emissions

Most analysts agree the future of the automobile will slowly but increasingly come to rely on battery power. Electric cars will slowly displace internal combustion engines, many researchers suggest, and peak demand for fossil fuels used in transportation could arrive as soon as the next decade...

The state of California has officially launched its legislative push for stricter heavy-duty truck and bus emission regulations. Following calls for the state to use its recently-extended carbon cap-and-trade program to fund updates to fleets of semi trucks and other commercial vehicles, four state...

Fuel-economy ratings for cars sold in Europe have long been wildly unrealistic, sometimes more than 30 percent more optimistic than real-world consumption figures. Today, that will change. As of September 1, two new and more stringent testing regimes are to be used for certifying new vehicles going...

California is set to receive a lump sum of funds from the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust following its diesel emission scandal. With $423 million at the state's discretion, groups are lobbying hard to ensure the funds are used to have an immediate and positive impact on the environment...

Sometimes it's best not to dare the public to do the research, especially if you're trying to persuade them of something that isn't true. Almost two years ago, Inside Climate News published a significant expose that confirmed Exxon's own scientists had agreed that human carbon emissions contributed...

It has been nearly two years since Volkswagen came clean and admitted its "clean diesel" engines were actually quite dirty. In 2015, a VW engineer admitted the TDI diesel cars sold in the U.S. since 2009 were outfitted with "defeat device" software that let them pass emission tests, only to emit...

Former Volkswagen employee James Liang was sentenced in Detroit on Friday to serve 40 months in prison and pay a $200,000 fine for his role in the global Volkswagen diesel-emission cheating scandal. It was a stiffer sentence than expected for an engineer who helped to create software that...

Just 30 years ago, people could smoke anywhere, including offices, malls, and restaurants. The 1987 opening of a New York City restaurant called "Nosmo King" (read it again) was considered a bizarre, if amusing, idea that restauranteurs said would bankrupt the place because no one would give up...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the country's leader, has detailed why she believes electric-car quotas are not a viable answer to emission and other issues plaguing Europe. Merkel, a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, instead urged a much bigger-picture strategy, rather than a...

Almost two years ago, the Volkswagen diesel emission scandal burst into public view, and nothing has been quite the same since then. The news that VW Group engineers had deliberately cheated on eight years of emission tests for the "clean diesels" sold by Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche sent...

Sometimes, when science and technology issues have economic or political consequences, incorrect or misleading information and analyses can be propagated through the media, leading both decision makers and the public astray. A piece published in April by Forbes, covering the effects of the 2022...

It has been almost two years since Volkswagen changed the prospects for diesel-powered cars when it admitted to eight years' worth of cheating on emissions tests for its so-called clean diesel vehicles. The effects of the German automaker's diesel scandal are still unfolding today, not only in the...

Predictions on the future of global energy vary greatly, but many analysts largely believe that peak demand for the oil industry is coming relatively soon. The world's largest oil companies, however, see it differently: they say their business will only continue to grow through the year 2040. Exxon...

The museum at the Environmental Protection Agency may soon be in for an overhaul to reflect the agenda of the Trump administration. It's no secret Scott Pruitt, current EPA administrator and climate-science denier, has worked to deregulate many of the agency's regulatory efforts to promote fossil...

Months into Donald Trump's presidency, it is clear the administration has worked diligently to downplay the role of science in setting policy on energy. Some moves to diminish scientists' roles have been more evident than others, but a new report details what has gone on behind the scenes. In...

The warning came even before last week's plans for updates to 9 million European diesel cars by German luxury makers Audi and Mercedes-Benz were announced. In a letter sent to the transport ministers of European Union countries, EU industry commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska warned that proposed bans...

Not so many years ago, a 1.2-liter engine would only have been found in the U.S. in the smallest and least impressive of subcompact cars. It might have been a 3-cylinder, and certainly wouldn't have had even 100 horsepower. But times change, and engines of that size will soon be found even in the...

Both Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler and Volkswagen Group have approved new plans to retrofit older diesel-powered vehicles with new software at no cost to owners. The largest number of such cars will be in Europe. The news comes amid the latest allegations surrounding German automakers and their...

As numerous political probes over the years have famously shown, once investigators dig into the circumstances around an alleged crime, anything can happen. The September 2015 announcement by the EPA that VW Group engineers had admitted to deliberate cheating on U.S. emission tests of the company's...

Almost one-third of the heavy trucks on U.S. roads now use the most stringent emission-control systems, which radically reduce their emissions of nitrogen oxides, soot, and other pollutants. Commercial trucks log much higher annual mileage than passenger cars, especially the semi tractors that haul...