VW accused of using software in 482,000 diesels to skirt U.S. clean-air rules

Automotive News is reporting today that Volkswagen and Audi sold about 482,000 diesel vehicles with illegal emissions control software designed to make their cars appear cleaner in testing than they are in the real world, the EPA said today.

The software, included on VW and Audi vehicles from the 2009-15 model years with 2.0-liter turbodiesel engines, detects when a car is undergoing EPA emissions testing and turns on the vehicle’s full emissions controls. The software then switched off the full emissions controls during real-world driving, the EPA said in a statement.