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Volkswagen Boss Blames Software Engineers For Scandal (bbc.co.uk)
hattig writes: Today VW's Michael Horn is testifying to Congress and has blamed the recent scandal on engineers saying: "It's the decision of a couple of software engineers, not the board members." However, 530,000 cars in the U.S. will need to be recalled for significant engine modifications, not a software fix. Only 80,000 Passats are eligible for the software fix. There is no word on the effects these modifications will have on the cars' performance, fuel consumption, etc. The BBC reports: "The issue of defeat devices at VW has been a historic problem, points out a Congress panel member questioning VW US chief Michael Horn. In 1974, VW had a run-in with US authorities regarding the use of defeat devices in 1974, and in December 2014 it recalled cars to address nox emissions."
The previous events seem to point towards a problem in the company's culture, rather than just a couple engineers. Maybe I'm too cynical. But that's what it "smells" like.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yeah, I'm sure, a few rogue software guys got together and said, "Gosh, how can we cover for the people who built the engine that isn't as efficient as it is supposed to be? Surely there's no legal ramifications for cheating on federal emissions tests!"
It doesn't make sense on too many levels. What a bunch of crap.
Love sees no species.
That company executives rarely know what is going on in their organization.
What do they get paid to do again?
As an executive, you take on the responsibility and risk for your department/BU/company/team/whatever and the people under you. *That* is why you get the big bucks, not for any other reason.
If somebody you are responsible for screws up, it is YOUR JOB to know about it!
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Software engineers have little natural incentive to make the car perform differently for testing than for regular use. If the car is incapable of meeting emission standards without this sort of hack then that's an issue for the mechanical engineers, not the software guys. There's no reason to believe this was the result of anything but orders from on high.
Do you have ESP?
Aren't there actual mechanical parts of the engine which simply weren't even implemented and then this kludge was done in software?
You can't design this way of cheating without people who know the details of the engine signing off on it.
This is so much bullshit it isn't funny.
A software engineer could not have made the decision to leave off the components which were supposed to make clean diesel.
This is purely about finding a scapegoat.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
First rule of leadership: Everything is your fault.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
As possible pointed out elsewhere, the collaboration between hardware and software is needed for such a scheme to work.
Properly detecting the condition of being under test would definitely require collection from multiple hardware sensors.
Also, didn't they perform the QA testing on such software? Doesn't this require testing units and a testing program to be agreed upon across departments?
Or did they blindly put some untested software in control's of car's electronic and engine?
It seems impossible to me that this can be pulled off just by a "couple of software engineers".
Even doing that on a single car of a single model would have required much more than that. Let alone with such a pervasive extent.
1) Upper management are morons that have no idea what is going on in their company. It's the equivalent of a farmer claiming he had no idea that his 'organic' corn is actually bio-engineered and covered with Round-Up.
2) That they personally are directly and legally responsible by failing to manage their employees. The buck stops at the BOSS, not the janitor.
3) Are also committing the Wage-Theft by not doing their official declared job of MANAGING their employees.
Claiming ignorance, stupidity, and incompetence is not a valid legal defense.
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This isn't some little project where one or two rogue engineers can throw a commit into github without oversight. We're talking about a major, multi-million dollar engineering project that spans both software and hardware, goes into a production run of many thousands of vehicles, and is regulated by many governmental bodies across multiple countries.
At a minimum, you'd need the involvement of:
The software engineers
The hardware engineers
The integration engineers
The software QA testers
The hardware QC testers
The integration testers
The production engineers
The production QC testers
Various compliance managers
Whoever is submitting the test vehicles to the government testers in each country.
The managers and supervisors of all of the above
With that many people involved... and that's probably a conservative list... it's hard to believe that there wasn't some C-level approval or direction. Massive fraud in a major engineering project doesn't bubble up from one rogue employee or two. It's rolled from the top down.
Imagine all the people...
and the boss promised us a large bonus if we can do it with software
Now I know this is fanfic because no-where in any real company have I, as a software engineer, been promised a bonus for doing ANYTHING.
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