VWblames individual staff for scandal
Volkswagen’s United States chief executive has blamed ‘‘individuals’’ for using software to cheat on diesel emissions at a US House of Representatives hearing, as lawmakers attacked federal environmental regulators for failing to catch the fraud for years.
Michael Horn, head of Volkswagen Americas, testified before a House of Representatives oversight and investigations panel about the emissions scandal that has chopped more than a third off the company’s market value and sent tremors through the global auto industry.
Volkswagen’s use of defeat devices, software that evaded US tests for emissions harmful to human health, was not a corporate decision but something a few employees engineered, Horn said under oath.
‘‘This was a couple of software engineers who put this in for whatever reason,’’ Horn said about the software code inserted into diesel cars since 2009.
Volkswagen used different defeat devices in Europe and the US, Horn said, as emissions standards were different in the two regions.
‘‘Some people have made the wrong decisions in order to get away with something,’’ Horn said when asked by lawmakers if Volkswagen cheated with the defeat devices because it was cheaper than using special injection systems to cut emissions.
Lawmakers slammed a US Environmental Protection Agency official who testified for not catch- ing Volkswagen. Representative Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican, questioned the size of the EPA’s annual budget, noting that the cheating was uncovered by a West Virginia University study that had a budget of less than US$70,000.
Volkswagen was expected next week to provide US and California regulators with a preliminary attempt at a software fix for the defeat devices it installed in 2012-2014 model Passats, the EPA said.
The German automaker has suspended 10 senior managers, including three top engineers, as part of its internal investigation. The scandal, the biggest business crisis in Volkswagen’s 78-year history, has also forced the ouster of long-time chief executive Martin Winterkorn.
German prosecutors have raided Volkswagen’s headquarters and other offices as part of their investigation into whether the company also cheated tests in Europe.
Volkswagen said it was supporting the investigation and had handed over a ‘‘comprehensive’’ range of documents.
The internal inquiry found that employees began to install the defeat devices after realising that a costly new engine would fail US emissions standards, according to sources. Company investigators have found no evidence against the engineers.
The state of Texas has sued Volkswagen over the marketing of supposedly clean diesel vehicles, alleging that the company violated a state law prohibiting deceptive trade practices.