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Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

reuters.com

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Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#181

Post by caskance »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #26
tedmiston wrote: post #8

I've always wondered how something like this plays out legally: Can the engineers be somehow held accountable for writing something they were forced / asked to by their managers?

Yes, they can. Most engineers (in the US) have to take an ethics course that covers this. Just because your boss says do something, doesn't give you a pass.

You don't have to have a software engineering degree or an EIT/PE to be a "software engineer". I know plenty of people who have vaguely related degrees like mathematics or statistics that never had to take such courses. And of course there are many autodidacts in the field who studied god knows what.

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#182

Post by caskance »

1971genocide wrote: post #24
cryptoz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a direct comparison, but after World War II it was decided clearly that soldiers are not protected by saying "my boss told me to do it" when the commit war crimes or other atrocities. This is now called the Nuremberg defense and it holds no water at all. The same principle applies here, in a general sense - but it's sufficiently different in practice, I wonder how it would be treated too.

Hyperbole much ? When a soldier is ordered to torture - its clearly wrong to do so. Its a question of human ethic. Is it the responsibility of the software engineer to know the exact level of NO_2 0.001 or 0002 that he should be coded into their product ? Also a software engineer doesn't exist in a vacuum. There is a whole testing regime. Why should the coder be solely responsible ?

By that reasoning we can order soldiers to torture if we simply fragment the process enough. One to strap in the left wrist, one to strap in the right wrist, one to switch on the gas to the blowtorch, etc.

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#183

Post by joshrotenberg »

rdudek wrote: post #161
tdicola wrote: post #83

Mental note, never buy a VW car again. Cheating on emissions is bad, but passing the buck down to the rank and file is deplorable.

Don't forget Audi, Porche, Bentley, and others that VW owns :)

Yeah, remember to not buy that Lamborghini as well.

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#186

Post by sheepmullet »

johansch wrote: post #97
jsprogrammer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However plausible it may be, it is still not excusable. The company should have processes in place that can verify the claims it makes. Plausible deniability is really just a claim of neglect. Edit: I'm being rate-limited, so I'll respond to the points below right here: >What processes should be in place, exactly, to do what? How about driving a vehicle in the manner most of their customer's do and examining the emis…

What do you mean? Let's assume the individial he is talking about is a manager of a group of hundreds of engineers working in this area. This means this guy's direct manager most likely would not be in a position to inspect the work of people 2-3 levels down for any irregularities. What processes should be in place, exactly, to do what? Quarterly polygraph tests performed by all engineering managers to assure top man…

> What do you mean?

All you need are strong whistleblowing protections and mandatory independent investigation of any claims made.

Do you really think of the dozens of people who had to be aware of it none of them would have thought "this is really dodgy" and wanted to push it up the chain?

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#187

Post by ino »

Yhippa wrote: post #11
Retra wrote: post #6

"For whatever reason" indeed. They must have just flipped a coin on the issue. Really, it's just bad luck at work here. /s

I'll add an /s "I'm sure there was no pressure on individual performers to make the results look favorable for VW."

Internet sarcastic comments are much better when people don't add /s at the end.

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#188

Post by lordnacho »

branchless wrote: post #163
lordnacho wrote: post #142

It's an utterly brazen lie to say the company didn't know about this. Anyone who's ever built anything as part of a team - whether the Linux kernel, a space shuttle, or a Lego set - can tell you design decisions like this cannot be secreted into the final product. So let's say a software guy decides to make this fix. How do you do that? - You'll have a version control system, won't you? At the very least someone will…

I guess they are worried about significant legal action against the top-brass and are throwing off some chaff. Will the legal system go after the little guy again or land the big fish?

Well it's cases like this that cause people to win/lose respect for the system.

If they throw some engineer under the bus, I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#189

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

robotcookies wrote: post #134
austinjp wrote: post #129

Do we think VW are the only car manufacturer doing this? I very much doubt it. They're just the first to get caught. Where rules stand in the way of profit, they get bent or broken. Banking, automotive industry... which next? Oil? Housing? Pfff ... come on, we all know they're rotten, it's just a question of how rotten and whether it comes out. I suspect it's the tip of the iceberg for the auto industry. Whether we g…

Why are so many people keen on defending VW with the claim "if VW are doing it, everyone else must be"? That dilutes the severity of this problem. I've seen several threads on HN meant to do this.

>Why are so many people keen on defending VW with the claim "if VW are doing it, everyone else must be"?

Well for one reason, sanctioning one manufacturer for behavior that all manufacturers engage in means that selective enforcement can be used to pick off unwanted competition in the marketplace.

Re: Volkswagen's U.S. head: individuals engineered emissions cheating

#190

Post by kuschku »

dahart wrote: post #159
Havoc wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making an awful lot of assumptions there. >those couple of software engineers would have to have a major say over the entire engine design. I call bullshit. The two people they're mainly talking about are head of R&D group and engine development. Yeah I'd imagine they have major say over engine design.

Having a lot of say in design, and keeping secret an intentional violation of government regulations from your entire international company are two pretty different things. I'm making assumptions, and I believe this story is pure, unadulterated bullshit from top to bottom. Is it likely that the heads of R&D and engine development at VW are hands-on and writing code themselves? No, its extremely unlikely. Having worke…

The thing is, you are currently defending the prominent executives.

We’re talking about the heads of R&D and the head of engine development – both more business people than engineer.

Additionally, 2 CEOs have resigned over this (in just 6 months!)

And it’s known that the first of these CEOs tried to focus on engines without Urea injection – which did get 280mpg, though – because he personally was invested into their development and tried to push the heads of R&D and Engine development to do this.

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