A US grand jury in Detroit has indicted four Audi engineering managers from Germany on allegations of conspiracy, wire fraud and violations of the Clean Air Act.
The indictment alleges the four men took part in nearly a decade-long conspiracy to deceive the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by cheating on emissions tests for 3-liter diesel engines. Audi tests showed emissions were up to 22 times higher than the allowed US limit, the indictment added.
Read more: Why veering Germans away from cars is tough
The indictment said the employees realized there was not enough room in the vehicles to meet VW design standards for a large trunk and high-end sound system while still holding a big tank for fluid to treat diesel emissions, which led the four to design software to cheat on the emissions tests so they could get by with a smaller tank for the fluid.
None of the men are in custody, and they are believed to be in Germany, a US Justice Department spokesman said.
Audi is a luxury brand owned by German automaker Volkswagen. VW pleaded guilty in 2016 to criminal charges in the scandal and will pay more than $30 billion (€26.3 billion) in penalties and settlement costs.
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Dieselgate: A timeline
The disaster unfolds
About two weeks after Volkswagen admitted behind closed doors to US environmental regulators that it had installed cheating software in some 11 million of its diesel vehicles worldwide, the Environmental Protection Agency shared that information with the public. It was September 18, 2015. The ensuing crisis would eventually take a few unexpected turns.
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Dieselgate: A timeline
The boss must go, long live the boss
Volkswagen’s then-CEO Martin Winterkorn (above) had little choice but to step down several days after news of the scandal broke. In September, he tendered his resignation, but retained his other posts within the Volkswagen Group. Winterkorn’s successor was Matthias Müller. Until taking the reins at VW, Müller had been the chairman at Porsche, a VW subsidiary.
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Dieselgate: A timeline
Raiding headquarters
Regulators in the US weren’t the only ones investigating VW. Authorities in Lower Saxony, the German state in which VW is based, were also scrutinizing the company. On October 8, state prosecutors raided VW’s headquarters along with several other corporate locations.
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Dieselgate: A timeline
Hell breaks loose
On January 4, 2016, the US government filed a lawsuit against VW in Detroit, accusing the German automaker of fraud and violations of American climate protection regulations. The lawsuit sought up to $46 billion for violations of the Clean Air Act.
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Dieselgate: A timeline
Quit or forced out?
In March, the head of VW in the US, Michael Horn, resigned. In the initial days and weeks after the scandal broke, he was the one US authorities turned to for information. He issued an official apology on behalf of the automaker, asking for the public’s forgiveness.
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Dieselgate: A timeline
Settlement
On October 25, a US judge approved a final settlement that would have VW pay $15.3 billion. In addition, affected cars would be retrofitted with better, non-deceptive hardware and software, or else VW would buy them back completely from customers.
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Dieselgate: A timeline
Imitators
When dieselgate first emerged in 2015, analysts said it was likely other car makers were also cheating tests. But it wasn’t until 2017 that other companies were targeted in probes. In July, German authorities launched investigations into luxury car makers Porsche and Daimler for allegedly cheating emissions tests. Others, such as Audi and Chrysler, have also been hit by similar allegations.
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Dieselgate: A timeline
Public still supportive
Despite dieselgate, VW has managed to keep the emissions scandal from utterly tarnishing its image. According to several polls, between 55 to 67 percent of Germans continue to trust the automaker. In the US, polls show that roughly 50 percent still believe the German company produces worthwhile vehicles.
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Dieselgate: A timeline
Fuming over monkeys
In late January, however, VW suffered another heavy blow over reports that the company experimented on monkeys and made the animals inhale diesel fumes. To make matters worse, a separate experiment that had humans inhale relatively harmless nitrogen dioxide was revealed at the same time. Some media wrongly interpreted this to mean humans were also inhaling toxic fumes.
Author: Dirk Kaufmann
13 charged
VW announced in October that Audi had agreed to pay an €800 million ($927 million) fine issued by German prosecutors to close a diesel emissions cheating investigation.
The indictment is the latest event in the widening VW diesel emissions cheating scandal, in which VW used defeat device software on about 600,000 vehicles to turn pollution controls on during tests and turn them off while on the road.
Read more: Test case against Volkswagen opens — why it matters
The four indictments bring the total number of VW employees charged in the scandal to 13.
Two have pleaded guilty and are serving jail time, while six others, including former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn, remain in Germany.
law/sms (AP, dpa, AFP)
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