Volkswagen Emissions Investigation Zeroes in on Two Engineers • Hacker News Board

Re: Volkswagen Emissions Investigation Zeroes in on Two Engineers

#51

Post by scott_s » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 10:16 PM UTC

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #44

akamaka wrote: post #9

The rest of the commenters are quick to dismiss this article as presenting scapegoats, but I'm very keen to see more in-depth investigation about how this was orchestrated. There are a lot of different ways that this type of cheating can develop over time, and simply saying "lots of people knew must have known about this" isn't very satisfying to me. There are plenty of ways that upper management can stay in the dark…

>There are plenty of ways that upper management can stay in the dark. If they knew about it, they were wrong. If the didn't know about it, they were derelict/incompetent in their duty to supervise, AKA, wrong. > In the case of Deepwater Horizon, BP didn't make the decisions that lead to the blowout, but created excessive pressure for cost-cutting. Oil drilling operations are very much different from any other company…

I think you're approaching this from a justice angle: who is responsible, who should pay. I think akamaka is approaching this from a system perspective: what enabled this to happen, what can we change to avoid it?

Re: Volkswagen Emissions Investigation Zeroes in on Two Engineers

#52

Post by rodgerd » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 10:31 PM UTC

ppod wrote: post #23

electricblue wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"we didn't know" is curiously not an excuse you can use in any other facet of human life except to exculpate rich people

In what other facet of human life would you be held responsible for something you had no knowledge of?

Try telling your accountant "I want to pay less tax and I don't care how you do it."

When you're audited, have fun claiming you didn't know that you were committing tax evasion.

Try buying something for a ridiculously low price down the pub. When the police come to take the stolen goods away, try claiming you didn't realise something selling for a tenth of its value was stolen.

Re: Volkswagen Emissions Investigation Zeroes in on Two Engineers

#53

Post by Pinckney » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 10:59 PM UTC

ppod wrote: post #23

electricblue wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"we didn't know" is curiously not an excuse you can use in any other facet of human life except to exculpate rich people

In what other facet of human life would you be held responsible for something you had no knowledge of?

In warfare. A commander can be criminally liable for failing to prevent criminal actions by their subordinates. Most famously, Tomoyuki Yamashita. Or from the prosecution brief during Ernest Medina's trial:

>'When troops commit massacres and atrocities against the civilian population of occupied territory or against prisoners of war, the responsibility may rest not only with the actual perpetrators but also with the commander. Such a responsibility arises directly when the acts in question have been committed in pursuance of an order of the commander concerned. The commander is also responsible if he has actual knowledge, or should have knowledge, through reports received by h'un or through other means, that troops or other persons subject to his control are about to commit or have committed a war crime and he fails to take the necessary and reasonable steps to insure compliance with the law of war or to punish violators thereof.'

Re: Volkswagen Emissions Investigation Zeroes in on Two Engineers

#54

Post by selimthegrim » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 11:13 PM UTC

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #30

glad they found the culprits. I was absolutely certain it would be renegade engineers and the higher level up (politically secured allies) have nothing to do with it. Torches and pitchforks everyone. The amount of restraint I have to exercise as an ex-consultant who made his living working for the likes of Audi, VW & Siemens nobody here can possibly comprehend.

Surely, Winterkorn/Piëch/the whole post-2007 and post-Pischetsrieder exec team must have dirt on the TÜV/CDU politicians in lower Saxony?

e: And hilariously for you, according to Wikipedia, Piëch himself is in fact a dyslexic atheist. Zounds!

Re: Volkswagen Emissions Investigation Zeroes in on Two Engineers

#55

Post by mhw » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 11:13 PM UTC

to3m wrote: post #7

"regulators are considering steps to tighten emissions standards for diesel engines"? - interesting that the old emissions standards were (one presumes) absolutely fine, until somebody turns out to have been cheating.

I think you've got to look at this as a process of gradual refinement in which both government and industry participate. The government wants to achieve its overall objectives of reducing emissions over a long period of time (decades); it knows that if it just set the emissions targets at the target on day zero the entire industry would fail to meet them and the industry would collapse. So the regulations have to be set with some idea of what is currently achievable or within reach of the industry given an economically feasible amount of investment.

So the aim of the regulation is to push the industry in the direction you want them to go at a rate which gets everyone to the destination without destroying the industry. And every so often the regulations need to be tightened to keep the development process moving forward.

Re: Volkswagen Emissions Investigation Zeroes in on Two Engineers

#56

Post by selimthegrim » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 11:18 PM UTC

DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #33

mtgx wrote: post #2

I assume they are the scapegoats.

of course your "assumption" is right. "head of" is a low level (entry-level) mgmt position in these places. No idea why anyone would down-vote you.

This is HN, remember. Engineers are demigods here, freshly sprung from Athena's head herself, but one step removed from Zeus.

Re: Volkswagen Emissions Investigation Zeroes in on Two Engineers

#57

Post by mratzloff » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 11:19 PM UTC

smoyer wrote: post #20

In my opinion, this is going to get far worse for VW. People bought cars expecting the stated fuel economy - if they submit their cars to the recall, there's likely to be a class-action suit aiming to recoup enough cost to pay for the difference in fuel costs over the life of the car. Cars that don't go through the recall process will continue to pollute at a greater rate and will earn the ire of the EPA (here in the…

It's going to get worse, but not for the reason you state. Changing car performance (acceleration profile, etc.) for the worse is a necessary outcome of fixing this issue. That's why people will sue.

Re: Volkswagen Emissions Investigation Zeroes in on Two Engineers

#58

Post by deelowe » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 11:23 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #37

mpweiher wrote: post #11

> in August 2007,[..] It rebranded the company’s diesel engine TDI—for turbocharged direct injection. Huh? VW's diesel engines had been TDIs for well over a decade at that time, for example my 1996 Golf was a TDI. The TDIs are awesome engines. I previously had a gasoline engine with the same horsepower rating, but the TDI was better in every way: unkillably high torque at low RPMs (I could go from a standing start to…

The reason people perceive diesels to be better is that they have much flatter torque vs RPM curves, so any schmuck can make them accelerate without shifting to the correct gear. If diesel engines gave better performance at the same amount of horsepowers, and used less fuel, why don't we see diesel engines used in horsepower-limited racing car classes? Why has Ferrari and Lamborghini not ever offered a single diesel…

Audi did make a diesel race car. It was quite famous actually.

That said, the main issue with diesel is that while they have a much better torque curve, diesel engines have a much lower RPM limit. This plus the emissions issues make for pretty big compromises.

Re: Volkswagen Emissions Investigation Zeroes in on Two Engineers

#59

Post by jandrese » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 11:34 PM UTC

ecdavis wrote: post #46

akamaka wrote: post #9

The rest of the commenters are quick to dismiss this article as presenting scapegoats, but I'm very keen to see more in-depth investigation about how this was orchestrated. There are a lot of different ways that this type of cheating can develop over time, and simply saying "lots of people knew must have known about this" isn't very satisfying to me. There are plenty of ways that upper management can stay in the dark…

It seems like the majority of people saying these are scapegoats didn't read the article that closely. It clearly says these two engineers were top aides to the former CEO. Regulator's aren't stupid enough to be fooled by a couple of junior engineers being offered up as a sacrifice. They'll definitely go after the highest-level people they can get.

A top aide to the CEO sounds like exactly the kind of person who would be the fall guy in a scandal like this. Important enough for the regulators to be happy, but not someone who has actual power in the company.

Re: Volkswagen Emissions Investigation Zeroes in on Two Engineers

#60

Post by a3n » Mon, Oct 05, 2015, 11:34 PM UTC

> Both men developed an international reputation as engineers, said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer head of the Center of Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

> “It will be difficult for Volkswagen to replace them,” he said.

Genuinely legendary engineers, and allegedly with the balls to cheat (but not quite the balls to stand on principle). It will indeed be hard to find that combination among the remaining legends.