The CEO of VW US has appeared before a Congressional Committee and claimed the problem was the fault of "a couple of rogue software engineers". Absolute, total garbage.

Having worked with and for Daimler Benz, I can categorically state it is not within the German industrial culture or even the German psyche, to allow such a situation to ever occur. No software engineer would be ever allowed to make such a decision without various managers approval, probably reaching to those directly below board level, if not higher

Oh don't worry a German leader in a sector of the global market that the Americans don't dominate won't be able to get away with the same kind of lies and bullsh!t excuses that the banks were.

There aren't enough ultra wealthy Americans heavily tied up with VW for them to be given leniancy.

These "lone nuts" have a lot to answer for ...

Indeed.
Let them produce the rogues, and even if said rogues were heavily rewarded in secret to fall on their swords and cop the blame,
I bet very simple procedural checking of production processes would show quickly that they couldn't have done it unnoticed and as soon as two becomes three etc the game's up!

You conspiracy theorists should be locked up.

The software was written by Bosch who now claim they warned VW that if they installed in cars for sale then it would be illegal. You have to ask what were Bosch doing selling this cheating software in the first place? Did VW commision the project? How much did they pay for it? Who authorised it?

IMO this was a deliberate policy to cheat the system and the public and it must of had approval all the way to the top as VW sought to overtake Toyota as the No1 car producer in the world.

VW are now open to major 'class' actions for fraud among other things as they charged a premium price justified by their claims to be greener and more economic than their competitors.

But fraud is part of capitalism, it's what greed is there for, and you love capitalism QED you love greed.

Is what VW have done any different to say Coca Cola funding organisations or "research" saying sugar doesn't cause obesity or likewise the research funded by the mobile 'phone industry saying how safe it is and the suppression of research that shows otherwise? All the companies should be taken to the cleaners by governments but they won't be.

Sort of, but not quite. It would be the same as if Coca Cola lied about how much sugar was in their drinks.

Clearly, but each would appear to be trying to misinform / mislead in order to protect or enhance sales.