How Volkswagen thought it could get away with falsifying its diesel powered cars’ pollution scores is a puzzle. The many engineers who contributed to the software that sensed when a car was plugged into testing equipment and responded by adjusting the fuel and air mixture to significantly reduce emissions to permitted levels, must have – well, we cannot imagine what they were thinking.
Eventually it was students and faculty at a West Virginia university who tripped them up. They discovered that Volkswagens in road use were emitting much more nitrogen oxide than specifications called for, and contacted regulators.
Many automobile recalls seem to result from engineering faults that occurred because components were not thoroughly designed or tested. In this case, however, Volkswagen intentionally put cars on the road that exceeded pollution maximums and were harmful to the environment, all the while touting how clean their diesels were.
Volkswagen’s CEO is out, along with a few subordinates, and its stock price has dropped considerably. The merits of diesel motors in general has also been called into question.
Volkswagen can expect to be heavily fined, which is a given, but as the investigation into who knew what unfolds it is not impossible to consider criminal penalties for those involved. Purposely polluting while claiming otherwise is not what is expected at one of the world’s largest corporations.
