Well, well, well, if it isn’t our old friend Dieselgate. That’s right the saga isn’t over yet for Volkswagen (as much as they want it to be). A Düsseldorf district court recently found that the cars that were updated with new software were still programmed to cheat emissions tests in another way!
That’s right. After spending billions of euros recalling customer cars to update them with software to stop emissions manipulation, these cars continue to do just that. This time, the court found that exhaust gases would only be cleaned when the ambient temperature was between 10 and 32 degrees Celcius. Given that many of these cars were sold in Europe, it’s likely they’re spewing more harmful, cancer-causing gases during cooler and warmer months. As such, the court names this too an illegal defeat device.
It’s unclear whether this piece of software was present BEFORE the fix or only on the updated software, but the effect is that the limitation period for affected customers looking to claim damages from VW may be extended by another 3 years (from the date of the software update).
The judgement said not just Volkswagen vehicles, but Audi, Seat and Skoda cars with the EA189 and other diesel engines.
This vs Original Dieselgate
In case you forgot, the events around dieselgate originally unfolded around 2015. They had been lying to regulators for years and only admitted to wrongdoing when regulators refused to let them sell more cars in the US. It concerned defeat devices on VW Group diesel cars that were designed to detect when the car was being tested for emissions and only operate to specification then. When the car was driven normally, they polluted some 5-35 times the amount of harmful gases (depending on model).
This time, the exhaust cleaning works as normal except in the temperatures noted above. Given how common cold winters and hot summers are becoming, this is no small matter.
Read it yourself in German here:
https://www.wallstreet-online.de/nachricht/11679204-knaller-urteil-diesel-skandal-vw-software-update-manipuliert
or in English here.
