VW Engineers Have Admitted Manipulating CO2 Emissions Data (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader writes: According to a report in German newspaper Bild am Sonntag several Volkswagen engineers have come forward and admitted manipulating carbon dioxide emissions data, blaming the overly ambitious goals set by former Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn. Reuters reports: "The paper said VW engineers tampered with tyre pressure and mixed diesel with their motor oil to make them use less fuel, a deception that began in 2013 and carried on until the spring of this year. 'Employees have indicated in an internal investigation that there were irregularities in ascertaining fuel consumption data. How this happened is subject to ongoing proceedings,' a Volkswagen spokesman said, declining to comment on the Bild report."

Comments

Hagbard Celine's Second Law

[DNS-and-BIND]

"Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation."

The Chief Executive set unrealistic goals and planned punishments for anyone who failed. So, the engineers did what was rational, and now they're going to get the blame for the whole thing. The executives, as usual, will get off scot-free and even if fired, will come out smelling like roses.

No excuse for committing a crime

[sjbe]

The Chief Executive set unrealistic goals and planned punishments for anyone who failed. So, the engineers did what was rational, and now they're going to get the blame for the whole thing.

If the engineers did something that they knew was wrong then they deserve to be blamed and punished for what they did. If someone asks you to commit a crime the answer should be an unequivocal "NO". This was not a complicated ethical situation. This is kindergarten stuff. Just because someone told you to commit a crime doesn't make it acceptable for you to go ahead and actually do it.

Nobody at VW involved in this fiasco was under any illusions that what they were doing was legal or even in a gray area. Any engineers who were involved in this fraud should be taken to court and punished in a manner commensurate with their crime. Same with any management that was in charge. They knew or should have known what was going on and deserve to be punished for this crime.

And let's not pretend that the executives didn't know what was happening. This is a company that is renowned for their centralized control and micro-managing. Any pretense that the management was not aware of this fraud is almost certainly untrue. It might not go all the way to the top but I can't imaging how some folks pretty high up the food chain didn't authorize this.

Re:No excuse for committing a crime

[PopeRatzo]

The governments set CO2 emissions requirements for vehicles that, it seems, were impossible to meet given the current technology.

Except they weren't impossible to meet given the current technology, were they?

Re:No excuse for committing a crime

[scamper_22]

But there lies the problem.

You can relatively easily prosecute the engineers because well... they were the ones to implement it and would know what impact things would have.

The hard part is in getting management because at the end of the day, they typically apply pressure and can claim ignorance.

They should really have a serious clause in there along the lines of negligence whereby management can be held to account for applying undue pressure and not taking enough due diligence to make sure it was not impacting quality.

And it should be a harsh punishment.

Like it or not, engineers just don't have the same kind of clout as doctors or lawyers or other regulated professions.

It's kind of sad when you hear people talk to software developers and say they're not real engineers who are held to account...

I've worked in some engineering oriented firms. I'd say you face the same issue you do as a developer. Your 'boss' is a corporation or venture capital firm out to make money. You are just an employee.

Now engineers do some some areas where they have more independence. Normally in fields like power, civil engineering... often in cases where they have strong bodies.

But for a corporate and product company like VW... there's not much difference.

Re:No excuse for committing a crime

[Aighearach]

Newsflash, EPA and CARB are re-testing other manufacturers too, and nobody else is cheating. Everybody else so far has real numbers, and modern cars really do meet modern emissions standards. Except for VW-owned brands.

They left out the controls on the smaller engines so that they could sell them as sportscars, which small diesels are definitely not. Then they put a defeat device in the firmware to game the test. Just because you got tricked, doesn't mean that everybody else did, too. If you want a small engine and high performance, you're an idiot to think that is available in a diesel, and an idiot to think it is not efficient in other types cars.

Amazing how fast guilt discovered for non-execs

[JoeyRox]

So just one week or so after the CO2 emissions scandal came to light we already have rank-and-file employees admitting fault. Contrast that with their NOx emissions scandal that has dragged on for over a month with no hints from VW about the perpetrators - that should tell you the blame there lies with executives.

Re:Time is money

[rmdingler]

People won't want to spend an extra hour per day commuting.

No, they don't.

At the heart of that you will locate an innate selfishness, a modern day tragedy of the commons. Most folks would rather we did things to the benefit of the environment, as long as their personal sacrifice is somewhere between minimal and nonexistent.

Where we live, there is an active market for the gear heads who trade in "delete kits" (after market parts that defeat the environmental controls).

Emmissions targets are already achievable

[sjbe]

The governments set CO2 emissions requirements for vehicles that, it seems, were impossible to meet given the current technology.

The emissions targets are demonstrably possible. There are cars driving on the road today which substantially exceed the CO2 emissions requirements under CAFE and similar legislation. Car companies might have to stop selling the ones that don't but that is a Good Thing.

After expending a large effort and resources on improving the technology, it was still impossible.

WRONG. The technology required for VW to meet emissions standards already exists and was available to them. They made a purely economic decision to not implement that technology in order to save money while fraudulently claiming that they had solved the problem. This was fraud in pursuit of money. Nothing more.

Re: Ok to pollute because others are worse?

[TWX]

It stinks that commercial vehicles don't have to have pollution controls. A couple of months every year we have smog days and the damage caused by pollutants to our health is just shameful.

I hope I'm alive to see the end of burning in order to create energy and power.

Whatchu talkin' 'bout Willis?

Commercial vehicles have emissions rules and pollution controls. They don't happen to be the same as your passenger car, because first, there are many less commercial vehicles than there are passenger vehicles so as a whole they're already polluting less than in-total for passenger vehicles, and second, the rules for commercial vehicles are based around what the vehicle is expected to move. This applies to both passenger commercial vehicles (ie, buses) and to vehicles that move cargo or raw materials. A Class-4 tow truck or short school bus chassis will have its emissions capped at a much lower amount than a Class-6 flatbed delivery truck, which will be lower than a Class-8 over-the-road tractor trailer, or full-sized school bus, or sixteen wheel heavy dump truck.

One could extrapolate that the amount of emissions allowed per unit of work is probably comparable to your passenger car, but these commercial vehicles are doing a lot more total work.