Ex-Volkswagen Execs Slammed With Prison Time Over $30 Billion Diesel Emissions Scandal
The Volkswagen execs were found guilty of fraud.
Four ex-Volkswagen executives were found guilty of fraud in a German court in connection with a diesel emissions scandal that cost the car manufacturer over $30 billion.
According to The New York Post, in Braunschweig, close to Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg headquarters, a panel of judges convicted the four former executives of serious fraud charges.
A four-hour reading of the judgments marked the end of the trial, which had lasted more than three years.
The harshest punishment was given to Jens Hadler, who had previously been in charge of developing diesel engines: four and a half years in prison. Engine electronics specialist Hanno Jelden, a former manager, received a two-year, seven-month term.
Two other supervisors, Thorsten D., an emissions specialist, and Heinz-Jakob Neusser, who oversaw components development, were given suspended sentences of one year and 10 months and one year and three months, respectively.
“These defendants were part of a ‘gang,’” said presiding judge Christian Schütz, noting that the four executives committed “serious fraud.”
All About the Volkswagen Emissions Scandal
In September 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent out a Clean Air Act violation notice, which sparked the so-called “Volkswagen emissions scandal.”
In regulatory testing, the NOx output of the German car manufacturer’s turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engines was found to match U.S. norms, as the company had purposefully configured the engines to activate their emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing.
But when driving in the real world, the cars released up to 40 times as much NOx. Volkswagen installed this software in around 11 million vehicles globally, including 500,000 in the U.S., between 2009 and 2015.
As early as 2007, Hadler was aware of modified emissions software, according to evidence given during the trial. Emails from within the organization also revealed attempts to conceal the test manipulation from everyone else.
The scandal’s effects have been far-reaching. In Europe, diesel cars once made up almost half of all new car sales, but now they account for closer to 10%. The emissions scandal accelerated the transition to electric vehicles and eroded public confidence in diesel engines.
Since then, Volkswagen has made a strong shift toward electric vehicles in an attempt to repair its image. With three times as many EVs sold in April as competitor Tesla in Germany, it is currently the leading EV producer in Europe.
