Why did the Ministry of Environmental Protection impose an administrative penalty of nearly 40 million yuan on car companies？

Cartography: Li Ziyue

On the 9th, the Ministry of Environmental Protection notified Shandong Kaima Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and Shandong Tangjun Ouling Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. of the administrative punishment decision for violating the air pollution prevention and control system, and severely punished the fraudulent production of over-standard motor vehicles and pollution control devices. The two car companies were fined more than 38.77 million yuan.

This is the first single administrative penalty imposed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection on automobile manufacturers after the implementation of the newly revised air pollution prevention and control law, involving a huge amount of punishment. Tian Weiyong, director of the Environmental Supervision Bureau of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said that this will have a strong deterrent effect on similar environmental violations. "The prevention and control of motor vehicle pollution is an important measure to win the blue sky defense war. Following the measures such as the control of industrial pollution sources, the Ministry of Environmental Protection will step up efforts to control motor vehicle pollution this year and carry out supervision and inspection of motor vehicles and oil products throughout the country."

The vehicles produced by the car companies involved exceed the emission standards, and the pollution control devices are fraudulent.

The Law on the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution gives the competent department of environmental protection of the people’s government at or above the provincial level the statutory authority to strengthen the supervision and inspection of the air pollutant emission of newly produced and sold motor vehicles and non-road mobile machinery through on-site inspection and sampling inspection.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection has set up a special working group to organize and carry out special anti-counterfeiting actions for diesel vehicles according to the statistical data of in-use vehicles regularly inspected for environmental protection, the statistics of vehicles exceeding the standard in road inspection and road inspection, the information disclosure of relevant vehicle manufacturers, and the outstanding problems reflected by the industry and the market.

In January 2016, the Ministry of Environmental Protection organized a special supervision and inspection of diesel vehicles, and the vehicles of Shandong Kema and Tang Jun Ouling were selected according to regulations, and the third party conducted experimental testing.

The inspection found that the hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide emitted by eight light diesel trucks produced by Shandong Kema exceeded the standard; The OBD (On-board Diagnosis) system of 318 heavy-duty diesel trucks produced failed to pass the functional test, and the pollution control devices were faked and shoddy, posing as qualified products for emission inspection. The hydrocarbon, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide emitted by 109 light diesel trucks produced by Tang Jun Ouling exceed the emission standards. According to relevant laws and regulations, Shandong Kaima was fined 31.74 million yuan, and Tang Jun Ouling was fined 7.03 million yuan, totaling more than 38.77 million yuan.

"The handling of the two cases strictly abides by the administrative punishment law and the punishment procedures of environmental administrative punishment measures. After filing a case, investigating and collecting evidence, hearing notification, holding a hearing, legal review, decision and delivery, we will urge the implementation of the punishment decision in the future." Tian Weiyong said that two car companies were fined more than 38 million yuan, indicating the "zero tolerance" attitude of the Ministry of Environmental Protection towards illegal sewage discharge.

The pollution problem of diesel vehicles is very serious, and the prevention and control of air pollution will focus on this.

Ding Yan, deputy director of the motor vehicle emission monitoring center of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said that diesel vehicles are different from private cars and are a means of production, and more goods can make more money. This determines that it should be cheap, low operating costs, and high-intensity use. In China, the low-price competition is obvious in the diesel vehicle industry dominated by independent brands. If you can save money, you can save money. Operation maintenance is often ignored, and the emission exceeds the standard seriously.

"The pollution problem of diesel vehicles is very prominent and it is a key link to be concerned about in the prevention and control of air pollution." Ding Yan said that the number of heavy-duty diesel vehicles accounts for less than 10% of the number of motor vehicles, but nitrogen oxide emissions account for 60%-70% of mobile sources, and particulate matter emissions reach more than 90%. During the annual inspection, the qualified rate of gasoline vehicles can reach 80%-90%, while that of diesel vehicles is only 50%-60%. At the time of road inspection, the pass rate of large trucks was only about half.

After treatment in recent years, the phenomenon of producing and selling fake country IV has been eliminated, and pollution control devices have been installed on vehicles, but there is a new problem-OBD system fraud. "This is even an’ open secret’ in the industry." Ding Yan said.

OBD system can monitor whether the automobile exhaust exceeds the standard at any time from the engine running condition. Once it exceeds the standard, it will immediately give a warning, and the fault light or the engine warning light will be on, and the fault information will be stored in the memory. OBD system is a pollution control device, a computer information system to monitor whether the vehicle meets the standard, and the most critical component to control the emission of the vehicle meeting the standard.

"Tampering with the software program, shielding the OBD system, so that the warning light will never light up, and you can drive normally without adding urea to the vehicle, which saves a lot of costs." Ding Yan said, but the pollution will be very serious, and the emission of nitrogen oxides will exceed the standard by 10 to 20 times, which is even greater than that of the eliminated yellow label vehicles.

Ding Yan said that it is of symbolic significance to take OBD system fraud as the punishment content. This also gives the public a signal that since it costs more to buy a car with a high emission level, it should be used normally. In case of fraud in the OBD system, it should be claimed. Don’t let illegal car companies make money without taking responsibility.

Accelerate the promotion of data networking and use big data analysis to screen vehicles that exceed the standard.

How to prevent diesel pollution? "It is very important that prevention and control should be combined with unblocking and the industry itself should be self-disciplined." Ding Yan said that programs such as vehicle OBD system should have tamper-proof function. So many vehicles in the market have been tampered with because car companies are directly or indirectly involved. If car companies don’t open the code, no one can tamper with it. This is the fundamental reason. Even if the code has been leaked, the vehicle can be corrected during maintenance. Car companies should do their job well, so the pressure of supervision will be much less.

"Motor vehicle control, first of all, we must ensure that new cars meet the standards when they leave the factory. This is the source. If the source can’t be controlled, the subsequent control can’t be discussed. " Tian Weiyong said.

In order to ensure that the newly-produced motor vehicles meet the environmental protection standards, the Ministry of Environmental Protection will, in accordance with the basic principle of "double randomness and one publicity", strengthen supervision over vehicle manufacturers, engine manufacturers, post-processing manufacturers and other environmentally-friendly key parts manufacturers, regularly and irregularly organize supervision and inspection on the production and sales of new vehicles, severely crack down on all kinds of illegal acts such as tampering, shielding OBD system fraud and failing to disclose environmental protection information as required, and implement multi-department joint punishment.

It is understood that the Ministry of Environmental Protection will take more active and proactive measures to continuously strengthen the supervision and inspection of new motor vehicles and off-road mobile machinery manufacturers, and gradually establish and improve a long-term mechanism for environmental supervision of motor vehicles.

"Secondly, the in-use vehicles should be maintained according to the specifications and the pollution control devices should be implemented. In addition, oil is also very important. These are the next steps to focus on. " Tian Weiyong said that motor vehicle environmental management will be incorporated into the environmental protection monitoring and supervision law enforcement system to ensure the quality of motor vehicle environmental testing data.

By the end of 2017, all in-use vehicle regular inspection institutions have completed the national, provincial and municipal networking. At present, the Ministry of Environmental Protection is accelerating the construction of remote sensing monitoring network and data networking, and using the networking platform for big data analysis and screening of vehicles that exceed the standard.

Tian Weiyong said that in the next step, the Ministry of Environmental Protection will inform the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Transport, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and other relevant departments about the illegal punishment of illegal enterprises, and actively urge local environmental protection departments to supervise and inspect the implementation of administrative punishment by illegal enterprises. (Reporter Yan Jiangze)