Sept. 21--Volkswagen called it clean diesel. Clean like Lance Armstrong. Clean like the Chicago River.
VW has admitted to the Environmental Protection Agency that hundreds of thousands of its diesel cars have been using what is literally a killer app.
The software allowed the vehicles to sail through U.S. emissions tests while reportedly spewing 10 to 40 times the level of certain pollutants as allowed in ordinary use.
It's been smoke and mirrors -- mostly smoke -- for the last seven model years.
We're talking about 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 VW Golfs, Jettas and Beetles, along with Audi A3s, equipped four-cylinder, 2.0-liter turbodiesel engines. Oh, almost forgot the 2012-15 Passats.
That's nearly half-a-million vehicles in all, belching nitrogen oxide to preserve mileage ratings and performance no other carmaker could seem to match, thanks to emissions control systems programmed to operate only when testing protocols were detected.
So we get more smog and ozone and poisons tied to a litany of health problems, such as asthma attacks and other respiratory diseases, along with premature death. VW gets more car sales.
Score one for German engineering and systematic subterfuge, trading our health for its profits.
Apparently the EPA was first tipped to VW's plot when discrepancies showed up in independent testing. But it seems like precisely the sort of thing James Bond is told of when strapped to a nuclear missile about to launch.
The word diabolical comes to mind.
So does evil.
One pictures even C. Montgomery Burns, king of the corner-cutters on "The Simpsons," looking askance. And we don't know yet if VW is the only offender.
The auto industry isn't overburdened by high expectations, particularly in the last 12 months or so.
General Motors last week agreed to a $900 million settlement to end a criminal investigation into its failure to disclose a deadly ignition defect.
Toyota last year agreed to a $1.2 billion penalty for withholding information about its vehicles' unintended acceleration linked to other fatalities.
Takata, it's been revealed, knew of dangerous, potentially fatal defects in its airbags long before alerting federal regulators, leading to the recall of millions of Honda, Toyota, Chrysler, Subaru, GM, Mitsubishi, BMW, Mazda, Nissan and Ford vehicles.
Yet, as Automotive News noted, "Compared with other run-ins between the EPA and automakers, VW's alleged violation stands out in its brazenness."
This takes that kind of amoral corporate behavior to a whole other threat level.
VW didn't just conceal something it discovered endangering people. It created technology for the specific purpose of allowing it to benefit from endangering people.
Even if you're one of those people who somehow isn't a fan of clean-air standards, it's not a political statement to press on and try to throw authorities off the trail. It's just a crime.
Tampering with emissions control systems, under terms of the Clean Air Act, could mean a fine for VW as high as $37,500 per vehicle or roughly $18 billion, though you know what happens when you start to haggle with car guys.
But even if VW is fined and there's a mandatory recall, some drivers will be reluctant to embrace the fix because it likely will make the vehicle less effective and efficient than the one they thought they bought.
Funny we never caught wind of any of this in those slightly discomfiting VW commercials with the old ladies hitting on a salesman. Least we don't remember any mention of it.
VW pulled the ads off the air and, to the extent it could, off YouTube as word of its scandal came out, yet more proof that a carmaker can indeed move fast to protect something it actually cares about -- like its bottom and bottom line.
This isn't the Olympics. It's one thing to try to keep test results from showing banned substances in one's own body, quite another to try to mask bad stuff being inflicted on others.
Cough.
This goes beyond the venality of one corporation to whether there's any confidence left in diesel cars and credibility in the entire auto industry. Even if this is as far as it goes, it will take quite a while to clear the air.
VW recently surpassed Toyota to become the world's largest carmaker, an achievement now eclipsed by the suspicion that there is nothing it wouldn't do.
philrosenthal@tribpub.com
