Volkswagen’s brazen and bizarre “Diesel-gate” deception beggars belief. This sustained and sophisticated software scamsuggests truly pathological levels of managerial desperation and contempt: desperation around a failed promise of clean diesel technology and unsubtle contempt for unsuspecting regulators and customers alike. Precisely how gullible did these wizards of Wolfsburg think people would be?
That’s why the real story here revolves less around the deceit than its discovery. An eco-NGO, the International Council on Clean Transportation — not formal regulatory review — effectively uncovered the con. A $50,000 emissions test was run bya West Virginia University lab and its researchers have told reporters they “kind of opened the can of worms” on Volkswagen’s cheating. The discrepancies measured proved neither minor nor marginal; they grotesquely exceeded what the law allowed by 10 times to 30 times. Follow-up tests erased any reasonable, or benefit of the, doubt. Data-driven analysis drove the German giant to confess tampering with 11 million cars.