volkswagen said in a statement that the email sent by the vw executive to the commission last year was part of the normal exchange of expertise that is part of every lawmaking in the eu he said it was sent by the volkswagen executive on behalf of the automakers trade group during technical discussions and should not qualify as lobbying by volkswagenthe trade group spokeswoman said that it was fully supporting the development of this test in order to ensure that emissions more closely reflect realworld conditionsthe new european road tests will require automakers to meet new emissions targets on the road in addition to complying with lab tests regulators in the united states and canada recently began their own road tests of diesel car emissions though the american tests are focused solely on catching automakers cheating on lab testsvolkswagen has played a major role in shaping automotive testing in europe in addition to its lobbying on the realworld tests executives from its audi division took the lead in helping shape a second test that is to debut in 2017 a revamping of laboratory procedures that have long been used to measure tailpipe pollutionas far back as 2010 an executive at audi laid out a template for the new tests in subsequent years audi executives some of them specialists in emission certification also played leading roles in two committees that helped draft the fine print for the test in these meetings engineers representing manufacturers largely outnumbered regulatory bodies the group working on emission tests was led by a member of the german transport ministry throughout the development process of the testvw also this year lobbied to give large passenger vehicles like vans and buses more leeway in meeting existing emission regulations that proposal was dropped after vws emissions scandal became publicjohn german a former official at the environmental protection agency and a senior fellow at the international council on clean transportation an environmental group that played a pivotal role in uncovering volkswagens cheating has been critical of the exclusion of cold starts from the road tests calling it a significant shortcomingcold starts are a critical aspect of the testing he wrote in an email for gasoline vehicles the majority of emissions occur during the cold start it is less for diesels but still significantmr baerbock of vw said that at the time the objection was raised cold starts needed to be defined better in order to be included into the regulation so automakers boiled it down to asking for the deletion of this issuethe volkswagen executive also wrote that a proposal to conduct special road testing at about 100 miles per hour and higher for particularly speedy vehicles was not acceptable and crossed out the proposed language from an excerpt included in the emailthe new road tests as currently conceived limit the highest speed at which testing can occur the industry and regulators negotiated that speed because pollutant emissions worsen at higher speeds the volkswagen executive told the commission that