I just wonder how they could keep it secret for so long. There must be more than "3" people who program the computers on said cars. I've worked on embedded systems in the past (although few and far between). Most were fairly small but I suspect an ECM doesn't have much code. Why did it take this long. Surely, if they didn't pay off the code-monkeys, the blackmail might have started. If not the code-monkeys, the spec writers. There had to be at least 100 people who knew what was going on.
OOC, since I'm retired, I asked DS who writes embedded code for such varied things as cable TV switching equipment, GPS locating devices (included in every new Peterbuilt truck) and a few other things. His opinion was that it he was programming an ECM, he would have had to know he was breaking the rules if he knew the rules.
But it nothing else, it provides a reason to pay more for "fine German engineering".