Correct. Every single manufacturer in the industry knows what the others are doing. They all buy each other's vehicles and tear them down to the last bolt and bit to see how they work and how they can "borrow" some ideas without infringing on any patent (or breaking the law maybe).
They were all aware of what VW was doing and it wasn't a surprise, lots of companies did it [0] a lot of times [1]. Usually though the penalties were light. Many times they involved US companies and the strong local lobby pushed for the lighter fines. Like the heavy duty diesel engines case where 7 truck manufacturers were ordered to pay $1bn together for doing the exact same thing. Which in the grand scheme of things was peanuts compared to VW's $4.5bn (plus the tens of $bn of extra costs). So the expectation was always "it's just the cost of doing business, pay it and let bygones be bygones".
They were all aware of what VW was doing and it wasn't a surprise, lots of companies did it [0] a lot of times [1]. Usually though the penalties were light. Many times they involved US companies and the strong local lobby pushed for the lighter fines. Like the heavy duty diesel engines case where 7 truck manufacturers were ordered to pay $1bn together for doing the exact same thing. Which in the grand scheme of things was peanuts compared to VW's $4.5bn (plus the tens of $bn of extra costs). So the expectation was always "it's just the cost of doing business, pay it and let bygones be bygones".
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/22/us/record-penalty-likely-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal#Previ...