&gt; What remains is explaining how engineering managers higher up (all the way to the top) could remain willfully ignorant of the fact<p>&gt; What remains is explaining how engineering managers higher up (all the way to the top) could remain willfully ignorant of the fact that VW&#x27;s diesel engines &quot;passed&quot; emissions without resorting to exotic tech like Mercedes&#x27; bluetec exhaust fluids.<p>How often do high level managers at a big company have a good handle on technical implementation details of specific systems and what the implications of those details actually are?<p>It&#x27;s possible that these people either had non-technical backgrounds, technical backgrounds in unrelated areas, or out of date technical backgrounds (like they last worked with this stuff back when cars still commonly had carburetors).