Volkswagen's emissions scandal involved the installation of 'defeat devices' in approximately 11 million diesel vehicles to cheat emissions tests, resulting in cars that emitted pollutants far exceeding legal limits under normal driving conditions. The scandal was uncovered by researchers at West Virginia University in 2014, leading to significant legal and financial repercussions for Volkswagen, including a criminal investigation and potential fines exceeding $18 billion. The Environmental Protection Agency plans to enhance testing standards in response to the incident, particularly regarding the oversight of automotive software.

1. How Volkswagen Mocked Corporate Social Responsibility

2. Cars, Pollution & the EPA’s Efforts Through Corporate Social
Responsibilty

3. In a perfect engine, oxygen in the air would convert all hy-
drogen to water, and fuel carbons to carbon dioxide – but in
reality, engines emit several types of polutants.

4. Motor vehicles are responsible for nearly 50% of
smog-forming compounds, more than 50% of acid-rain con-
tributing nitrogen oxide, and account for 75% of carbon
monoxide emissions in US.

5. The Clean Air Act of 1970 gave the Environmental
Protection Agency broad authority to regulate motor vehicle
pollution, which gave the agency authority over pollution
control standards for the automotive industry.

6. However, while the EPA created the standards,
automotive companies were left to self-regulate
through corporate social responsibility practices in
order to create sutainable business models.

7. How Volkswagen Mocked Corporate Social
Responsibility & the EPA

8. Volkswagen’s diesel engines were known for
their great fuel economy, but their engine could
stay within pollutant emission limits only when
more diesel was being burnt, which would wreck
the mileage.

9. Under normal conditions, when less fuel was used in on-
road conditions, the diesel engines released up to 40 times
the legal limit of pollutants.

10. According to New York Times, in 2008, VW
discovered that the new “clean diesel engines”
it spent years developing would fail US and
EU modern air quality standards by significant
margins.

11. To clear their pollutant-vomiting cars through
testing, VW installed “defeat devices” in their
diesel cars, including Skodas, Audis, and
commercial VWs totalling roughly 11 million in
number, from 2009 onwards.

12. The “defeat devices” would sense emission
testing procedures, and adjust engine output to
reduce pollutant emissions.

13. How Does The “Defeat Device” Work Anyway?

14. Modern cars have several software and
hardware computing elements which sense,
read, and calculate various metrics to make
thousands of small, continuous adjustments to the
vehicle.

15. The “defeat device” was a specialized
software which read steering wheel position, tire
rotation, atmospheric pressure, duration of engine
run-time, etc. to determine if car was “on-road” or
in “emission testing”.

16. If the software determined that the car was be-
ing tested for emissions, it would increase the
amount of fuel being burned in the engine, and so
lower nitrogen oxide pollutant emission levels.

17. CakeHR - Your HR. Simplified.

18. How Was Volkswagen Caught?

19. The EPA never caught on to Volkswagen’s
software cheat

20. The scandal was unearthed by a team of
researchers at West Virginia University who
used a mobile testing rig to test the pollutant
emissions of a VW Jetta and VW Passat while
driving on-road.

21. The team published their findings in spring 2014,
and their research was used by the EPA to make
Volkswagen admit to the “defeat device” in Septem-
ber 2015.

22. Volkswagen’s Fallout From Largest Global Au-
tomotive Scandal

23. Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned
due to the scandal.

24. The US Justice Department is reported to have
opened a criminal investigation into Volkswagen.

25. Matthias Muller, Porsche chief and new VW
CEO, has ordered tiered mass recalls for upgrade
on roughly 11 million affected cars to remove
“cheat” software.

26. The company is facing roughly $37,500 in US
federal fines per vehicle for the roughly 482,000
cars sold in the country – bringing a whopping
tally of $18 billion to be paid.

27. The German manufacturer, which had recently
become the largest automotive company in
the world, has put aside $7.3 billion for expenses
relating to this fiasco, though preliminary
data suggests that this figure may be grossly
inadequate.

28. Class-action lawsuits from car owners
already underway in US against Volkswagen,
on grounds of misrepresentation of vehicular
performance, breach of contract, increased fuel
costs for drivers, and heavier depreciation of
vehicular value.

29. EPA to step up testing emission standards and
procedures in the wake of VW scandal.

30. Government Measures to Prevent Future
Software “Cheats”

31. Researchers only caught VW thanks to physi-
cal testing, not software analyses.

32. All software products, including those controlling
cars, are copyrighted content, preventing inde-
pendent researchers from studying code for vul-
nerabilities.

33. Copyright office considering making an
exception for automotive software, so
independent researchers can check software for
future cheats and vulnerabilities, but EPA ironically
just opposed that exemption, according to The
Verge.

34. “So long as the DMCA hinders or chills law-
abiding researchers from casting their eyes on
code, more bugs – and insidious code – will end
up in the devices we trust our livelihoods and lives
to.”
Sherwin Siy, VP of legal affairs at Public
Knowledge to The Verge.

35. CakeHR - Your HR. Simplified.