It is no use fining the bosses. The company pays the fine for them and it is only petty cash so they write it off as a business expense. The only real deterrent is jail and I can't see that happening.
..and I can well believe that someone so senior and remote from the action might not even have known about the shenanigans of apparently just one or two relatively junior engineers.
Having worked for decades in engineering, I cannot believe that one or two junior engineers would get away with creating a defeat device. These companies have large engineering teams, with designers, coders, testers and managers. It would be very hard for one or two engineers to get away with it. And why would junior engineers do such a thing? Why risk your job for something that would require senior authorisation? Frankly I find it hard to understand how this could have been done. But for sure the top dog might not have known. He might have issued the order to comply with regulations, and put on so much pressure that those below him cheated. But I still can't understand how a team could do this, unless a middle manager got one or two engineers who were close associates to add a 'fix'. And even then how did others not know, or complain?
It's curious that this seems to have taken place in many companies, and not just VAG ones.
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