Honda Motor Co. CEO Takahiro Hachigo said the EPA's approval processes are now taking about a month longer than normal but the delays have not yet led to higher development costs. Executives from Ford and Nissan also say emissions certifications are taking weeks longer.
Trevor Mann, Nissan Motor Co.'s chief performance officer, says the automaker now is adding weeks to its prelaunch process to account for the longer EPA approval times.
"They're certainly being more interrogative in terms of going through, in the wake of what happened, to make sure things are right," Mann said.
At Fiat Chrysler, teams are combing through vehicle software code and code from suppliers to avoid an "inadvertent noncompliance situation," Marchionne said last week. No "deviations" have been found so far, he said, but the audit has taken an "inordinate amount of time" from FCA staff to ensure compliance.
A new distrust of automakers underlies the regulatory changes.
"The biggest problem on the worldwide level is that we, the carmakers, lost part of the trust and credibility with some regulators who just said, "If [VW] did it, everybody is doing that, so potentially we should be more severe,'" said Didier Leroy, executive vice president of Toyota Motor Corp.
Like the EPA, European authorities have launched fresh compliance testing, resulting in a "potpourri" of European countries, each doing its own testing, Ford of Europe President Jim Farley said.
"All of them are out there testing them in their own way, and they're finding all kinds of weird stuff, and we're all going and explaining our results," Farley said.
Marchionne says European Union regulations set broader emissions targets than the "highly prescriptive" rules set by the EPA.
"That has led to a variety of possible interpretations of what the targets really meant," he said. "That needs to be tightened up."