The German manufacturer fitted “defeat devices” to more than 11 million diesel VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat cars built between 2007 and 2015, including 1.2 million sold in the UK. The devices ensured that pollution controls worked properly only in the laboratory, while on the road the cars emitted four times the legal limit of pollutants.

The scientists studied the health impact of the 2.6 million affected cars sold in Germany and found that the extra toxic nitrogen oxides they had already emitted would cause 1,200 people to die early, with each losing as much as a decade of their life. Many of the deaths would probably already have occurred, they said, while people weakened by the pollution would die earlier than they would have over the next decade.

Nitrogen oxides inflame the lungs, cause respiratory diseases such as asthma and have been linked to a raised risk of heart attacks, strokes and cancer. Another 2,600 people will go on to die from future emissions from those German vehicles unless they are made to comply with pollution limits on the road, the researchers said. They looked only at the impact of the emissions from cars sold in Germany but said the death toll would be significantly higher if they had taken into account the emissions from all eight million VW cars sold in Europe with the illegal devices.

VW promised a year and a half ago to recall the cars and remove the devices but 700,000 of those affected in the UK have yet to be fixed.

The study also revealed that emissions from cars in one country have a significant effect on health in neighbouring countries, because pollutants are spread far and wide by winds. Of the 1,200 premature deaths that will be caused by the German cars, 500 are likely to occur in Germany — with the rest occurring in Poland, France, the Czech Republic and other neighbouring countries. In the UK, there will be about 30 early deaths due to the excess VW emissions in Germany, in addition to deaths caused by the affected cars in Britain, the authors said.

Steven Barrett, co-author of the paper, said: “Air pollution doesn’t care about political boundaries; it just goes straight past. Thus, a car in Germany can easily have significant impacts in neighbouring countries, especially in densely populated areas such as the European continent.”

His team based their analysis in part on the German Federal Motor Transport Authority’s measurements of emissions from Volkswagen cars. They used historical data on driving behaviour in Germany to estimate the number of miles travelled by each car per year, and where drivers were likely to drive the most.

They then used a computer model to estimate where the emissions had spread, given prevailing winds, temperature and rainfall, and where the gas interacted with other compounds to form fine particulates and ozone.

The authors found that the death toll from the VW cars was far greater in Europe than in the US, where there would be 60 early deaths caused by the 482,000 affected vehicles sold there. They said the difference was explained not just by the higher number of cars sold in Europe but also by its much greater population density and different atmospheric conditions.

VW is paying up to $10,000 (£8,000) in compensation to each customer in the US but is refusing to pay any compensation to British and European owners. The US has fined VW $15 billion for using the illegal software but the UK has asked it to pay only about £2 million to cover the cost of retesting vehicles.

/The Sunday Times/

More about: #Volkswagen   #emissions