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Rupert Stadler, the former CEO of the Audi brand, pleaded guilty to negligent fraud in a German court on May 16. He should have stopped the sale of cheating vehicles after the Audi diesel emissions scandal, but he failed to exclude the cheated vehicles from the market, even after the scandal became known to the public. It is understood that Audi and its parent company Volkswagen Group admitted to cheating in the diesel engine emission test in 2015 to make it meet the legal emission value on the test bench, but it did not meet the standard on the actual road. Steed was accused of not stopping selling these manipulated cars after the scandal came to light. The scandal cost Volkswagen more than 30 billion euros.

According to the data, Steed joined Audi in 1990, transferred to Volkswagen Group as group chairman in 1997, returned to Audi in 2003, and became chairman of Audi's management board in 2007. In 2010, Steed officially became the CEO of Audi.

In 2015, Volkswagen added a failure protector to the 2.0TDI diesel engine in order to pass the EPA emission test, and designed a software mechanism for it: if the device detects that it is currently in a laboratory environment, it will turn on the exhaust purification device, but if it is detected to be driving normally outside, it will choose to turn off the exhaust purification device. In other words, Volkswagen cars will obviously emit emissions when they are on the road, but under laboratory tests, there is no problem with the test results, which quickly attracted the attention of local consumers and institutions.

On September 18, 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accused Volkswagen of violating the US Clean Air Act (Clean Air Act) by revealing that some of Volkswagen's products were falsified by software control in US emission tests, thereby concealing the true emission situation. The outbreak of the biggest scandal in the history of the auto industry triggered a sharp shock within the Volkswagen group and a major blow to the group's reputation.

Since then, German prosecutors are still investigating the Volkswagen "diesel gate" emissions scandal, including market manipulation by Herbert Deiss, Hans Dieter Potts and Winterkorn. These executives are accused of being too late to inform the market of the diesel gate incident and its impact.

On June 18, 2018, Audi CEO Rupert Steed was formally arrested for trying to conceal evidence related to a diesel emissions investigation. On June 25, 2018, Steed was detained in Gablingen Prison in Augsburg, Germany, on charges of fraud and direct fraud, but the duration of detention is unknown. If no clear evidence is obtained during the detention period, he will be released. If convicted, he will be held for 6 months to 10 years. In October 2018, Volkswagen terminated its contract with Audi CEO Steed.

Since then, German prosecutors are still investigating the Volkswagen "diesel gate" emissions scandal, including market manipulation by Herbert Deiss, Hans Dieter Potts and Winterkorn. These executives are accused of being too late to inform the market of the diesel gate incident and its impact. According to statistics, from the East window incident to April 2020, the emission gate has brought more than 30 billion euros in fines, compensation and cost losses to Volkswagen, but the number is still rising.

It is worth mentioning that Volkswagen is not "alone". After the Volkswagen "diesel door" incident, a new test by the German Association of Automobile drivers (Adac) shows that diesel vehicles from more automakers such as Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo, Ford, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Peugeot also have excessive emissions. In June, companies such as Peugeot and Citroen, owned by the Stellantis Group, are under investigation by the French government for allegedly defrauding consumers over emissions from some diesel models. On the same day, Renault Group also announced that it was also investigated by French prosecutors for diesel vehicle emissions, but denied the existence of relevant violations in the announcement. The new round of fines imposed by South Korea's Fair Trade Commission on Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Volkswagen and Audi is also the latest development in the "diesel emission door" incident, which will be paid by relevant companies in the future.

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