Volkswagen’s Dieselgate

On Sept. 18, 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice of violation of the Clean Air Act to German automaker Volkswagen Group. The EPA contended that Volkswagen had intentionally programmed diesel engines to activate certain emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing. The programming changed the vehicles’ nitrogen oxide (NOx) output to meet U.S. standards during regulatory testing but released up to 40 times more NOx in real-world driving. Volkswagen installed this programming in approximately 11 million cars worldwide and in 500,000 cars in the U.S. from 2009 through 2015. (See Volkswagen Says 11 Million Cars Worldwide Are Affected in Diesel Deception, by Jack Ewing , The New York Times, Sept. 22, 2015.)