Report: Supplier Warned VW About Illegal Device in 2007


According to German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, Bosch engineers told Volkswagen in 2007 that software the supplier had offered for the cars in testing, which made it into road cars, was illegal and should not be used.
The newspaper, which did not cite any sources in the story, said a spokesperson for Bosch did not comment on the report.
If true, the report shows a quick push from the supplier — who admitted it supplied Volkswagen with the parts used to circumvent emissions standards — to isolate the automaker’s responsibility for the scandal. Bosch issued a statement last week saying as much (emphasis mine):
As is usual in the automotive supply industry, Bosch supplies these components to the automaker’s specifications. How these components are calibrated and integrated into complete vehicle systems is the responsibility of each automaker.
Bild’s story also suggests that VW executives had known about the deceitful measures its cars used to pass emissions tests, although it didn’t specify who or when executives may have known.
Former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn said last week when he resigned that he was unaware of the “defeat devices” used by his diesel cars to cheat emissions tests.
The German newspaper (via Automotive News) said that a 2005 initiative — before Winterkorn’s tenure as CEO — to develop a diesel engine for the U.S. market initially showed promise, but when engineers said that when a urea-based system would be needed to clean emissions, executives balked at the additional $335 cost per car. The engines were eventually produced with faulty software to skirt emissions rules.
Separately, German newspaper FAZ said Volkswagen was made aware by one of its own engineers in 2011 that its emissions management systems were illegal.
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- Donald More stuff to break god I love having a nanny in my truck... find a good tuner and you can remove most of the stupid stuff they add like this and auto park when the doors open stupid stuff like that
- John Williams Sounds like a Burnout Special you can put together on any 5.0 F150. Whoever said this was Cars and Coffee bait is right on the money.
- ToolGuy Question: F-150 FP700 ( Bronze or Black) supercharger kit is legal in 50 states, while the Mustang supercharger kit is banned in California -- why??
- Scott "It may not be the ideal hauler to take the clan cross-country to Wally World considering range anxiety "Range Anxiety is a chosen term that conceals as much as it discloses. You don't care about range that much if you can recharge quickly and current BV's (battery vehicles) can't, no matter how good the chargers are. From what I've been reading it is likely that within 5 years there will be batteries in cars, most likely Tesla's, that can charge fast enough with no harm to the batteries to satisfy all of us with no need to increase range beyond a real world 300-ish miles.And that's when I buy one.
- Charles I had one and loved it . Seated 7 people . Easy to park , great van
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I'm off to search for Clean Diesel t-shirts. Bwa-ha! First hit, Audi sold one, page still up but "This item no longer available". Amazon has same shirt but "Clean Diesel" is in too tiny a script. Found "Diesel. It's no longer a dirty word." shirt at ECS tuning but it's no longer available. Now I'm feeling determined.
Sorry, but the syntax and comma structure in this article is really mangled. I had to read several sentences twice or more to get what Aaron wanted to say. Not up to standard....