Volkswagen Caught Out
September 23, 2015
Volkswagen faces sharp criticism for cheating on emissions testing with its diesel cars. Credit: © Vytautas Kielaitis, Shutterstock
On Tuesday, September 22, German automaker Volkswagen AG admitted that it had installed software on millions of its vehicles that cheated on tests for air-pollution emissions. The software could sense when the vehicles’ engines were being tested and only then activated pollution controls. During normal driving, the software shut off these controls—improving the vehicles’ performance while releasing up to 40 times the allowable amount of nitrous oxide, a major form of air pollution.
The software package, known as a “defeat device,” affects about 11 million cars equipped with diesel engines manufactured since 2009. Vehicles include diesel versions of the Beetle, the Golf, the Jetta, and the Audi A3 (Audi is a Volkswagen subsidiary).
Volkswagen has marketed its diesel cars as both fun to drive and environmentally friendly. By 2014, that second claim had been proven false, as researchers from a European clean-air organization showed in specially-designed real-world driving tests. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began investigating and eventually said it would not approve sales of future Volkswagen diesel vehicles until the company explained itself. Volkswagen then admitted it installed the defeat devices.
The EPA said it would order Volkswagen to recall 500,000 of its vehicles in the United States that were believed to be installed with defeat devices. The company said it would put aside billions of euros to deal with the fallout. But analysts expected further repercussions for Volkswagen, as the company’s stock sharply dropped, executives faced calls for their arrest, and its chief executive (CEO) resigned.
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