The VW Diesel Scandal: Turning a Blind Eye on Emissions to Protect the European Automobile Industry

(by Eugenio Miravete[1]) VW stands accused of exceeding the US EPA’s NOx standards by a factor of 10 or up to 40. What makes VW’s deception especially culpable is a sophisticated device designed to instruct the engine to run on clean mode when it detects that the vehicle is under lab testing conditions. Outraged commentators compare this to the behavior of the financial industry that led to the 2008 crisis. How did VW come to this? A significant part of the answer can be found in my own research, though this was not the issue I was investigating at the time.