NYT
FRANKFURT
The German auto supplier Robert Bosch GmbH played a key role in developing the software that let Volkswagen cheat on clean air rules, according to new allegations filed in a San Francisco court on behalf of car owners.
Bosch, which supplied the computer that controlled Volkswagen diesel engines, was already a co-defendant in class action suits against the carmaker in the United States. But the new accusations, filed as part of those suits, portray Bosch as playing a more central role in the scandal.
The company is one of the world's largest auto suppliers and a symbol of German engineering. The new accusations, filed in federal court on Tuesday and reported by Reuters late Wednesday, contend that Volkswagen could not have deceived emissions regulators without Bosch's help.
Bosch did not allow automakers to modify the engine software without its approval, according to the court papers. Therefore, the lawyers said, Bosch must have known that its software had been transformed into a"defeat device" able to recognise when emissions tests were underway, and to turn up pollution controls so that regulators would not realize that the cars flouted clean air rules.
"It is inconceivable, then, that Bosch did not know that the software it was responsible for defining, developing, testing, maintaining and delivering contained an illegal defeat device," the papers said,"Bosch was in on the secret."
"Bosch is cooperating with the investigations in various jurisdictions, and is defending its interests in the litigation," the company said in a statement Thursday, declining to comment further.
With sales of 71 billion euros last year (about $80 billion) and 375,000 employees, Bosch is one of the world's most prominent suppliers of automobile components, with a focus on electronics. Lately the company, based in Gerlingen, a suburb of Stuttgart, has been positioning itself to play a big role in the anticipated transition to battery-powered, self-driving cars.
The court papers also claimed that Volkmar Denner, Bosch's chairman,"played a critical role in the scheme." Denner, who became chairman in 2012, spent much of his career in the Bosch unit that produces computers that steer motor functions, known as engine control units or ECU's. He was previously director of ECU development and later president of automobile electronics at Bosch.
However, the court papers do not provide any details of how Denner may have taken part. The papers say Bosch has so far produced only a small portion of documents sought by authorities and lawyers for owners in the United States.
According to the class action suits, Bosch played a central role in development of a defeat device for Volkswagen's Audi division in the late 1990s, which laid the groundwork for the use of defeat devices on a larger scale.
Audi had developed technology that enabled diesel engines to run more quietly, but resulted in higher emissions of pollutants. Bosch developed software known euphemistically as the"acoustic function," according to the lawsuits, that would detect when the engine was being tested for air quality and would turn off the engine-quieting function, to keep emissions within allowable limits.
That ability to fool engine tests was later adapted for use in Volkswagen diesels, according to the suits. About 11.5 million vehicles worldwide have the tainted software.
"Bosch played a crucial role in the fraudulent enterprise and profited handsomely from it," the court papers said.