VW emissions test cheating dates back to 2005

Company reveals it is pursuing a ‘small circle’ of engineers who created software a decade ago to manipulate rigorous U.S. emission results

WOLFSBURG, GERMANY— A small group of Volkswagen engineers began working as early as 2005 on emissions cheating software after they were unable to find a technical solution to U.S. emissions controls as the automaker pushed into the North American market, executives said Thursday.

The company in September admitted to have cheated on U.S. diesel emissions tests with the help of software installed in engines. The software was built into 11 million cars globally, about 500,000 in the U.S., from 2009 to 2015.

It has confirmed to have cheated only on U.S. tests, which are more rigorous than European ones for the polluting emission nitrogen oxide.

In an update on the company’s investigation in the case, Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch said engineers in 2005 were unable to find a technical solution to U.S. nitrogen oxide emissions within their “timeframe and budget” and came up with the software that manipulated results when lab testing was done. Later, when a technical solution became available, it was not employed, Poetsch said.

“We are not talking about a one-off mistake, but a whole chain of mistakes that was not interrupted at any point along the time line,” he said at Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany.

Poetsch did not say if any VW models from before 2009 had the cheating software in the U.S. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would not immediately comment on whether any more model years are under investigation. VW sold some diesel models in the U.S. during the 2005 and 2006 model years but suspended sales in 2007 and 2008 after the EPA imposed stricter pollution standards.

Volkswagen is “relentlessly searching for those responsible” for the software, Poetsch said. “We still do not know whether the people who were involved in this issue from 2005 to the present day were fully aware of the risks they were taking and of the potential damage they could expose the company to, but that’s another issue we will find out.”

CEO Matthias Mueller said the investigation has revealed “information was not shared, it stayed within a small circle of people who were engineers.”

Poetsch confirmed the company has suspended nine managers for possible involvement in the scandal. He said there are no indications that board members were directly involved, but the company’s probe is ongoing and broad.

“This is not only about direct, but overall responsibility,” he said.

He said the investigation has analyzed data from laptops, phones and other devices from 400 employees.

More than 2,000 have been informed in writing they cannot delete any data in case it becomes relevant to the investigation.

External auditors have gone through 102 terabytes of data. “We still believe that only a comparatively small number of employees was actually actively involved in the manipulations,” he said.