Opel denies cheating

Opel’s chief executive is denying allegations that its diesel engines are fitted with emissions-cheating software. In response to a joint investigation by Germany’s Spiegel magazine, ARD television’s Monitor program and Deutsche Umwelthilfe, Karl-Thomas Neumann says: “We at Opel don’t have illegal software.” Spiegel and ARD reported that Opel used software to reduce emissions controls in different conditions, such as driving at speeds faster than 145kph and at engine revolutions exceeding 2,400 times a minute. Neumann says the results are “misleading oversimplifications and misinterpretations of the complicated interrelationships of a modern emissions control system of a diesel engine.” “Our engines are in line with the legal requirements. We anticipate the authorities to share this point of view.” Opel, along with other automakers, agreed to voluntarily upgrade 630,000 vehicles in Europe to fix temperature-control setups that pushed the boundaries of regulation. DUH environmental advocacy group spokeswoman, Dorothee Saar, says: “It's important that the emissions technology operates properly. It cannot be that it only works at narrowly set parameters.”