The Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal deemed “Dieselgate” is evidence something is “rotten” in the German automaker, a top House Republican charged Thursday.
Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said at a hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation that the company betrayed the trust of regulators, dealers and the public. Upton, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce committee, said he was shocked by the scandal.
“Through the years something apparently became rotten in Wolfsburg and cheating and betrayal became part of the VW game plan,” he said.
The Environmental Protection Agency said last month it’s investigating Volkswagen for installing defeat devices that allow vehicles to skirt emissions tests.
The “defeat devices” are more than 100 million lines of software code in some of Volkswagen’s most popular “clean diesel” vehicles. Those devices allowed popular models, such as the Jetta, to tell when they were undergoing emissions testing.
The software could tell if a test was taking place based on the position of the vehicle’s steering wheel, the speed the vehicle was traveling, how long the engine was being used and barometric pressure, according to the EPA. The vehicles would reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide during testing and then spew 40 times the legal limit during normal use.
It was revealed in written testimony released Wednesday that Volkswagen’s CEO in the United States, Michael Horn, was aware of the defeat devices as early as May 2014. The existence of the defeat devices was finally revealed to the EPA in early September, about two weeks before the agency made its investigation of Volkswagen public.
EPA officials believe as many as 482,000 vehicles in the United States are programmed with the defeat devices. The agency can legally impose a $37,000 fine for each vehicle programmed to avoid emissions tests, so the company can face a maximum fine of about $18 billion.
The company estimates about 9.5 million vehicles around the world contain the defeat device.
The scandal has been a catastrophe for the German automaker. Its stock price has plummeted, top executives have been forced to resign and the company’s reputation has taken a major blow.
VW officials in Germany have announced that a recall will begin in 2016, but a U.S. spokeswoman said the company is still working with the EPA and California Air Regulation Board to determine the timeline for a potential U.S. recall.
The hearing Thursday is the first time Volkswagen has been dragged before Congress, but it likely won’t be the last. The Senate Finance Committee is investigating if the company fraudulently applied for a program that allowed customers to receive tax credits to buy fuel-efficient vehicles.
