[jtheory]

This is all very theoretical, since we don't know the situation.

But the other possibility would be to "blow the whistle" anonymously.

The chances of getting away with that still aren't great (if VW put some effort into flushing out the snitch, I think only a practised liar could get through it...), but it's another way forward.

And actually: it's possible this actually happened, and the official story of how this was discovered is just a cover for an anonymous engineer who managed to get a warning to the right person.

[pluma]

There is some evidence indicating that there's corruption at play, not just within Volkswagen but also in the lobbies and government. Blowing the whistle would likely put them in a similar situation to Snowden (i.e. unable to take the legally blessed route, having to go directly to the media, denying them any protections otherwise granted to whistle blowers), legality-wise.