LOS ANGELES — Working with regulators in California and Canada, the Environmental Protection Agency launched a new testing program Friday to look at the emissions from every make and model of diesel passenger cars on U.S. roads.
The increased oversight is a response to the discovery earlier this month that Volkswagen was using sophisticated software to cheat on pollution tests on 482,000 diesel vehicles sold in the U.S.
The automaker, which faces a federal criminal investigation and other regulator sanctions, admitted cheating and said the software could be on as many as 11 million vehicles worldwide.
“Clearly this is a concern for air quality and public health,” said Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator of the EPA office of air and radiation. “The Volkswagen violations before us now show that we must continue to improve our oversight.”
Both the California Air Resources Board and the Environment Canada will join in the testing.
“This will allow us to move more quickly to test more models,” said Christopher Grundler, director of the EPA’s office of transportation and air quality.
The agency sent a letter Friday to all automakers explaining that their vehicles will undergo extra scrutiny.
The EPA said it now will test or require testing on any vehicle in a setting that emulates normal driving specifically for investigating the presence of a so-called defeat device, the industry term for systems that hide a vehicle’s true emissions.
This will be in addition to the five standard emissions tests all new vehicles undergo and may require additional time, the agency said.
The agency and its partners also will use portable devices to measure the real-life emissions of vehicles as they are driven on open roads, Grundler said.
Environmental groups welcome testing expansion and said it will deter other automakers from evading emissions regulations.
“EPA is on the job,” said Luke Tonachel, director of clean vehicles and fuels project at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This expansion of testing is another signal that cheating will not be tolerated.”
There is no evidence at this point to suggest that any other companies are cheating.
After tips from researchers in Europe and the University of West Virginia, California and federal regulators discovered that VW had buried an algorithm in 100 million lines of computer code in its vehicle electronics that allows the cars to emit up to 40 times the legally allowed amount of nitrogen oxide.
The cars met environmental regulations when tested on a dynamometer — a kind of treadmill for vehicles — in a laboratory. But they spewed pollution when driven on roads.
VW’s software senses the testing environment by analyzing a variety of data — steering position, speed, duration of engine operation, barometric pressure and changes in the car’s performance.
The affected cars are the 2009 to 2015 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, 2009 to 2014 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI, 2012 to 2015 Volkswagen Beetle TDI, 2013 to 2015 Volkswagen Beetle Convertible TDI, 2010 to 2015 Audi A3 TDI, 2010 to 2015 Volkswagen Golf TDI, 2012 to 2015 Volkswagen Passat TDI, 2015 Volkswagen Golf SportWagen TDI.
Additionally, Volkswagen suspended new and used sales of all the 2.0-liter TDI four-cylinder diesel engines, including 2015 Beetle, Jetta, Golf, Passat TDI, as well as the Audi A3 TDI. Sales of VW’s 2016, 4-cylinder diesel models are held up as they await EPA certification.
Grundler said the EPA is working with Volkswagen to evaluate potential remedies for the diesel vehicles’ emission systems. The 2015 models will be the first fixed, followed by the 2012-15 Passats.
Because the range of cars affected includes three generations of diesel engines, the remedies for the other vehicles could take much longer to develop.
Other automakers said they are ready for more rigorous testing of their diesel vehicles.
“We are prepared for testing,” said Annalisa Bluhm, a GM spokeswoman. “We are not changing our diesel strategy as a result of what is going on with Volkswagen.”
The automaker sells diesel pickup trucks and a diesel version of the Cruze sedan.
Bluhm said GM is “committed to the robust emissions compliance of all our vehicles” and expects its employees to know the regulations and “act legally and ethically.”
Only about 3 percent of all autos and light truck sales involve diesel power trains.
According to the Diesel Technology Forum, there are 39 diesel-powered passenger vehicles being sold in the U.S. Those are made by Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Jaguar, Jeep, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Ram and Volkswagen.
That number will grow, the forum said, by 15 more vehicles within the next year. Among the new entries will be light trucks from GMC, Chevrolet and Nissan.
Meanwhile, other German automakers issued statements saying that they have not gamed emission testing for their diesel offerings.
BMW said it observes “the legal requirements in each country . . Our exhaust treatment systems are active whether rolling on the test bench or driving on the road.”
Mercedes-Benz said that it has never used defeat devices to evade testing, in response to allegations by a German environmental group that other automakers’ diesels also exceed smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions. The company said it sticks to all laws and rules and isn’t aware of any measurements showing that its vehicles fail to keep to legal requirements.
Mercedes said it supports efforts to develop new testing methods to measure emissions based on real driving conditions.
The VW cheating scandal prompted the resignation of the automaker’s chief executive, Martin Winterkorn. The company is expected to name a new CEO later Friday or in the coming days.
The automaker has taken a charge of about $7 billion to cover the cost of the crisis. It also faces EPA fines of up to $18 billion based on the number of cars involved.
Grundler said the EPA was still investigating the evasion and had yet to determine the penalty.
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