While the United States concluded its investigation into Volkswagen Group’s diesel emissions scandal months ago, the wheels of justice turn appear to turn more slowly in Germany.
Prosecutors in Stuttgart have launched a preliminary investigation into employees at Porsche to assess whether they were involved in designing any of the company’s emissions-cheating software. Porsche is the latest addition in a governmental probe against Volkswagen Group. German prosecutors have already launched a formal investigation against the core brand and Audi.
Prosecutor Jan Holzner explained on Thursday, however, that the Porsche inquiry was not yet a formal investigation. The same could not be said of managers at Bosch, who Holzner believes may have had a role in aiding and abetting Volkwagen’s emissions fraud.
“We are investigating three employees. All three are managers, with the highest ranking being in middle management,” Holzner told Reuters.
Bosch participated in the development of the EDC17 engine control unit in Volkswagen’s EA189 diesel engines that are at the center of the emissions debacle. German prosecutors believe at least three managers may have conspired with the automaker. Prosecutors are considering expanding the investigation to other employees.
Bosch stated that it is taking any allegations of engine manipulation “very seriously” and will be cooperating with authorities. However, due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, Bosch declined to comment further.
Porsche had no comment.
[Image: Porsche]
I was wondering when they would go after Bosch. Even if Bosch did not design the VW cheat code, they had to know about it as the supplier of the diesel hardware. In fact everyone in the industry had to know VW was cheating, because everyone else would also want to figure out how VW was meeting strict emission standards without the expensive urea injection systems that everyone else was using.
They’re all doing essentially the same thing: using maps allowing for different emissions profiles during some operating conditions, than during others. VW was just a bit too obvious, putting in knee points that tracked popular standardized tests a bit too closely. Classifying some as “baaaad” cheaters, and others as “gooood” Gaia worshippers, is just an after the fact exercise, for those feeble mindeds with little ability to evolve beyond children’s fairy tales about good princesses, bad stepmothers, and nothing in between.
Varying fuel and emission maps isn’t necessarily illegal, but such things do have to be fully documented in the certification forms, and they do have to be approved by the EPA. VW had no intention of doing either, which is what got them in trouble.
Nah, it was just that guy in the software bowels of VW. Nothing to see here!