VW Exec Busted Over #DieselGate
According to CNET, the FBI has arrested Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt this past weekend on charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. relating to Dieselgate. From the report:
Schmidt headed VW’s regulatory compliance office in the U.S. from 2014 to March 2015. The FBI’s official Criminal Complaint states that during that time VW employees — Schmidt included — knowingly installed secret “defeat device” software in 475,000 diesel cars in the U.S., hiding during emissions testing the fact that those cars emitted up to 40 times the legally allowable pollution levels when on the road. The complaint asserts that by knowingly installing this secret cheat software, Schmidt and VW conspired to defraud the U.S. by impairing and impeding the Environmental Protection Agency and violating the Clean Air Act, leading to the arrest on Saturday. Schmidt is due to appear before a Federal Court in Miami on Monday.
Sucks to be him. And the timing couldn’t be worse. Today VW announced a new electric minibus concept at the International Auto Show in Detroit that was supposed to help to change the channel from Dieselgate. Now people won’t be focused on that. Too bad for VW.
January 11, 2017 at 12:32 pm
[…] in mind that this is on top of VW paying $15 billion to the feds not too long ago, and one of their execs getting arrested just in the last few days. Clearly they are trying to make dieselgate go away sooner rather than […]