[nhaehnle]

> It is likely that those particular positions benefit and are motivated to cheat on regulations for the benefit of the company? No, the bottom line of the company is affected, and it is far more likely that business people are applying pressure.

I agree with most of your comment, but not with this point. Being the Head of R&D who is able to boast about bringing a "breakthrough" new diesel engine to market is bound to come with some personal perks.

You can re-define this as "business people are applying pressure" if you like, but that does not change the responsibility of those position - and besides, it's kind of a cop-out. With that thinking, you can re-define everything as being down to market pressure.

Somebody made a decision to do this, and I can easily see an unethical head of R&D making that call for personal career reasons - just like unethical researchers cheat by making up data. I'm not saying that that's necessarily how it happened, but it's a definite possibility.