Motor Trend named Arvind Thiruvengadam Padmavathy, on the WVU research team that uncovered
Volkswagen’s cheating on emissions testing, the No. 2 mind in the auto
industry. No. 1 was Thomas Doll, the president of Subaru of America.
Daniel Carder, professor of mechanical and aerospace
engineering and interim director of the Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines
and Emissions at West Virginia University, was both a major player and the one
usually interviewed by the media about their astounding findings that VW set up
its cars’ computers so that it reduced emissions during testing, then spit the
crap out 40 times the safe levels once the cars got on the road again.
The WVU team exposed
Volkswagen by testing the VWs while driving them on the West Coast and then
while they were in the shops, discovering the startling and criminal
difference.
VW CEO Martin
Winterkorn resigned. The
head of Porsche -- Matthias Mueller -- was promoted to the top job at
Volkswagen.
VW set
aside $7.3 billion for pay off claims tied to the cheating.
VW got
away with it for seven years. Till WVU’s guys entered the picture and smoked
out VW’s chicanery.
Padmavathy graduated from the University of Madras in
India, then WVU, both in mechanical engineering. He joined the WVU faculty in
2012.
