VW: small group of engineers began working on cheat in 2005

WOLFSBURG, Germany (AP) — A small group of Volkswagen engineers began working as early as 2005 on emissions cheating software after they were unable to find a technical solution to U.S. emissions controls as the automaker pushed into the North American market, executives said Thursday.

The company in September admitted to have cheated on U.S. diesel emissions tests with the help of software installed in engines.

In an update on the company's investigation in the case, Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch said engineers in 2005 were unable to find a technical solution to U.S. nitrogen oxide emissions within their "timeframe and budget" and came up with the software that manipulated results when lab testing was done.

CEO Matthias Mueller said the investigation so far had revealed that "information was not shared, it stayed within a small circle of people who were engineers."

External auditors have already gone through 102 terabytes of data, which he said was the equivalent of 50 million books.

To help restore confidence in the company and "prevent something like this from ever happening again," Poetsch announced that Volkswagen was instituting new, more stringent and transparent emissions testing for all of its vehicles.