As you dig down into the specs, that 10-40x becomes very ‘fuzzy’.
Is that 40x the CARB spec?
The US fed spec has a large allowable tolerance.
It is speculated that the suspect TDI’s, would pass the Euro specification???
A lot of testing and a whole lot of lawyering to sort it out.
There is no debate that VW sold all the questionable cars with programing set up to act one way on the testing dyne and then a different way disregarding emissions afterwards in the real world. They have admitted that — there is no sorting out to do.
The US standards were so stupidly cut that the engineers got arrogant and did a work-around to the test. VW will be hit with fines and the cars here must be fitted with new programing to run with the emissions required, mileage, drivability, and durability be damned.
The only thing I want everyone to understand is the NOx levels were cut in recent years by drastic amounts.