Top executives knew about Volkswagen emissions fraud

Documents show engineers took approval to deploy illegal software

Even after Volkswagen pleaded guilty to a nine-year conspiracy to dupe regulators and consumers, the carmaker has continued to insist that top executives played no role in the emissions fraud.

But internal company emails and memos, which were reviewed by The New York Times, indicate that engineers wanted approval from top managers to deploy the illegal software almost from the beginning, with regular status reports noting that high-level signoff was necessary.

The emissions issue was the main agenda for a 2007 meeting attended by Matthias Müller, the current chief executive, who was then Volkswagen’s head of product planning, as well as Martin