Spiegel reports (article behind push wall, via Tagesschau.de). It’s a new report from software developer Felix Domky. The approximately 30-page report is available to Spiegel.
In 2015, Domke already discovered the code lines responsible for the emissions scandal in part of the VW program responsible for controlling the injection of Adblue reducing agent, reducing nitrogen oxide emissions. In his testing at the time, Domkie found that his car operated almost without exception in the mode with the highest NOx value.
Electric cars infographic: Volkswagen e-up! Get more out of the ecological bonus
Illegal closing facilities
And just last year the European Court of Justice made these shutdown facilities illegal. Now the expert began to search for similar defeat devices in Daimler – after he was commissioned by the Milberg law firm in the United States. They have filed lawsuits against Daimler in several European countries.
So far, most lawsuits against Daimler in Germany by the alleged affected customers have been dismissed. According to tagesschau.de, about 25,000 diesel car owners have sued Daimler for damages. In 95 percent of the cases already decided, the courts dismissed the complaints. The background to this is that Daimler has not yet been able to prove that the company is carrying out an illegal shutdown. Accordingly, the courts dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that the claim was made “out of the blue”, according to Tagesschau.de.
The Milberg law firm has now prepared itself very well. Domke discovered a total of eight alleged unacceptable defeat devices in the engine control software of the Daimler diesel variant. He also compared the originally delivered software to the version Daimler is using now. Daimler is not going well here.
One of these locking devices must always be activated on the road, which means the car is going in a dirty mode practically all the time, Domke told Spiegel.de.
The details should now become known gradually.
See also: ECJ Decides: Exhaust programs in diesel vehicles are illegal