‘Smoking gun’ found by researchers in Volkswagen emissions cheat code

Took no less than a year, but finally researchers discovered the mechanism that Volkswagen utilized to cheat emissions tests, buried in lines of code released on the automaker’s own website.

A group of computer scientists at the University of California San Diego hauled through copies of the code, which operated on Volkswagen’s onboard computers for models consisting of the 2009-2015 model year Volkswagen Jetta, Beetle and Golf.

According to the report of researchers, the code permitted vehicles to spot when they were going through emissions testing and trigger a “defeat device” to minimize emissions. If the vehicle identified it wasn’t being tested, it would disable these emissions controls, leading some vehicles to release as much as 40 times the enabled levels of nitrogen oxides.

Volkswagen provided a statement suggesting that 11 million vehicles contained the prohibited code.

While the researchers said “Volkswagen’s unfaithful was breathtaking in scope,” they noted the code was openly available on the company’s maintenance site and on forums run by automobile fans. They studied 900 variations of code and found 400 that included the cheat.

“We found proof of the scams right there in public view,” stated lead researcher Kirill Levchenko. “We had the ability to discover the smoking gun,” Levchenko added.