The Volkswagen Scandal Keeps Getting Worse

More than two months have passed since the company’s cheating became public, but the scandal keeps widening, undercutting the Volkswagen’s claims that only a few rogue engineers knew of the manipulations.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board are now probing Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche models with 3.0-liter diesel engines as far back as the 2009 model year, after initially focusing on newer versions. That’s in addition to the smaller cars that VW admitted in September were rigged to pass emissions tests.

The probe extends the reach of the scandal from VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, to Audi, the Bavarian luxury-car unit that also builds engines for Porsche. Volkswagen had initially denied any cheating when first confronted about a smaller number of 3.0-liter Audi-engineered motors earlier this month. On Friday, the carmaker conceded that U.S. regulators considered one feature of the engine-control software to be illegal.

With the latest revelations, “nobody can really say that it simply slipped through,” said Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive Management at the University of Applied Sciences in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany. “VW has a cultural problem. It’s not just about individuals. It’s about structures that need to change.”

Volkswagen is facing a scandal on three fronts: the cheating software installed in about 11 million vehicles with 1.2-, 1.6- and 2.0-liter diesel engines; irregular carbon-dioxide ratings on about 800,000 vehicles; and questionable software in 85,000 larger diesel engines targeted in the EPA’s latest probe. While Chief Executive Officer Matthias Mueller has vowed a thorough investigation, answers have been slow in coming.

The sharesfell 0.9 percent to 107.55 euros at 2:36 p.m. in Frankfurt. Volkswagen has lost34 percent, or 18.4 billion euros ($19.6 billion) in market value, since thecheating scandal became public on Sept. 18.