10+ Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out to be True

Volkswagen sold millions of diesel cars as “clean,” and buyers loved it. But some scientists noticed something odd: diesel cars seemed to pollute far more on real roads than they did in lab tests. Were carmakers somehow gaming the system? A small university team checked.

The West Virginia University team found some VW cars spewed up to 40 times the legal limit. In 2015, U.S. regulators revealed why: hidden software that made cars run clean only during tests. Eleven million cars were affected, costing VW over $30 billion and landing executives in prison.