Motor vehicle manufacturers are improving emission control and monitoring technologies to meet increasingly stringent vehicle emission requirements in Canada.
Motor vehicles are a major source of air pollution.
Transport Canada promulgates standards under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act to limit the amount of specific pollutants that can be emitted by vehicles, and manufacturers must find ways of meeting these standards through the use of emission control and monitoring technologies. For example, most cars today are equipped with catalytic converters. Catalytic converters are pollution control devices installed directly in the exhaust system of vehicles to reduce harmful emissions. Another milestone in vehicle emissions standards was the elimination of lead from gasoline in December 1990. Since 1971, Canadian motor vehicle emission standards have been made progressively more stringent.