Nissan: Japanese automaker guilty of emissions cheating
By Ross Eugene
Nissan becomes the latest automaker to plead guilty of faking emissions cheating. Could other automakers be next?
Another emissions cheating scandal has surfaced recently. According to Forbes, Nissan has admitted they have both forged a small number of test results on a small batch of Japanese Domestic Market cars. While this recent bout of impropriety only affected a relatively small number of cars in an isolated area, it’s emblematic of a much larger issue.
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Volkswagen Group, Ford, GM, Mitsubishi, Daimler, and other key automakers have all been found guilty of emissions cheating recently. These automakers build a vast majority of cars on the road across the globe. Clearly, few automakers are taking environmental regulations seriously.
Dieselgate has changed the way the public thinks about emissions.
Since the Volkswagen “Dieselgate” scandal in 2015, worldwide diesel sales have been falling. Chevy is pushing their diesel-powered Cruze, but only one in every fifty Chevy Cruze models is a diesel.
Clearly, Americans are even more reluctant to buy a diesel than they were before. It’s quite obvious that we’ve lost faith in diesel as an efficient alternative to internal combustion.
As we’ve said here before at Art of Gears, public opinion about gasoline is changing. EVs are on the rise and it seems there isn’t any stopping them. When automakers like Nissan are fudging numbers on emissions tests, the public quickly starts to lose faith.
Are internal combustion engines on their way out?
The Forbes report claims more automakers will come out with admissions of guilt. While Nissan’s incident wasn’t on the same scale of Dieselgate, there are still serious implications – especially if there’s more news to come.
EV sales have been steadily rising year after year. That means more people are willing to put their faith in something other than an a gasoline or diesel-powered vehicle. If there are more car manufacturers admit they have been lying about emissions or efficiency, it’s very likely the public will put their faith elsewhere as well.