The German newspaper Bild am Sonntag says that US investigators have discovered three more hidden cheat apps in a Volkswagen product line: these ones were discovered in 3-liter Audi diesels.
Volkswagen has already agreed to pay a $15B fine, the largest in US history, to settle claims relating to the cheat software on its 2L vehicles that allowed them to trick regulators into thinking that they were much lower-emission than they would be under road conditions.
There are 85,000 3.0L VW Audis on America's roads, and there's a hearing about them scheduled for tomorrow. The Bild story suggests that US regulators are going to drop a bombshell on VW — the revelation that the company had cheated even worse with the bigger engines in its luxury cars, and that they had not come clean about it.
VW still faces criminal charges in many territories.
U.S. authorities have found three unapproved software programs in 3.0 liter diesel engines made by Volkswagen's (VOWG_p.DE) Audi (NSUG.DE) unit, German weekly Bild am Sonntag reported, without saying where it had obtained the information.The software allowed the turbocharged direct injection (TDI) engines used in Audi's Q7, Porsche's Cayenne and VW's Touareg models to shut down emissions control systems after about 22 minutes, the paper said. Official methods to measure emissions usually last about 20 minutes, it added.
U.S. finds unapproved emissions software in VW Audi engines: Bild am Sonntag
[Christoph Steitz, Till Weber and David Shepardson/Reuters]
(via /.)
(Image: 2008-2010 Porsche Cayenne S, public domain)
