Four former Volkswagen managers received prison sentences on Monday for their role in the emission-chandal scandal that the European car market has fundamentally transformed. The judgment, delivered after a three-year test in Braunschweig, Germany, marked the newest chapter in a 10-year Saga that reformed the relationship of the continent with diesel technology.
Jens Hadler, who supervised the development of diesel engines, received the most serious punishment of four and a half years before orchestrating which judges called ‘particularly serious’ fraud. His team had installed software with which vehicles could recognize the emission tests, which temporarily increases the pollution controls during inspections while the rest of the time became dirty.
The impact of the scandal reached far beyond the boardrooms of the Business Council. Before 2015, diesel vehicles commanded the half of the European car market, launched as environmentally friendly alternatives for gasoline. Nowadays that figure has collapsed to only 10% of the new car sales.
The entire affair also accelerated the transition from Europe to electrification. Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids are now good for 25% of the new car sales, while Volkswagen itself has become the leading EV manufacturer in Europe and sold three times as many cars on batteries as Tesla, as Tesla, reports the New York Times.
