The lawsuit claims that Müller was made aware in 2006 that 3.0-liter diesel vehicles made by Volkswagen would have difficulty meeting federal emissions standards in the U.S. Volkswagen ultimately chose to avoid the cost of installing the necessary equipment to bring the vehicles into compliance, instead opting to use illegal software, NY alleges. Initially the company, said the software did not affect handling, consumption or emissions, but backtracked and identified the diesel engine issues as one affecting emissions. The devices hid the fact that its diesel vehicles were emitting far more pollutants than allowed under US law. The deception went far beyond the “couple of software engineers” whom Michael Horn, then Volkswagen’s top US executive, blamed in October, according to the lawsuit.
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Volkswagen spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan criticized the states’ decision to file suit and said the company already has agreed to spend billions of dollars to address all environmental harms from the excess emissions.
The device-tainted vehicle eventually migrated to the USA, the lawsuit claims, in 2006 when German engineers found that the company’s emissions reduction systems were clogging the vehicles’ soot filters, causing them to break after only 50,000 miles – the company was obligated to meet a 120,000 to 150,000 mile durability standard in the U.S during the mid-2000s. The software is on some 11 million vehicles world-wide, Volkswagen has said.
“These suits should serve as a siren in every corporate board room, that if any company engages in this type of calculated and systematic illegality, we will bring the full force of the law – and seek the stiffest possible sanctions – to protect our citizens”, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said.
New York, Massachusetts and Maryland all filed lawsuits on Tuesday.
The states’ claims “are essentially not new and we have been addressing them in our discussions with USA federal and state authorities”, Ginivan said.
The New York attorney general says more than two dozen Volkswagen engineers and managers were involved in the deception.
The three companies have been accused of selling diesel cars with illegal “defeat devices” that were installed to hide the actual amounts of harmful emissions, as well as allegedly to try and cover-up their “corrupt behavior”.
VW tried to cover up the problem through sham recalls that the company knew wouldn’t meet the required standards and then only confessed to the defeat devices “when they knew the regulators had the goods on them”, according to Schneiderman’s statement. To still pass the emissions tests, the noise reduction tool was switched off during the test. A year later, a manager admonished a Volkswagen official in the USA for allowing another employee to send a frank email expressing concerns, it added.
In September, VW admitted it had equipped its diesel cars with illegal software to cheat emissions tests in the United States. Moreover, the company faces a slew of other lawsuits worldwide, including regulatory probes and lawsuits filed by vehicle owners who feel they have been duped.
In October 2006, many Volkswagen executives held a conference call with California regulators, with the latter requesting additional details on emissions-control devices.
But the company nevertheless used “defeat device” software created to reduce nitrous oxide emissions during laboratory testing while allowing up to 40 times the legal limit during real driving conditions.
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The scandal also led to an overhaul in VW’s senior management – chief executive Martin Winterkorn resigned and the company was forced to set aside more than €16bn to deal with the fallout. “Do we need to discuss next steps?” the engineering executive wrote, according to the lawsuit.
