FILE – This Feb. 14, 2013, file photo, shows the Volkswagen logo on the grill of a Volkswagen on display in Pittsburgh.
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Note that a 2014 ICCT-commissioned study titled In-Use Emissions Testing of Light-Duty Diesel Vehicles in the United States [PDF] showed that Volkswagen’s “clean diesel” vehicles’ road emissions were up to 40 times the number what was reflected on the dynamometer during the emissions tests.
A longtime Volkswagen engineer pleaded guilty Friday in federal court to charges he helped design and implement a software system that enabled the German automaker’s diesel engines to defeat emissions tests.
DETROIT (AP) – A Volkswagen engineer has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy in the company’s emissions cheating scandal, advancing a criminal investigation by agreeing to testify against others.
The engineer, James Liang, entered his plea in Detroit federal court Friday, his lawyer saying that Liang was “one of many at Volkswagen” involved in the fraud.
The software-which allowed cars to detect the conditions of a laboratory emissions test and alter engine parameters-was variously referred to by engineers as “acoustic function”, “cycle beating software”, and “emissions-tight mode”. He and other VW employees developed a complex software system to keep emissions low when a auto was undergoing testing to demonstrate environmental compliance, but to allow them to spew higher emissions on the road while boosting fuel efficiency, the indictment said.
For model years 2009 through 2016, according to the plea agreement, the engineer knew his “co-conspirators continued to falsely and fraudulently certify to EPA” and California’s Air Resources Board that the diesels complied with US emissions standards and the Clean Air Act.
According to Liang’s admissions, when he and his co-conspirators realized that they could not design a diesel engine that would meet the stricter USA emissions standards, they designed and implemented software to recognize whether a vehicle was undergoing standard us emissions testing on a dynamometer or being driven on the road under normal driving conditions (the defeat device), in order to cheat the emissions tests. Sales fell sharply in the USA, where the company heavily marketed its “clean diesel” vehicles. The judge said that sentencing guidelines call for Liang to serve five years in prison. He might also have to pay a fine of up to $250,000. Volkswagen AG remains in discussions with the US on a criminal settlement and is expected to face a financial penalty as part of that investigation, people familiar with the matter have said.
As the VW engineers struggled to explain to USA regulators why their cars kept failing the tests, a VW employee wrote Liang and others in July 2015: “the key word “creativity” would be helpful here”. So they began work on defeat device software that would cheat on the tests, the indictment says.
According to the indictment, the co-conspirators included “current and former VW employees and others”. He was part of a group of engineers who build a diesel engine, and the first to face criminal charges linked to the emissions scandal.
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“Liang knew that VW was cheating by implementing the defeat device and that he and his co-conspirators were considering deceiving EPA in this meeting”, the plea agreement states.
