Volkswagen emissions scandal

On 18 September 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice of violation of the Clean Air Act to German automaker Volkswagen Group, after it was found that the car maker had intentionally programmed turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engines to activate certain emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing. The programming caused the vehicles' nitrogen oxide (NOx) output to meet US standards during regulatory testing, but emit up to 40 times more NOx in real-world driving. Volkswagen put this programming in about eleven million cars worldwide, and in 500,000 in the United States, during model years 2009 through 2015.

These findings stemmed from a study on emissions discrepancies between European and US models of vehicles commissioned in 2014 by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), summing up the data from three different sources on 15 vehicles. Among the research groups was a group of five scientists at West Virginia University, who detected additional emissions during live road tests on two out of three diesel cars. ICCT also purchased data from two other sources. They provided their findings to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in May 2014.

Scandal

A scandal can be broadly defined as an accusation or accusations that receive wide exposure. Generally there is a negative effect on the credibility of the person or organisation involved. Society is scandalised when it is made aware of blatant breaches of moral norms or legal requirements. In contemporary times, exposure is often made by mass media. Such breaches have typically erupted from greed, lust or the abuse of power. Scandals may be regarded as political, sexual, moral, literary or artistic but often spread from one realm into another. The basis of a scandal may be factual or false, or a combination of both.

Contemporary media has the capacity to spread knowledge of a scandal further than in previous centuries and public interest has encouraged many cases of confected scandals relating to well-known people as well as genuine scandals relating to politics and business. Some scandals are revealed by whistleblowers who discover wrongdoing within organizations or groups, such as Deep Throat (William Mark Felt) during the Watergate scandal in the 1970s in the United States. Whistleblowers may be protected by laws which are used to obtain information of misdeeds and acts detrimental to their establishments. However, the possibility of scandal has always created a tension between society's efforts to reveal wrongdoing and its desire to cover them up.

Jeremy Clarkson

Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English broadcaster, journalist and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for co-presenting the BBC TV show Top Gear with Richard Hammond and James May from October 2002 to March 2015. He also writes weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun.

From a career as a local journalist in northern England, Clarkson rose to public prominence as a presenter of the original format of Top Gear in 1988. Since the mid-1990s, he has become a recognised public personality, regularly appearing on British television presenting his own shows and appearing as a guest on other shows. As well as motoring, Clarkson has produced programmes and books on subjects such as history and engineering. From 1998 to 2000, he also hosted his own chat show, Clarkson.

His opinionated but humorous tongue-in-cheek writing and presenting style has often provoked public reaction. His actions both privately and as a Top Gear presenter have also sometimes resulted in criticism from the media, politicians, pressure groups and the public. He has also garnered a significant public following, being credited as a major factor in the resurgence of Top Gear as one of the most popular shows on the BBC.