Four Audi engineers indicted in emissions cheating scandal
David Wagman | January 18, 2019A federal grand jury in Detroit has indicted four Audi engineering managers from Germany for allegedly conspiring over nearly a decade to deceive the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on emissions test for 3-liter diesel engines.
The Associated Press reported that Richard Bauder, Axel Eiser, Stefan Knirsch and Carsten Nagel were named in a 12-count indictment alleging conspiracy, wire fraud and violations of the Clean Air Act.
None of the four is in custody, and they are believed to be in Germany, a Justice Department spokesman told the AP.
Emissions cheating has emerged as a widespread problem in the auto industry. Earlier in January, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. said that its U.S. unit reached settlements on civil, environmental and consumer claims with the EPA, Department of Justice, the California Air Resources Board, the State of California, 49 other states and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, agreeing to pay $400 million in civil penalties to resolve allegations that it cheated on vehicle diesel emissions. The business unit also settled a class action suit brought by consumers.
And in July, Japanese carmaker Nissan Motor Co. said that it uncovered instances of falsified data about exhaust emissions and fuel economy. The automaker said that data falsification occurred on 19 models across five plants in Japan. The falsifications were found when the company carried out an internal check on employees conducting final vehicle inspections.
(Read "VW scandal: When good engineers do the wrong thing.")
Audi is owned by German automaker Volkswagen. Volkswagen pleaded guilty in 2016 to criminal charges in the scandal and will pay more than $30 billion in penalties and lawsuit settlement costs.
Alleged conspiracy
The news agency said the new indictments bring the number of VW employees charged in the scandal to 13. VW used software on about 600,000 vehicles to turn pollution controls on during EPA tests and turn them off while on the road. Two pleaded guilty and are serving jail time. Another six, including former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn, remain in Germany.
AP said that according to the indictment released January 17, Bauder was head of Audi’s diesel engine development department in Neckarsulm, Germany, from 2002 until around February of 2012. Eiser had the same position in Ingolstadt, Germany, from 2009 until around May of 2013. Knirsch had the same position in Ingolstadt from May 2013 to May of 2015, and also was a member of Audi’s management board. Nagel was head of Audi’s Engine Registration and Testing in Neckarsulm from 2002 through February 2017.
The indictment says the employees realized there wasn’t enough room in the vehicles to meet VW design standards for a large trunk and high-end sound system while holding a big tank for fluid to treat diesel emissions. So they and their co-conspirators allegedly designed software to cheat on the emissions tests so they could get by with a smaller tank for the fluid.
Tests conducted by Nagel and others found that nitrogen oxide emissions from vehicles with the diesel engines were up to 22 times above the U.S. limit, the indictment reportedly alleged. The results were shared with Knirsch and Nagel, according to the indictment.
The indictment alleges the suspects covered up the software, called a “defeat device,” when dealing with U.S. officials.
I wholeheartedly agree these cheaters and anyone who directed them to cheat should be held accountable. What I never hear about in any fraudulent testing scandal is any repercussions for those who approved the defrauded test.
An independent party tested some of these diesel vehicle engines using a non-static test that approached if not duplicated actual driving conditions. This is how the higher emissions were discovered. This dynamic testing was certainly more expensive to perform than the static test. Why wasn't this emission failure discovery made at the request of an emission regulating authority? Testing each and every vehicle for compliance will likely always be a static test of some sort. The original prototypes and a random sample of production units should have been subjected to a dynamic test long ago.