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CEO Stadler to Plead Guilty Eight Years After VW/Audi Diesel-a-lago

Accepted submission by canopic jug at 2023-05-05 07:30:40 from the diesel-a-lago dept.
Software

canopic jug [soylentnews.org] writes:

Multiple sites have been reporting that former Audi CEO, Rupert Stadler, will plead guilty for his role in the 2015 emissions scandal where Audi and VW software was modified to evade emissions testing. The proprietary software embedded in the cars was modified to detect when the cars were being operated in testing conditions and modified the vehicle's operation to reduce emissions enough to pass the inspection. However, during normal operation, they polluted like crazy, up to 40x the NOx shown during testing conditions. The plea deal he has been offered to him in this trial which started 2020 is expected to be a €1.1 million fine and serve a suspended sentence of up to two years. Stadler has spent several months in pre-trial detention to prevent him from interfering with witnesses further.

Remember Dieselgate? It's been nearly a decade since a whistleblower [thedrive.com] outed Volkswagen and its sister brands in 2015 over tech invented in 1999 that was designed to fool emission testing [thedrive.com]. Despite the company facing fines worldwide [thedrive.com], having involvement in further probes [thedrive.com], and being forced to buy back affected cars [thedrive.com], the automaker and its problem-era executives are still facing legal backlash.

The scandal has cost those automakers tens of billions so far. There was an initial attempt to blame only low level employees. However, as the trial shows there was more to it than that and that plans came from the highest levels. Further documents show that the emissions software had been in cheat mode for many years.

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