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Some of those emissions cheat codes can be used on

Feb. 22, 2018 by Catherine Pope

Some of those emissions cheat codes can be used on Audi's diesel engines. These can be altered to make them less efficient when driving on the road, or to eliminate the use of a single engine when a vehicle is not equipped with a turbocharger. The emissions cheat codes can also be used to cheat on diesel engines used on other vehicles, which have to be equipped with a powertrain capable of delivering more power than its normal diesel counterpart.

"There are a lot of different ways that Volkswagen cheated on its diesel cars," says Steve McBride, a former Volkswagen executive who is now a professor at Michigan State University's Department of Environmental Management. "If it's Volkswagen that is cheating on the diesel engines, you can take it out and make it more efficient, but if you're not Volkswagen, you can't do that with a turbocharged car. There's so much more to these cars, and there's so much more to it than just this one thing."

This is not the first time Volkswagen and Audi have been caught up in emissions cheating. In 2009, Volkswagen found that a diesel engine it used on its 2.0 liters of diesel sold for less than $10,000 more than a similar car it purchased for $10,000. The two companies were also accused of stealing millions from a company called SAE, which is owned by VW. And in June, the company revealed that on the same diesel model, the company's latest three-liter turbocharged engine sold for $100 million less than the same model that it purchased for $75 million. A few weeks after the news broke, Volkswagen said it would no longer sell its 3.5 liter turbocharged V8 for less than $5 for the year.

But Volkswagen executives have been accused of trying to cheat by manipulating emissions tests. In 2012, Volkswagen said that it was testing for four different engines based on different emissions levels on each of its 3.0 liter engines, although it also said it wasn't measuring emissions from two different engines in each car. Volkswagen also claimed that its 3.5 liter V8 had been tested with four different engines.

"They have been saying it's two different things, so we need to check it. That's the main thing," says McBride.

But even when the emissions tests were done, the Volkswagen executives could not provide any detailed results. Volkswagen said that it was working closely with regulators, including U.S. EPA officials, on the matter, and they have been doing so since early 2015.