With almost everyone talking about the Volkswagen’s emissions cheating scandal, we ask ourselves, ‘Why wasn’t the Volkswagen emissions fraud discovered sooner? ‘Was it because no one was looking? ‘Well, i came across this interesting article by npr.org which was quite informative about how a small lab in West Virginia discovered Volkswagen’s big cheat! The story behind the scandal discovery sounded more like the Volkswagen company actually got busted! Apparently, it was a nonprofit organisation known as The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) which hired West Virginia University to do the emissions tests on Volkswagen diesel cars in the U.S, because they were hyped to be environmental friendly and fuel efficient. A team of scientists, including Dr. Arvind Thiruvengadam, who is a research assistant professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, at the West Virginia University, carried out the emissions testing. Well, the results proved otherwise and that’s when they discovered that Volkswagen was actually cheating! Now that raises a lot of other questions! For example, who else is cheating?
By Rahab Messmer
