They say success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan. It wasn’t one Volkswagen executive who thought to install illicit software into diesel motor vehicles. It wasn’t one engineer or shop floor worker. It was the brainchild of several, perpetrated and concealed by many. When the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal broke in 2015, however, no one at the German automaker stood up to accept culpability.
The software, known in the auto industry as a “defeat device,” is prohibited under the Clean Air Act. In Volkswagen’s case, it sensed when a vehicle was being tested for compliance with applicable emissions standards. Once certain inputs were recognized (like the movement of a steering wheel), the software produced compliant results. During normal vehicle operation outside a testing environment, the software did something very different: It caused the emissions control system to underperform or fail to operate, resulting in increased pollution up to 40 times above permitted levels, according to U.S. officials.
