This is commonly believed and seems to massively let VW off the hook. Almost everyone was overfitting their optimization to the test and thus not delivering real world lower emissions. That's not illegal, just unethical, particularly since they also lobbied to not make the test more realistic. But VW actually detected it was in the test loop and changed the settings. That's a defeat device and completely illegal. There were a few much smaller cases of similar things found in other manufacturers but nothing even close to the scale VW did it.
Earlier, Feb 2018, German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported that US authorities
investigating Mercedes have discovered that its vehicles are equipped with illegal
software to help them pass United States' stringent emission tests. The claimed
defeat devices include a Bit 15 mode to switch off emissions control after 16 miles
of driving (the length of an official U.S. emissions test), and Slipguard which tries
to directly determine if the car is being tested based on speed and acceleration
profiles.
Looks like this was a coordinated release with regulating ministry and manufacturers. [1] has a compiled list of models compiled from today's releases, missing in the ministry release from yesterday[2]. Use machine translation as needed.
Yes. Toyotas made outside of Toyota City in Japan are tested differently because the rules are different in the American, European, African, and several other Asian countries, all places where Toyota manufactures.
Mostly JDM. I believe this is a followup to Daihatsu scandal from earlier this year[1]. They probably picked up somewhat benign issues and used them as model cases for governance improvements.
Weirdly two other Japanese automakers, Mazda and Honda, said the same thing: that they had been testing improperly. Maybe this was brought up by some changes at the regulatory body?
Unlikely. Toyota's cheating came to light last year and Japan started investigating early this year. Once the others saw Toyota was under the microscope and they were probably next, they got their stories together and waited on Toyota to take the PR hit and got their admissions slipped in as an afterthought relieving them of later solo PR failings and potential investigations.
