Dieselgate (or what the Germans call Abgas-Affäre or Abgas-Skandal) is a scandal in which Volkswagen committed serious fraud in reporting emissions of their 2009-2015 TDI Diesel cars. The Volkswagen Group told the world these cars not only were fun, zippy and gave great fuel economy, but their emissions were squeaky clean. Turns out the VW Group lied, and that the NOx emissions from these cars were 10-40x the allowable limit.
An arrest earlier this week in the Dieselgate scandal brings with it validation that upper Volkswagen Group management were indeed aware the company was fraudulently reporting inflated emissions results. At the time the management group claimed the scandal was the work of a few rogue engineers acting on their own. But,…
The legal impact of Volkswagen’s illegal skirting of US Emissions Control laws is starting to be levied. Today, the U.S. Department of Justice, on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, launched a civil lawsuit against the Volkswagen Group (Volkswagen AG, Audi AG, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., Volkswagen Group of…
Volkswagen Group CEO Matthias Müller announced today five steps that Volkswagen will take to rehabilitate itself from the Dieselgate scandal. In reading through the proposal, I don’t quite grok how it’s going to fix the problem. There are some aspects which may help, but nothing in this indicates that upper management…
An issue raised our investigation of the Dieselgate scandal is whether independent researchers are allowed to investigate the inner workings of our cars. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was originally enacted to protect the music industry from wholesale copying of digital media, but its application was broadened to protect software…
The German press is reporting that a file (dossier) of research data in the Dieselgate (or what the Germans call Abgas-Affäre) investigation has been stolen from the prosecutors office. The Public Prosecutor is investigating this theft, which is disturbing even though it’s described as more of an annoyance because the file only…
According to a report published on Wednesday in Der Spiegel, Volkswagen’s Dieselgate scandal was not caused a small handful of people as Volkswagen upper management has claimed. Instead, at least 30 managers responsible were involved in deciding to commit to the Dieselgate fraud, or what Der Spiegel called “Abgasaffäre”. I’ve written…
There’s more evidence that Volkswagen’s diesel vehicles are just the beginning of faked emissions. A couple weeks ago I’d reported on research from Transport & Environment showing the vast majority of cars sold in Europe give much worse emissions on the road than in the lab. Now, the Guardian has…
Today Volkswagen made the announcement we wanted them to make that will eminently resolve the whole Dieselgate problem. In all the reams of material I’ve written about Volkswagen’s emissions cheating scandal, Dieselgate, the risk to VW’s electric vehicle plans have been screaming in the back of my mind. Will VW be…
On Sept 18, 2015, the EPA and CARB jointly announced the Volkswagen Group had been caught cheating on emissions tests with its 2.0 liter TDI Diesel cars. The fraud had been perpetrated over a 6 year period during which the cars in question had been lauded as ultra-clean wonder cars.…
Where within Volkswagen was the decision made to cheat on emissions tests? Earlier I’d reported on statements by Volkswagen’s supervisory board suggesting that the top management was not responsible, and that instead pointed fingers at engineers within the company. Upon Winterkorn’s resignation (the previous CEO), the supervisory board explicitly…
In July, the EPA officially opposed proposed copyright rules which would have made it easier for independent researchers to catch Volkswagen’s emissions cheating. Last month, the EPA and CARB accused Volkswagen of cheating on emissions tests by programming VW and Audi 2.0 liter TDI Diesel cars to detect when they’re…
Another open question in the Volkswagen Dieselgate emissions cheating scandal is – Why wasn’t Volkswagen’s fraud caught earlier? We’ve been told the cheating began with VW’s 2009 model year 2.0 Liter TDI Diesel cars, the ones fitted with the EA 189 engine. The cheating was not verified until early September 2015.…
Another open question in the Volkswagen Dieselgate emissions cheating scandal is the total cost for penalties, damages payments, etc? Will Volkswagen survive this mess? Will Volkswagen be able to fulfill the promising line of electric vehicles planned for 2017-2018 debut? Recently VW’s new CEO has reportedly said Volkswagen might not survive.…
Getting back to the Volkswagen Dieselgate emissions cheating scandal, one of the open questions is “when” and “why” did VW resort to cheating on emissions tests? Earlier I’d reported statements in the press that Bosch had warned Volkswagen as far back as 2007 against using certain test software to control…
In an earlier video from TFLCar, they asked five significant questions about the Dieselgate scandal. These questions circled around various aspects of “Why did VW decide to cheat the emissions tests?” VW’s management aren’t idiots, they had to have a reason for committing this fraud. One question was how much power is…
