This is sad news.

VAG needs a scapegoat, some programmer who they can blame and fire, and absolve themselves from guilt. Assuming the allegations are true, that the affected vehicles have illegal circumvention software operating, you can be certain it was done with the management chain being aware of it :-(

Sand. Very sad indeed.

I attribute many of the Western world's problems to religion: As long as we continue to worship money, rather than placing high value on openness, honesty, integrity, and a fair exchange of products and services for appropriate remuneration, we'll continue to see issues like this hurting us.

if these accusations are true, it would also open up VAG to massive lawsuits from owners who bought diesels who thought they were buying "clean diesel" technology- for cars costing at least $30k this would be out and out hundreds of thousands of cases of Felony Fraud.

There should be big prison time involved for VAG execs who ordered this if true. Small time fraudsters here in America get severe jail time for far less than this.

The problem here is that Volkswagon is NOT an American based Company. While it cannot avoid Major fines - the problem with criminal prosecution would be to prove that the American Marketing arm of the company knew of this - who - and when (Obviously they know now - and VW Diesels with the offending software no longer qualify for sale in the USA). The people who actually created the offending software - and those that knew or ordered it - will likely be from a Foreign country - and extradition laws apply.

I would assume the offending software is installed in more than just American market Cars - and there will be prosecution in Germany. However - the biggest "cost" to VW will also be Europe - where Diesels are the predominant power plant in cars. Again - it is likely that quite a number of vehicles will no longer qualify for sale in those countries until the software is corrected- and the performance with the corrected software will be at issue as well.

MY question - other manufacturers regularly test competitive cars when they develop their own - and it is likely that this was at least suspected by them if not outright known. I believe that this should be a follow up by AutoSPIES -

I am here to rephrase what i said about Diesel back in year 2009.
without some sort of trapping device, ICE can either have high NOX emission and good fuel efficiency, or lower NOX emission and poor fuel efficiency. any claim that says otherwise pretty much defies laws of physics.

http://www.autospies.com/iphone/article.aspx?submissionId=45717

NOx emission depends on how the fuel is burnt, not the chemical content of the fuel. In a high pressure/temperature lean burn process, the nitrogen (which contribute to 80% of the air you are breathing) combines with oxygen and give you NOx but no CO. In a low pressure/temperature rich burn process, you get CO and not much NOx. A gas engine oscillating the mixture between rich and lean burn so the engine alternatives between NOx and CO production, the cat converter takes O off the NOx and puts on the CO to form CO2. However, Diesel engines are designed to run on the lean burn cycle ONLY, which is why they are so efficient, but the bi-product is NOx. CO has never been a problem for modern diesels, since most of the modern diesel has turbo build in to help increase the air/fuel ration.

Disgusting. Shame on VAG.

Audi A3. "Truth in engineering" What a farce. As a 3x VW owner and 4x Audi owner I can hardly express my disappointment and anger. So why wouldn't one be suspicious that their service department diagnostic equipment isn't intended to ring up unecessary repairs?

And you have to use a picture of a smoking diesel that is older (well outside the model years affected), and not equipped with a "clean diesel" engine. In addition, no properly operating modern diesel engine smokes like that any more. There's either something wrong with it, or the owner purposely modified it that results in more smoke. You're as bad as the other media sites that include half-truths and outright fiction.

You need to relax, @ATC, and get a grip.

Getting bent out of shape because of a cover image?

No, it's something you all do here constantly. Using an image that isn't accurate to the story told.

As a Volkswagen owner, I'm angry and disappointed with VW. This is unacceptable, and they will pay severely for this, both in fines and other costs, as well as in public opinion.

This is inexcusable and destroys the trust that customers place in Volkswagen. Volkswagen's Board of Directors must ask Martin Winterkorn to resign and if he does not they must vote to have him removed. Whether he was aware or not it doesn't matter. As CEO, he is responsible for running the company and this scandal happened on his watch and has wiped out almost $18 BILLION in market value.

From the New York Times:

"In his statement, Mr. Winterkorn did not contest assertions by the E.P.A. that Volkswagen sold cars equipped with software that could detect when periodic state government emissions testing was taking place."

"Only during such tests are the cars’ full emissions control systems turned on. During normal driving situations, the controls were turned off, allowing the cars to spew as much as 40 times the pollution allowed under the Clean Air Act, the E.P.A. said."

40 TIMES THE POLLUTION ALLOWED UNDER THE CLEAN AIR ACT?! That is sad and Volkswagen needs a leadership change. I believe Winterkorn will not be able to survive the fallout from this scandal.

Agreed but you are forgetting that this also involves Audi so any plans they had to become tier one has been greatly compromised.

@carsnyc this only involves the prev gen Audi A3. That is the extent of the impact with Audi.

Nope, this applies to all A3 models as well. They all use the same 4 cylinder diesel engine. None of the V6 engines are listed, so the Q7, Q5 and Touareg look like they're off the hook (so far...).

Fraud is all too easy today thanks to the(ab)use of software in modern devices... I was going to buy a new Plasma TV several years ago, and I was thinking in Panasonic Viera models, when I discovered an interesting discussion in an amateur forum about the premature loss of contrast "BY DESIGN"... Panasonic purposely implemented the Firmware of their plasma TVs to REDUCE the excellent initial contrast in order to meet the promised panel life expectative, throwing away the magnificent blacks in the picture that made their plasmas famous. As soon as it was properly demonstrated, Panasonic denied wrong doing and responded that their TVs were working "as designed" (the firmware reduced the contrast after some months of initial operation, and the steps were slight but clearly discernible by the trained and discerning amateurs that were questioning the manufacturer). After refusing to release a firmware correction, the owners of those TV sets sued Panasonic in a "class-action suite" and won. They were paid very little as they were too numerous, but Panasonic paid millions. Another fraud commited by software is present in many brands of Laptop computers, where the firmware installed inside the battery packs own IC's starts to display false messages stating that "Your battery is almost down, please connect your charger immediately". This fake message starts to appear more and more frequently to make owners believe that the battery is worn down, so that a new, expensive replacement is needed, and needs to be bought from the computer manufacturer, improving its income. I've opened many supossedly worn out battery packs, and surprisingly, the Lithium cells were all above 90 to 95% of their rated capacity and could be perfectly recharged individually, but NOT through the computer charger! Fraud, fraud and more fraud. Beware of electronics, fraud is all too easy for unprofessional programmers that need to be jailed and publicly prosecuted to impose some decency. Amclaussen.