The Volkswagen scandal that exploded recently has put to question the integrity of the world's largest carmaker. The fallout has already started with $6.5 billions of dollars being set aside by the company to try and cover the damages. Also, the CEO resigned suddenly.
However, that might not mean enough as much more is sure to come. US authorities are planning on fining VW $18 billion for violating the Clean Air Act. But what many people want to really know is how they got away with it for this long. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may have been fooled by VW, but a team from West Virginia University was not.
An experiment was conducted using a VW Jetta and VW Passat. Both vehicles had rigs attached to their exhaust systems and were driven around the West Coast. What they found was that each car emitted twenty times more nitrogen oxides than US limits, The Verge reported.
Volkswagen did not deny using "defeat devices," or software algorithms that reduced emissions during testing. Since US rules on nitrogen oxides are much stricter than European standards, VW must have figured that this deception would have sufficed. The EPA brought this up with the company using the university's findings.
Newer cars have more lines of code than many airplanes, according to The Wall Street Journal. These codes were tweaked to provide satisfactory results to US authorities. The software would know if it a test in progress and would go on "dyno calibration," which then reverts back to "road calibration" during normal operation, The Indian Express reported.
What VW did was to use information about the car's steering, engine, and atmospheric pressure to "precisely track" conditions seemingly favorable to US regulations. The complicity lies on VW even though Bosch is the company's supplier of vital engine parts. Apparently, it is VW who wrote the code to operationalize the equipment.
What do you have to say about this massive conspiracy? How about its environmental cost? Hit share to let your thoughts be heard!
