Comment by elorant

Assuming that both of those claims are correct, my guess is that they did it to make their cars more affordable in EU where road tax is related to emissions. Although I personally don’t know anyone who bought a VW because the yearly traffic fee is lower than in other cars. Generally speaking their cars are stellar in every account which makes this whole situation seem utterly stupid. They didn’t need to do it, they already had the advantage towards the competition.