In 2015, Volkswagen was caught cheating on emissions control tests. The company didn’t forge test results; instead, it designed its cars’ onboard computers to do the cheating for it. Engineers programmed the software to detect when the car was undergoing an emissions test. The computer activated the car’s emissions control system for the duration of the test, then deactivated it once the test was over. Volkswagen’s cars demonstrated superior performance on the road; they also emitted up to forty times the permissible amount of nitrogen oxide pollutants, but only when the US Environmental
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