MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — In one day two major announcements were released regarding WVU research that had an international impact on the diesel car industry and national impact on emissions policy.
Dan Carder, the director for WVU’s Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions, led a team of engineers that discovered Volkswagen falsified emissions information.
Carder has since been named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.
“This was a team effort, not Dan Carder versus the world. It’s very nice to be recognized” said the humble Parkersburg native. “I think it’s another example of what folks in academia can do to make a difference. This is where our role is.”
Carder and his team, contracted by the International Council on Clean Transportation, thought the research would prove Volkswagen vehicles were living up to the company’s certified emissions reports.
“When we took the vehicles from the lab out into the world and did the on-road emissions test, there was a huge disparity for the Volkswagens,” explained Carder.
According to the findings, those vehicles were emitting 15 to 40 times more nitrogen oxide than the allowable limit.
“We knew we were on to something,” said the WVU mechanical and aerospace engineering alumnus. “But before that we had worked a lot with the heavy duty industry. We’d seen similar issues before and many times it just gets taken care of with a recall.”
Volkswagen and the U.S. government announced Thursday even further fallout from the manipulated emissions measurements.
The company will buy back more than 600,000 diesel vehicles and spend an estimated $1 billion reimbursing owners of those vehicles.
“Even more important than that, the Air Resources Board and the EPA have announced a major overhaul in their procedures that will be used to both certify and exhibit compliance in the future,” noted Carder.
He told Hoppy Kercheval on MetroNews “Talkline” before studies began, his group reached out to auto makers.
“We contacted Volkswagen and BMW originally to try to help with vehicle recruitment, tried to verify the vehicles were representative of their fleet. They wanted to have nothing to do with the study. It was a small study and they elected not to participate.”
Following the anomalies Carder and his team discovered, he said the company again refused to work with the engineers.
With 25 years of experience in similar research and after quality control and quality assurance, Carder said there was no question the discovery of falsifications was accurate.
Carder was one of a handful of engineers and scientists cited among the list of activists, innovators, world leaders, athletes and celebrities on Time’s top 100 list of the world’s most influential people.