I didn't see anyone bring up how VW and other companies have lost their integrity. We know those that code "bad things" may lack a moral compass but when I've worked in large groups or companies not once was there any question about doing the job in a dishonest way.

Maybe I'm just lucky to have worked with great people in many companies for decades. Mind you I never worked in conditions I've seen in some outsourced sites in Asia and Russia.

I had hope that some story would pop up telling us that the software in question was some test version that a manager decided to use and the programmers were not complicit but the story so far reads like a corporate culture gone bad story.

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if you look at what really happened, VW did nothing wrong. Some flunky broke a non-story as a major "evil corporations breaking the law with software to cheat" when that's not what happened at all.
Bosch created the software which controls the engine performance tuning of VW diesel engines (and many others, those same engine management units are used across the automotive industry).
Those diesel engines of necessity need to run in cycles. During part of the cycle the NOx produced by the engine gets scrubbed out in a filter, kinda like the cathalytic converter in a gasoline powered car.
But that converter gets after a while innundated with other products as well, reducing its effectiveness. To restore it the engine for a few minutes needs to run at a different cycle, which is less fuel efficient and emitting a small percentage of the scrubbed NOx (and some unburned carbohydrates) into the atmosphere.
On average over a long period the cars meet emission standards, just during those few minutes (which happen every few hours or so only) they don't.

All the Bosch/VW software did is to detect when a car is being driven in a way that's typical of engine emissions testing profiles and for the duration not enter the cleaning cycle.
The EPA has since admitted that that's not actually illegal at all, but the cat is out of the box, idiots in the encvironmental lobby, the press, and politicians go ape, and VW has a PR disaster on their hands.
And all because some radical greeny, car-hating, flunky in the EPA breaks his non-disclosure agreements, his professional ethics, his contract with his employer, and sends some half-baked rumours and lies to some friendly press person who prints it as the gospel without verification.

@jwenting. That's more along the lines of what I was hoping to read. I didn't write or speak of this hoping for the best that there was a better story. Then again, Enron, Madoff and who else managed to find folk to sacrifice their integrity.

Will there be a Roseanne Roseannadanna "never mind"? (doubtful)
If it's as you share, VW may have an out and maybe due some damages rather than paying the EPA.

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