Some people in this thread rightfully raising a valid question that this cheating would be present in models of other manufacturers so why VW was only targeted and that with such a big fine announced in media which toppled VW's stocks by 20% (effectively losing $100B of market value) and also causing irreparable harm to German auto industry.

SO, you need to see the bigger picture here. There's a geo-political angle to it. On sept12 [0] reported: >>> Germany is surprisingly quitting the anti-Putin Alliance created by the United States: Germany now officially welcomes Moscow’s readiness to engage with Syria and launches an initiative to end the war with the Russians and the French. Thus, the stream of refugees is to be stopped. Germany put thousands of soldiers on standby.

Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen told der Spiegel, they Welcome Russia’s President Vladimir Putin’s involvement in the fight against the extremist Islamic State. It is in the common interest, to combat the IS, she said. A spokesman of the Foreign Ministry also said Germany would welcome a greater engagement of Russia in the fight against the IS. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even announced, with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and the French colleague Laurent Fabius, a push to start to end the civil war in Syria. Lavrov and Fabius are expected in Berlin on Saturday. <<<

Then within a week, this VW scandal suddenly comes into public thrashing Germany major auto industry. On 22Sept [1] reported: >>> What you need to know about the Volkswagen scandal

Now you see the results: Germany France etc have now joined US coalition in the name of fighting ISIS. but there's more to it, which you can read in my comment [2].

0: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/09/12/syria-germany-breaks... 1L http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/22/what-you-need-to-know-about-t... 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10580490