So Chairman Pötsch said "All of this was caused by a desire to expand diesel sales in the US, a desire that wasn't matched with sufficient time or budget to develop engines that fully complied with the tough NOx emissions regulations of the US." The unsaid implication being that someone was pushing that desire, and the very much danced around implication of either "Management said we have to sell more cars no matter what it takes" (indicating management knew about it and didn't care) or possibly even "Management wants to sell more cars and you must make cars more sellable at all costs" (indicating that the developers were afraid for their jobs if they spoke up about potential misdeeds while making cars more attractive to consumers.)
Someone, somewhere, either felt like they couldn't blow the whistle without getting fired (obviously a problem) or management knew about the rule breaking and just didn't care (which is a bigger problem.)
> Someone, somewhere, either felt like they couldn't blow the whistle without getting fired (obviously a problem) or management knew about the rule breaking and just didn't care (which is a bigger problem.)
Don't forget somebody blowing the whistle to the hierarchy and a middle-mangler (of justice) "losing" the call. Feynman recounts multiple instances of manglement ignoring or railroading warnings and whistleblowing from engineers and workers, both in and out of NASA, when they didn't fail to consult with their report entirely.
Here's a verbatim quote from "Why do you care what other people think" (norton paperback, page 185)
> When I left the meeting, I had the definite impression that I had found the same game as with the seals: management reducing criteria and accepting more and more errors that weren't designed into the device, while the engineers are screaming from below, "HELP!" and "This is a RED ALERT!"
And top manglement may not only know (and not care) about the issues but cause them, see this other quote a few pages further (194) in the Software Group section (Feynman had been very impressed — positively — by the engineering discipline of the shuttle software group)
> One guy muttered something about higher-ups in NASA wanting to cut back on testing to save money: "They keep saying we always pass the tests, so what's the use of having so many?"
It's entirely possible that nobody wanted to blow the whistle. This scandal involved making the cars pass some foreign emissions standard by tweaking the engine software. The people responsible for approving engine compliance were also the people responsible for making it compliant (something that VW says it will change now). Even if a bunch of people were involved, they might have liked their solution.
The CEO created pressure with his ambition for VW to become the world's largest auto manufacturer; meanwhile the company had a culture and structure that would allow for shortcuts to be taken.
Can German HN readers can explain this to me. My interpretation of German culture was that rule breaking was looked down upon. My own experience traveling in Germany was that rules were deliberately followed, for example, no one ever crossed the street until the Walk sign was present, regardless of it being busy. Honking your horn by an irritated driver happened only once in my 3 weeks there (and the cyclists took the driver to task for it).
The name escapes me, but an expat friend of mine living in Germany mentioned there is a government group that is in charge of making sure posted signs follow strict laws (can't find this on Google).
German engineering culture is known for high precision and quality.
Made in Germany has the same brand power that Made in Japan, and Made in the US have.
Given these stereotypes of German culture, to me, it seems out of sorts that VW (arguably one of the most public of German Companies) would have a culture of rule breaking.
We Germans are not perfect at all. Yes, we are good at engineering and yes, we take our rules a bit more serious than other people, but all in all you will find the same problems here as anywhere else. The rulebreaking is just toned down a bit but it still exists.
This sounds like such a German corporate reaction - almost as if it were a caricature - "they didn't follow the process - how can we be responsible? we better double down on process."
How about failing in building a corporate culture that rewards openness and learning from failure?
This gives me very little hope for VW, and to an extent, for Germany. These top of the crop german execs just don't get it.
I just wish one government would say to VW - 'sorry folks, those cars do not meet emission standards, they are destroying the health of the general public to an extent that our health services do not want so please take those cars off the road today.'
Thereafter the police being instructed to stop any offending VW found on the roads and tow it to the yard, to be released once VW fixed it, with yard storage charges applied at market rates for the locality. The police have automatic number plate recognition, this talks to the licensing authority and a few lines of code could be added to flag up the emission-spewing diesels. Simple.
This would also be an experiment in air quality. If overnight a sizeable percentage of cars were no longer on the roads, would there be a noticeable increase in air quality?
This would also be handled by market forces, I am sure my VW driving friends would sort out alternative rides or find garages that could add some fancy exhaust pipe that makes them compliant.
Draconian? It depends on whether air quality matters or not. That is a fairly black and white thing - either it matters or it doesn't.
The 'rule breaking' culture in VW is all very interesting but neither VW or our elected governments have done a thing to take those polluting machines off the road until they are fixed. It is this culture of complacency that bothers me more because it is happening now. The 'rule breaking' culture continues.
You would not breathe diesel fumes if you could see them.
Unfortunately, such a draconian rule would hurt the owners of the cars more than VW. It would essentially force every car buyer to buy a new car.
Plus, there are plenty of cars on the road built before 2000 that have even worse emissions than these VWs. Would you propose taking those cars off the road as well?
> Draconian? It depends on whether air quality matters or not. That is a fairly black and white thing - either it matters or it doesn't.
Nothing measured on an analog scale is black and white. Something is not "safe" or "dangerous" just because it is on one side or another of a semi-arbitrary limit.
"It depends on whether air quality matters or not. That is a fairly black and white thing"
On the contrary, I don't think it could be less of a "black or white thing". It sounds like you're making an argument that these cars are producing a material increase in overall NOx, causing a public health hazard. I haven't seen that argument anywhere else. Do you have data on what the net increase in NOx is? .1%, 1% and 100% would mean very different things.
That sounds a lot like punishing the consumer for being duped by VW.
On the bright side, VW is a very small portion of the market, and I suspect the cheating cars are not much worse than older cars that we allow on the road, which are held to less stringent standards. So while it's completely unacceptable behavior of VW, it's also not the end of the world if people keep driving them until VW issues the software update.
I am more willing to have the market punish VW long term, the owners of said cars already have suffered because of VWs actions but beyond any step the government can do public opinion has already shifted against VW and Audi.
If any punishment were to meted out I would assign a value similar to how insurance companies must when a vehicle is less than a year old is involved. There are loss of value rules already in place. Use those.
As for noticeable changes in pollution, that is laughable. You already see more significant changes to pollution just by the school year ending and all those buses being off road. Let alone in winter pollution goes up as more cars run rich to maintain operating temperatures.
We should not use government to punish innocent buyers. Government should be used to protect them
Let's be clear, every manufacturer was playing this "game". Yes VW played it harder than most and got caught out. The reality is there is no petrol/diesel manufacturer that has been found to be playing it absolutely down the middle.
[+] [-] sageabilly|10 years ago|reply
Someone, somewhere, either felt like they couldn't blow the whistle without getting fired (obviously a problem) or management knew about the rule breaking and just didn't care (which is a bigger problem.)
[+] [-] masklinn|10 years ago|reply
Don't forget somebody blowing the whistle to the hierarchy and a middle-mangler (of justice) "losing" the call. Feynman recounts multiple instances of manglement ignoring or railroading warnings and whistleblowing from engineers and workers, both in and out of NASA, when they didn't fail to consult with their report entirely.
Here's a verbatim quote from "Why do you care what other people think" (norton paperback, page 185)
> When I left the meeting, I had the definite impression that I had found the same game as with the seals: management reducing criteria and accepting more and more errors that weren't designed into the device, while the engineers are screaming from below, "HELP!" and "This is a RED ALERT!"
And top manglement may not only know (and not care) about the issues but cause them, see this other quote a few pages further (194) in the Software Group section (Feynman had been very impressed — positively — by the engineering discipline of the shuttle software group)
> One guy muttered something about higher-ups in NASA wanting to cut back on testing to save money: "They keep saying we always pass the tests, so what's the use of having so many?"
[+] [-] lyschoening|10 years ago|reply
The CEO created pressure with his ambition for VW to become the world's largest auto manufacturer; meanwhile the company had a culture and structure that would allow for shortcuts to be taken.
[+] [-] balls187|10 years ago|reply
The name escapes me, but an expat friend of mine living in Germany mentioned there is a government group that is in charge of making sure posted signs follow strict laws (can't find this on Google).
German engineering culture is known for high precision and quality.
Made in Germany has the same brand power that Made in Japan, and Made in the US have.
Given these stereotypes of German culture, to me, it seems out of sorts that VW (arguably one of the most public of German Companies) would have a culture of rule breaking.
[+] [-] yoodenvranx|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woody223|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gsibble|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johansch|10 years ago|reply
How about failing in building a corporate culture that rewards openness and learning from failure?
This gives me very little hope for VW, and to an extent, for Germany. These top of the crop german execs just don't get it.
[+] [-] alayne|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulcole|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vladsanchez|10 years ago|reply
Disclosure: I am PuertoRican
[+] [-] Theodores|10 years ago|reply
Thereafter the police being instructed to stop any offending VW found on the roads and tow it to the yard, to be released once VW fixed it, with yard storage charges applied at market rates for the locality. The police have automatic number plate recognition, this talks to the licensing authority and a few lines of code could be added to flag up the emission-spewing diesels. Simple.
This would also be an experiment in air quality. If overnight a sizeable percentage of cars were no longer on the roads, would there be a noticeable increase in air quality?
This would also be handled by market forces, I am sure my VW driving friends would sort out alternative rides or find garages that could add some fancy exhaust pipe that makes them compliant.
Draconian? It depends on whether air quality matters or not. That is a fairly black and white thing - either it matters or it doesn't.
The 'rule breaking' culture in VW is all very interesting but neither VW or our elected governments have done a thing to take those polluting machines off the road until they are fixed. It is this culture of complacency that bothers me more because it is happening now. The 'rule breaking' culture continues.
You would not breathe diesel fumes if you could see them.
[+] [-] theli0nheart|10 years ago|reply
Plus, there are plenty of cars on the road built before 2000 that have even worse emissions than these VWs. Would you propose taking those cars off the road as well?
[+] [-] vonmoltke|10 years ago|reply
Nothing measured on an analog scale is black and white. Something is not "safe" or "dangerous" just because it is on one side or another of a semi-arbitrary limit.
[+] [-] ahupp|10 years ago|reply
On the contrary, I don't think it could be less of a "black or white thing". It sounds like you're making an argument that these cars are producing a material increase in overall NOx, causing a public health hazard. I haven't seen that argument anywhere else. Do you have data on what the net increase in NOx is? .1%, 1% and 100% would mean very different things.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|10 years ago|reply
On the bright side, VW is a very small portion of the market, and I suspect the cheating cars are not much worse than older cars that we allow on the road, which are held to less stringent standards. So while it's completely unacceptable behavior of VW, it's also not the end of the world if people keep driving them until VW issues the software update.
[+] [-] Shivetya|10 years ago|reply
If any punishment were to meted out I would assign a value similar to how insurance companies must when a vehicle is less than a year old is involved. There are loss of value rules already in place. Use those.
As for noticeable changes in pollution, that is laughable. You already see more significant changes to pollution just by the school year ending and all those buses being off road. Let alone in winter pollution goes up as more cars run rich to maintain operating temperatures.
We should not use government to punish innocent buyers. Government should be used to protect them
[+] [-] BurningFrog|10 years ago|reply
If you really mean that you should only accept zero emission vehicles.
[+] [-] awjr|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Alex3917|10 years ago|reply
We've already done this experiment a number of times. C.f. the hospitalization rates during the Atlanta Olympics.
[+] [-] balls187|10 years ago|reply
How does a police officer know which car is an offending VW or not?
Where does it end? Vehicles that were build prior to tougher emission standards? What about gas engines that are just inefficient, like lawn mowers?
The police just don't have the resources to make these type of nuances decisions.
Note: I own a 2016 VW Golf R, and a 2003 Golf GTI.