The Exhaust scandal made diesel drivers suspicious. Now you can determine for yourself whether your car is clean enough by means of an emissions test.
Owners of a diesel car can now use an app to check how much emissions their vehicle really emits. You need one of the University of Saarland developed software as well as a so-called ODB dongle with Bluetooth function, which is available on the Internet for little money. The app either reads out the data from the engine management system or directly carries out the RDE test that is now required for type approval. In this case, the driver is guided step by step through the necessary driving maneuvers in real traffic. At the end, the software shows whether the test passed or the pollutant emissions are too high. Users can forward the determined data to the computer scientists at the university if they wish.
For which vehicles is the exhaust gas test suitable?
The “LolaDrives” app is currently available for Android smartphones (https://www.loladrives.app/), a version for Apple devices is in development. The Saarbrücken researchers also have a limited contingent of Bluetooth OBD adapters that are made available to interested data donors free of charge. The software is suitable for numerous car models with an ODB-II connection from 2001 onwards, but for the RDE test the OBD interface of the car must provide the appropriate data from the sensors in the exhaust system. "LolaDrives" informs you whether this is the case immediately after the start of a test.