So the manipulations have been going on since 1999 (2005 for VW) and appear to have been deliberate, rather than snuck in by a small group of engineers.
Will be interesting to see how VW and the other brands mentioned here get out of this. Their crisis management so far certainly does not help.
According to this article Audi developed the software in 1999 and never used it. So it's incorrect to say this has been going on since 1999 (assuming this article is correct). I guess they could still claim that this mysterious small group of engineers snuck the code, which Audi developed, into the VW ECUs.
Will be interesting to see how VW and the other brands mentioned here get out of this. Their crisis management so far certainly does not help.