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Audi Fires 4 Diesel Engineers

Audi AG confirms it has fired four engineers in its diesel unit for “gross breach of duty,” Automotive News Europe reports.

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Audi AG confirms it has fired four engineers in its diesel unit for “gross breach of duty,” Automotive News Europe reports.

The fired group includes Ulrich Weiss, head of engine development, who had been on paid leave. Audi declined to identify the other three engineers. Handelsblatt, which first reported the firings, says one of the others was the head of Audi’s U.S. emissions operations, identified only as “Giovanni P.”

Last week Weiss told a German court that Audi CEO Rupert Stadler knew early as 2012 that Audi was using cheater emission control software in some engines. Stadler has insisted he learned about the so-called defeat device only when it was revealed by U.S. regulators in September 2015.

Handelsblatt claimed last year that Audi had developed software in 1999 to evade emission tests. Parent Volkswagen AG began installing cheater software several years later in 11 million vehicles worldwide.

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