On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 15:40:39 -0700, trader_4 wrote:

Otherwise it ran the car with emissions that according to the news
last night was 10 - 40x above the limits.

Notice that they had from 5 to 45 times the LIMIT (which is a lot!).

The lower/higher numbers were due to city/highway mode, I think.
(I assume the city numbers are the higher ones?)

The variation in the low and high figures themselves was due to the
different vehicles tested.

They didn't look at the code, EPA went after VW to explain the huge
differences between dyno testing emissions and emission on the road.
VW couldn't explain it and finally admitted what they had done.

I think, as someone mentioned, and as the news noted, the code is
actually covered by the DCMA (it would be nice to find a cite).

It wasn't so much that VW /couldn't/ explain, but that they wouldn't
explain it. They only admitted guilt when both CARB and EPA said they
would not certify 2016 diesels because they couldn't be certain of the
manufacturer's own certification process.

Only then, when VW knew their stock price would take the hit, did VW
finally confess. And even then, they didn't confess to the fact that
it's not half a million vehicles, but more than twenty times that
number!