As the Volkswagen controversy unfolds, many people are talking about the financial repercussions for VW and the potential for other scandals in the auto industry. But a just released Autolist analysis looks at another crucial question:__ just how much more pollution did VW create?__

The short answer: __the pollution equivalent of having an extra 437 million more cars on the road each year.__ That’s a big number considering the entire United States has only 256 million cars.

The reason for this massive increase is that VW promised consumers that their diesel cars were not just compliant with EPA regulations, but were also cleaner than the average vehicle. VW said that while their diesel engines lacked AdBlue — an exhaust emissions cleaning technology designed for diesel cars — they had figured out alternative ways to clean tailpipe emissions through new exhaust filters. 

The reality was that VW was cheating the emissions tests with a software hack. When the engine computer detected emission testing, it momentarily decreased engine performance and fuel economy to improve emissions and make it appear that the car complied with regulations. The moment the test finished, the computer went back to allowing the engine to pollute incredible amounts of nitrogen oxide — the worst possible exhaust tailpipe pollutant.

The first VW car equipped with the software hack was the 2009 Jetta TDI. When first released in late 2008, the Jetta TDI - which went on to win Green Car of the Year - was one of the first cars to “meet” the ultra-strict Tier II, Bin 5 emission standards, which limits emissions to .07 grams of nitrogen oxide per mile. 

Over the next seven years, VW continued to produce the engines and claimed they got even “cleaner,” earning emission ratings in line with .04 grams of nitrogen oxide per mile.

In reality, the VW cars were producing between 5 and 35 times the legal limit of .2 grams of nitrogen oxide per mile. As compared to their promises to consumers of a “clean” vehicle, this demonstrates an increase of 175X. 

Based on Autolist’s analysis, the cars were supposed to pollute at a level similar to to a Honda Civic — a car that is on the “cleaner” end of the scale. The reality? The VW cars produced the equivalent to that of 20 Ford F-450 Super Duty trucks. That’s 20 big-as-you-can-buy-them Ford diesel engines.

When you replace one Honda Civic with 20 Ford F-450s 11 million times worldwide, the results are cataclysmic. As opposed to producing 5,280 tons of air pollution each year, the car actually produced 924,000 tons each year worldwide. That’s a difference of 918,720 tons of extra nitrogen oxide pollution. 

With the average car producing approximately 2.1 kilograms of nitrogen oxide each year, __the increased air pollution works out to the equivalent of an extra 437 MILLION cars on the road each year.__ By comparison, the entire United States has only 256 million cars. As a result, the extra cars would almost DOUBLE the amount of NOx emissions of the United States.

That’s a lot of extra pollution from just one software hack.

Volkswagen's diesel cheating scandal released the same amount of pollution as an additional 437 million cars on U.S. roads each year, according to an Autolist analysis. That's nearly double the amount of NOx emissions coming from the existing 256 million cars on the road.

VW’s Diesel Deceit: Engines produced 437 million cars worth of extra pollution

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