The finding that sparked the Dieselgate scandal was the work of three college students. Marc Besch (right) is from Switzerland, while Arvind Thiruvengadam (left) and Hemanth Kappanna (center) are both from India.
In This Article...
The Volkswagen emissions scandal was first uncovered when?
West Virginia University researchers conducted the on-road testing in May 2014 that prompted the California Air Resources Board to look into Volkswagen. Two Volkswagen cars with the 2-liter turbocharged 4-cylinder diesel engine were subjected to emissions testing. When tested on the road, the researchers discovered that some cars produce over 40 times the legal amount of nitrogen oxides.
Arvind Thiruvengadam, West Virginia University’s Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines, and Emissions
Who looked into the scandal at Volkswagen?
In 2014, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) requested a research on emissions differences between European and US vehicle models from the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), which compiled information on 15 vehicles from three sources. Five scientists from the West Virginia University Center for Alternative Fuels Engines and Emissions (CAFEE) were among those hired for this project. Using a Japanese on-board emission testing system, they discovered extra emissions on two out of three diesel vehicles while conducting live road tests. [32] [33]
Two other sources of data were also purchased by ICCT. Portable Emissions Measurement Systems (PEMS), created by a number of people in the middle to late 1990s and released in May 2014, were used to generate the new road testing data and the purchased data. [34] [35] [36]
Regulators in several nations started looking into Volkswagen,[37] and in the days following the disclosure, the stock price of the company dropped by a third in value. Martin Winterkorn, the CEO of the Volkswagen Group, resigned, while Heinz-Jakob Neusser, Ulrich Hackenberg, and Wolfgang Hatz, the heads of Audi research and development, were suspended. In April 2016, Volkswagen announced intentions to repair the impacted vehicles as part of a recall effort and allocate 16.2 billion euros (or US$18.32 billion at April 2016 exchange rates)[38] to fixing the emissions problems. Volkswagen entered a plea of guilty in January 2017 and signed an agreed Statement of Facts that based on the findings of an investigation the company had commissioned from US attorneys Jones Day. The declaration explained how engineers created the defeat devices because diesel models needed them to pass US emissions tests and purposefully tried to hide their use. [39] A US federal judge imposed a $2.8 billion criminal fine on Volkswagen in April 2017 for “rigging diesel-powered vehicles to cheat on regulatory emissions testing.” The “extraordinary” plea agreement confirmed Volkswagen’s accepted punishment. [40] On May 3, 2018, Winterkorn was accused of fraud and conspiracy in the US. [15] As of 1 June 2020[update], fines, penalties, financial settlements, and repurchase costs incurred by VW as a result of the scandal totaled $33.3 billion. [41] The majority of the affected vehicles are located in the European Union and the United States, where a number of legal and governmental actions are currently being taken to ensure that Volkswagen has fairly compensated the owners, as it did in the United States, even though it is still legal for them to be driven there.
The controversy increased public knowledge of the greater pollution levels released by all diesel-powered vehicles from a wide range of auto manufacturers, which, when driven in actual traffic, exceeded legal emission limits. Investigations into other diesel emissions issues have begun as a result of a study by ICCT and ADAC that revealed the highest deviations came from Volvo, Renault, Jeep, Hyundai, Citron, and Fiat[42][43][44]. It was brought up that software-controlled machinery was often susceptible to fraud and that one solution would be to make the program available for public inspection. [45][46][47]
Who exposed Volkswagen’s deception?
Hemanth Kappanna, a 41-year-old Indian-born engineer employed by General Motors, was recently relieved of his responsibility for liaising with the EPA on the American automaker’s emissions technology. He was only one of about 4,000 GM employees that the business let go as part of a “strategic transition,” as it put it.
He wasn’t just any firm asset, though. Looking into Kappanna’s past reveals that he was a genuine hero who managed to alter the course of automotive history. How? He was in charge of making the world aware of Volkswagen’s emissions crisis.
The incident occurred in 2013, when Kappanna was a member of a small group of engineering students at West Virginia University in Morgantown, a renowned academic institution for its work on car emissions. Kappanna discovered a technique that would later expose the lie that Volkswagen had been telling the world about the emissions from its vehicles while attempting to complete a grant application from the International Council on Clean Transportation that had been given to him by the director of his program.
The university had intended to come up with a method of measuring the emissions of moving automobiles. All of the emission testing were conducted at the time in garages using specialized equipment because it was found to be more simpler than analyzing the emissions from a moving car. For the fieldwork, Marc Besch (Switzerland) and Arvind Thiruvengadam (India), two of Kappanna’s fellow graduating students, were selected.
Who Unveils Volkswagen?
The automotive industry was altered by Hemanth Kappanna’s research. However, GM fired the person who revealed Volkswagen’s Dieselgate scandal this year.
In sweltering Bengaluru’s green suburbs, Dr. Hemanth Kappanna, 41, is ready to burn off some calories on this hot midsummer day. “I never played sports. I used to do yoga in the US. I can now run 10 kilometers in one hour, he claims. The former General Motors (GM) employee began endurance training at Cubbon Park, a spit of lush land in the center of the city, after arriving back in India in May of this year.
Kappanna then discusses the events leading up to his abrupt departure from the Detroit-based automaker, where he worked from December 2014 until his participation in a West Virginia University research analyzing engine emissions. “I don’t feel guilty. He says in a phone interview with ETPanache that if he could go back in time, he wouldn’t change a thing. In place of laboratory studies on consumer vehicle engines, Kappanna and his colleagues at West Virginia University (WVU) conducted road tests in 2014 utilizing a portable emission testing system. Their findings paved the door for stricter pollution control standards by upsetting the cozy equilibrium between Big Auto and the regulatory bodies.
VW was dragged into the confessional. German company acknowledged utilizing “defeat devices that diesel automobiles use to tamper with pollution test results. Forbes said that the corporation was had to pay fines totaling more than $25 billion.
In December 2017, Oliver Schmidt, the general manager in charge of VW’s Michigan engineering and environmental division, received a seven-year prison term. Later, some of GM’s own goods were questioned. Just over a year after Schmidt’s imprisonment, on February 4, 2019, Kappanna was let off by GM as part of a restructuring “corporate reorganization
Why did VW fabricate emissions data?
Volkswagen misrepresented the diesel vehicles for years in order to obtain EPA and CARB certifications that permitted the vehicles to be marketed in the U.S. Volkswagen knew that the diesel vehicles would dodge U.S. emissions rules. Volkswagen hesitated until authorities threatened to withdraw approval when EPA and CARB eventually started to catch on.
How did Volkswagen falsify its emissions test results?
In order to pass an emissions test and seem to be a low-emission vehicle, Volkswagen added software that altered the engine’s operation. the remaining time? The vehicles were spewing harmful pollutants at rates up to 150 times higher than those of a typical vehicle.
Dieselgate was caused by who?
BERLIN (Reuters) – In an effort to put an end to its biggest-ever crisis, Volkswagen said on Friday that it would sue former Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn and former Audi chief Rupert Stadler for damages related to the diesel emissions scandal.
The German corporation claimed that after conducting a thorough legal investigation, it had come to the conclusion that Winterkorn and Stadler had violated their duty of care. It added that no other members of the management board had engaged in wrongdoing.
Volkswagen acknowledged in 2015 that it had rigged diesel engine testing in the US using illegal software, resulting in Germany’s largest corporate crisis.
More than 32 billion euros ($38 billion) in penalties, repairs, and legal fees were incurred by the automaker as a result of the scandal.
About three years later, Volkswagen ended Stadler’s employment as CEO of Audi amid a criminal probe by the German company into whether he was associated with emissions fraud.
Volkswagen claimed that the 1.6 million files that were screened and reviewed as part of the investigation into the issue, which was handled by the legal firm Gleiss Lutz, as well as more than 1,550 interviews and questionings.
“The supervisory board of Volkswagen stated in a note to staff on Friday that both Prof. Winterkorn and Mr. Stadler did tremendous things with the Volkswagen Group and that there is no question that their remarkable professional accomplishments still stand.
The company stated that as a result, it had decided to file lawsuits for damages against Winterkorn and Stadler for negligence under stock corporation law.
In a statement, Winterkorn’s attorneys said that the former CEO regretted the supervisory board’s choice and denied the charges leveled against him.
“Mr. Prof. Dr. Winterkorn is aware that the supervisory board is required to investigate and, if necessary, assert any potential claims. According to the statement, he will thus try to answer those queries after speaking with Volkswagen AG.
By failing to properly and promptly explain the circumstances surrounding the deployment of illegal software functionalities in some diesel engines sold in the North American market between 2009 and 2015, Volkswagen came to the conclusion that Winterkorn had violated his duty of care.
Damage claims against former executives are infrequent but not unheard of in Germany. Heinrich von Pierer, a former chairman and CEO of Siemens, agreed to pay 5 million euros to resolve a bribery case in 2009.
Bartosz Dabrowski, Christina Amann, and Alexander Huebner contributed additional reporting. Thomas Escritt, Mark Potter, and Susan Fenton edited the work.
Why was the VW crisis started?
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined in September 2015 that Volkswagen had violated the Clean Air Act by using “defeat devices in the form of computer software, which was designed to cheat on federal emissions testing” in over 590,000 diesel motor cars.
A defeat device is one that disables or disabling the emission control system of a vehicle. These programs basically have the ability to recognize when a vehicle is conducting an emissions test and activate complete emissions controls at that time. The efficiency of such devices is decreased during routine driving.