US regulators said on 18 September that several Volkswagen models had significantly higher emissions than previously tested. In some cases, the nitrogen oxide levels exceeded the level considered safe by many governments.
US CEO Michael Horn has now admitted the company was untruthful and apologised.
Our company was dishonest with the EPA and the California air resources board, and with all of you, and in my German words, we have totally screwed up," he said. "We must fix the cars to prevent this from ever happening again and we have to make this right. This kind of behaviour is totally inconsistent with our qualities."
A former employee told the BBC "It's clearly putting German industry under a very bad light."
US regulators say the cars were specifically engineered to appear as if they were producing less emissions when US test equipment was plugged in; as soon as the test equipment was unplugged, the emissions circuit of the engine’s controls were bypassed, enabling the car to perform better and thereby release more emissions.
Shares plummeted by almost half on the day of the announcement, and fell a further 5 percent the following day on 22 September.
Volkswagen has said it will be recalling half a million cars in the United States, and could incur fines up to £11.6bn -- as well as potentially facing charges.
Up to 11 million cars worldwide were fitted with the suspect software, the company said, with at least £4.7 billion now earmarked to deal with the fallout.
In the US, diesel cars make up just under 3% of the market. The controversy has prompted German regulators to start investigating their own models, and the implications for the United Kingdom -- considering diesel cars make up around 50% of the new cars market here -- could be huge if a similar bypass was engineered into UK cars.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
