In September 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency revealed that Volkswagen had deliberately installed defeat device software in 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide — software designed to activate emissions controls only when a car sensed it was being tested, while emitting nitrogen oxides up to 40 times the legal limit during normal driving. The deception had been ongoing for years, approved at senior levels, and was only uncovered because a small university research team in West Virginia decided to run real-world emissions tests out of academic curiosity. The scandal ultimately cost Volkswagen over $30 billion in fines, settlements, and vehicle buybacks across multiple countries, and sent executives to prison — rewriting the global auto industry’s understanding of what regulatory fraud at scale looks like.
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