Sprinters are named, at least in the newest lawsuit filed in April. ML 320 and 350, GL 320, E320, S350, R320, E-Class, GL-Class, ML-Class, R-Class, S-Class, GLK-Class, GLE-Class and Sprinters fitted with a BlueTEC diesel engines are involved.
CO2 and other emissions are directly related to how much fuel is burned, so those emissions don't vary a whole lot unless the efficiency of the engine is drastically different. If the "real world test" is within 15% of the MPG of the EPA or European standard testing, then all other emissions should be within 15%. And they generally are. But NOx is different, as those emissions will vary a great deal depending on if you run the engine at different loads, temperature, altitude, with fuel additives or impurities, etc. In real world conditions you expect the MPG and CO2 to be not as good as the label states, you still expect it to be within an acceptable range. But with NOx you really can't expect real world conditions to match that of the laboratory conditions.
With no emissions controls whatsoever, at a constant engine load and an ambient temperature of 80° F the NOx emissions will be one thing, but change only the temperature down to 40° F and the NOx emissions are likely to jump 20, 30, 40 times what it was at 80°. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that an engine with emissions controls in place would do the same thing. The EPA testing procedures can found
here. You'll see that the testing is done between 50°-60° C (68°-86° F) and is run for 11.04 miles at speed varying between 21.2 MPH and 56.7 MPH.
VW used a software component to cheat the testing procedures, and it appears that because the MB NOx emissions in real world tests don't match that of the testing procedures, the claim is that MB used a similar device the same way VW did, to cheat the tests. The Netherland’s official automobile inspector TNO, on behalf on the Dutch Minister of the Environment, conducted an on-road tests of a C-Class Mercedes C220 TDi BlueTec diesel and determined it emitted more than 40 times the amount of cancer-causing NOx than in the lab test. Not surprisingly, the on-road tests were done at temperatures below 10° Celsius (50° F). Mercedes says it is permissible for the BlueTec engine to emit 40 times more NOx when the temperature is less than 10C (50° F).
All car makers cheat (probably). Opel (German subsidiary of GM) recently got caught cheating on NOx and CO2 emissions, but I don't know that MB is actually cheating on this one. They aren't using a defeat device to get around the laws, they simply turn off the emissions controls at the point where the laws don't apply. LOL
I think at the very least the testing procedures are gonna change so that testing down to probably 32 degrees is going to be required. I mean, during the winter half of the US doesn't get above 50 degrees during the day. In The Netherlands they get above 50 degrees only about 4 months out of the year.
