German car manufacturer, Volkswagen Group, is currently under fire after the U.S. Congress grilled its CEO over the controversial emissions scandal. During a hearing at the House of Representatives on Thursday, lawmakers slammed federal environmental regulators for fraud detection failure.
Volkswagen Group of America chief executive Michael Horn testified before the oversight and investigations panel of the Congress regarding the emissions scandal. According to Reuters, the emissions controversy has reduced the company's market value more than a third and shook the global auto industry.
Under oath, Horn said that Volkswagen's use of certain devices, software that dodged the U.S. test for emissions harmful to human health, was not a corporate decision but was engineered by some employees.
"This was a couple of software engineers who put this in for whatever reason," Horn told a House subcommittee hearing, as per Los Angeles Times. "To my understanding, this was not a corporate decision. This was something individuals did."
Horn also added that some people made some wrong decisions just to get away with something, when asked if Volkswagen cheated with defeat devices. However, the number of engineers responsible for the scandal remained unclear.
Meanwhile, Horn apologized for the scandal that "its dead wrong" to put corporate profits before people. He also said that he learned of the emissions-rigging software only a couple of days before the company acknowledged its existence to regulators on Sept. 3, directing the responsibility in the company's Germany headquarters.
Last month, Volkswagen admitted to the cheating after being confronted by federal and California regulators. The New York Times revealed the software had been installed in 11 million diesel cars since the 2009 model year.
As of late, the U.S. Environment Protection Agency said Thursday that Volkswagen is expected to provide U.S. and California regulators with a preliminary attempt at a software fix for the defeat devices it installed in 2012-2014 next week.
