Coverage: VW emissions scandal spreads to Audi

The emission scandal is not over for Volkswagen AG as California authorities have found a similar problem in some of its Audi vehicles.

William Boston of The Wall Street Journal has the news:

The Audi software was designed to mask emissions implicated in global warming, instead of smog as in the Volkswagen emissions-cheating scandal that erupted last year, the people said.

The newly discovered software was detected four months ago during laboratory tests by the California Air Resources Board, one of the people said. Neither Volkswagen nor U.S. regulators have publicly disclosed the discovery.

Officials at CARB, which has been heavily involved in a continuing U.S. probe of Volkswagen engines, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Audi, Volkswagen’s luxury-car unit, declined to comment, citing the Justice Department investigation into the Volkswagen scandal, which broke more than a year ago when U.S. environmental authorities disclosed that the German auto maker used illegal software on many of its diesel-engine models to cheat emissions testing for nitrogen oxides.

It isn’t clear how seriously officials in California and federal officials in Washington view the latest discovery, or whether Volkswagen, under intense regulatory scrutiny around the world, had identified it privately to regulators.

Aaron Ricadela of Bloomberg News reports that VW’s chairman has been added to a German probe:

The carmaker on Sunday said the public prosecutor’s office in Braunschweig, near its Wolfsburg headquarters, extended its investigation for alleged market manipulation to Poetsch, who becomes the second current board member to be targeted. Poetsch and VW are supporting the inquiry, which relates to his time as chief financial officer, the company said in a statement.

Management “fulfilled its disclosure obligation under German capital markets law,” VW said. A representative of the company’s largest shareholder’ voiced support for the chairman after the company’s disclosure.

The disclosure is the latest dose of bad news for the iconic German automaker, mired in a scandal over software designed to cheat on emissions tests by operating cars differently under inspection than while being driven. The scandal has cost former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn his job, sliced VW’s market value, and has the company staring at a $14.7 billion settlement covering 2.0-liter engine cars in the U.S.

Maria Sheahan of Reuters reported that Audi stopped using the software earlier this year:

If the steering wheel was not turned, as if it was being tested in a laboratory, the software turned on a gear-shifting program which produced less carbon dioxide, allowing the car to meet the emissions criteria.

If the wheel turned by more than 15 degrees, as if it was being driven, it turned the software off. The newspaper did not say if other performance criteria improved when this was switched off.

Audi stopped using the software in May 2016, just before CARB discovered the manipulation in an older model, the paper said. It said the affected transmissions were used in several hundred thousand vehicles, including Audi’s A6, A8 and Q5 models, adding that the carmaker had suspended several engineers in connection with the matter.

Any revelation of further cheating software would be a major setback after VW just reached a near $15 billion settlement with U.S. regulators and car owners, crossing one of the biggest hurdles in the clean-up of the scandal.