level of nitrogen oxides - pollutants that can cause lung cancer, asthma and other respiratory diseases. The proposal will be put to the vote of the full plenary in January. Member states had agreed in October that on-road test results can be more than twice as high than lab tests for an initial 28-month period, after which it would still be acceptable for cars to produce real driving emissions that are 50 per cent greater than under lab conditions. The leeway is intended to give manufacturers time to adjust to the new rules, and to allow in part for a margin of error. At present, real driving emissions are on average four times higher than the permissible lab limits, according to the European Commission. But environmental groups have criticized the plans. "The European Parliament stood up for Europe by saying yes to clean air and no to cheating," Julia Poliscanova of the Transport & Environment advocacy group said Monday. "Today's vote is an important step towards overturning the outrageous decision by EU governments on creating a fundamentally-flawed driving emissions test procedure," added EU lawmaker Bas Eickhout of the Greens. EU efforts to introduce road tests predate the Volkswagen scandal. The commission says it has known for several years that lab tests for diesel car emissions can produce substantially lower results than on-road performance.
