The Duramax diesels in 705,000 Chevrolet Silverado and GM Sierra pickups arel the focus of a recent lawsuit against General Motors.
Last week, the public prosecutor’s office in Stuttgart searched 11 different sites belonging to Daimler AG, looking for evidence that the company falsified reports emissions tests for the company’s diesel engines.
Daimler is the latest car maker to find its diesel powertrains under scrutiny, with more and more focusing on the role German auto supplier Robert Bosch Gmbh may have played in cheating on emission tests.
General Motors also now faces a class-action lawsuit that claims the company used three different “defeat devices” so its Duramax diesel engine could pass emission tests.
The proposed class-action lawsuit covers people who own or lease more than 705,000 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups fitted with “Duramax” engines from the 2011 to 2016 model years.
(GM sued for allegedly cheating on diesel emissions testing. Click Here for the story.)
GM said the claims are baseless and the company intends to defend itself vigorously. It also insisted that the trucks comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emissions standards and California’s own tough emissions standards.
Daimler said in a brief statement it was cooperating with the investigation. But the company declined further comment except to note the searches were part of “preliminary investigations of known and unknown employees of Daimler AG due to suspicion of fraud and criminal advertising relating to the possible manipulation of exhaust-gas after treatment in passenger cars with diesel engines.”
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The searches at Daimler AG and the lawsuit against GM also raised new question about the actions of Robert Bosch, the German based supplier that had supplied fuel system to Daimler and GM as well as Volkswagen and FCA, which was recently sued by the U.S. Justice Department for deploying defeat devices to foil federal emission tests as well as tests carried out by the State of California.
Bosch has now been linked to emissions cheating at all four car makers and the supplier is now a co-defendant in a lawsuit against GM.
Bosch “participated not just in the development of the defeat device, but in the scheme to prevent U.S. regulators from uncovering the device’s true functionality,” according to the lawsuit filed in Detroit federal court, the suit charges.
(FCA sued by government over diesel emissions cheating. To get details, Click Here.)
“We believe Bosch was the enabler,” said attorney Steve Berman, a managing partner at Hagens Berman, who is representing vehicle owners in lawsuits against all four carmakers and Bosch over diesel cheating.
“They provided the software in a format where manufacturers and Bosch could work together to calibrate their engines to cheat emissions tests.” Berman told Bloomberg
The technology was so sophisticated that it could recognize when a car was being tested in a lab or smog station to feign clean emissions and compliance with pollution standards, according to U.S. regulators by sensing changes in temperature, according
“Bosch takes the allegations of manipulation of the diesel software very seriously,” the Stuttgart-based parts supplier said in an emailed statement. “Bosch is cooperating with the continuing investigations in various jurisdictions, and is defending its interests in the litigation.”
The website at Ars Technica said researchers studied 926 firmware images from the VWs and Audis identified by the EPA in 2015, and they found a potential defeat device in 406 of those firmware images. All the cars studied had Engine Control Unit (ECU) systems developed by Bosch.
Volkswagen may not have written any of the code that enabled its scandal, although it may have requested certain functions from Bosch.
(Daimler cautions it could be the target for diesel fines and recalls. Find out more, Click Here.)
“We have found no evidence that automobile manufacturers write any of the code running on the ECU [Engine Control Unit]. All code we analyzed in this work was documented in documents copyrighted by Bosch and identified automakers as the intended customers,” according Ars Technica.