Liang moved to the United States in May 2008 to assist in the launch of VW’s new “clean diesel” vehicles in the USA market, according to the plea agreement.
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The carmaker has already set aside $16.5bn (£12.5bn) to address environmental, state and owner claims in America.
In 2006, while still in Wolfsburg, Liang and his co-conspirators began to design a “clean diesel” engine for sale in the USA – a project known within VW as “US ’07”.
“Liang and his co-conspirators attempted to make it appear that there were innocent mechanical and technological problems to blame, while secretly knowing that the primary reason for the discrepancy was the defeat device installed in every VW diesel vehicle sold in the United States”.
In 2008, Liang moved to California to help launch Volkswagen’s “clean diesel” vehicle lineup.
James Robert Liang of Newberry Park, California, entered the plea Friday in U.S. District Court in Detroit. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. However, the researchers said these cars would emit more emissions when on the road and when the cheat device was turned off. 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.
According to Click On Detroit, James Liang, a German national, is accused of being developing a “defeat device” for Volkswagen’s diesel cars that help hide a vehicle’s true emission. The scandal only affects Volkswagen cars with diesel engines. The plea by the VW engineer suggests that the Department of Justice is trying to pursue charges against other higher-level executives at the company. Germany and South Korea are also conducting criminal probes of the company.
Liang worked in Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg, Germany, headquarters in diesel engine development.
The Justice Department said the conspiracy began in November 2006, involved Jetta, Golf and other vehicles with model years between 2009 and 2015, and continued until the cheating was revealed in September 2015. Lawyers are still working on settlements for another 80,000 vehicles with 3-liter diesel engines.
A Volkswagen engineer has pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges in connection with the company’s diesel engine emissions scandal.
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”. His sentence is not expected to be announced until January. When the engineers realized they couldn’t meet consumer expectations and USA air quality standards at the same time, they began looking into using illegal software (often known in the auto industry as a “defeat device”).
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More on this as we get it.
