It was VW's "off-the-chart" emissions that led investigators and regulators to review the claims of all other manufacturers. [0] So it is natural that the media focus on that manufacturer.
[0] https://www.autoevolution.com/news/meet-the-engineer-who-exp...
Do you think EU politicians didn't know exactly what they were doing when they gave responsibility for reporting emissions figures to automakers and then blindly trusted them?
It's been an open secret for decades among 'chip' tuners that manufacturers have been cheating on emissions almost since microcontrollers were used for engine management...the extra code and extra lookup tables are there plain as day when you dump the roms.
Why do you think many tuners have functions that allow you to switch between a stock engine program and a tuned one, so you can pass emissions, by pushing various buttons on the dash or actuating the cruise control stalk in a certain pattern? Because those features are how OEMs activate the emissions cheating tables and code in their ECUs
Did you notice that there hasn't been any discussion on steps EU or US regulators have taken to detect this cheating?
Most medical devices will carry out private bio-safety tests. Most electronics will perform private EMC tests. I agree it's crap but automotive is not some special case or part of a conspiracy.
A lot of regulated industries self-regulate. The regulatory bodies trust the results documented by manufacturers because they realistically have no money/time/expertise to do it themselves.
Post diesel gate "The new rules, finalized in 2018, give the Commission the right to carry out compliance checks on vehicles, order bloc-wide model recalls and slap fines of €30,000 per car on cheating producers. The EU's science wing, the Joint Research Centre, has spent €7 million on two new testing facilities that will perform snap checks, a Commission official said.". [0]
[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/new-eu-car-rules-aim-to-stop...
