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VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

arstechnica.com

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Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#21

Post by mrob »

sliverstorm wrote: post #10
Theodores wrote: post #3

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 ap…

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 updat…

We already "punish" people who are duped into buying stolen property (by confiscation of that property), so why should people duped by other illegal activity be treated differently?

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#22

Post by masklinn »

sageabilly wrote: post #2

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…

> 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?"

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#23

Post by sliverstorm »

mrob wrote: post #21
sliverstorm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 updat…

We already "punish" people who are duped into buying stolen property (by confiscation of that property), so why should people duped by other illegal activity be treated differently?

In the case of stolen property, that's mostly because the property needs to be returned to the original owner. Zero sum and all that. You don't own the property because the thief who sold it to you did not have the rights to transfer to you; the rights are retained by the original owner.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#24

Post by jonknee »

eropple wrote: post #12
sliverstorm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the EPA could force VW to release an update for the affected cars' ECU, and avoid sending a million perfectly serviceable cars to the landfill. Which, I believe, is what is supposed to happen.

Any such update will be effectively optional, though, won't it? (I don't know, I don't own a car anymore and the last one I had used an ECU probably dumber than today's toasters.)

It could be quite easy to enforce through registration data and refusing to renew until proof of a fix is provided.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#25

Post by jonknee »

mrob wrote: post #21
sliverstorm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 updat…

We already "punish" people who are duped into buying stolen property (by confiscation of that property), so why should people duped by other illegal activity be treated differently?

Because this wasn't a guy fencing stuff off Craigslist, it was a multi-billion dollar global corruption that is operating in a highly regulated market. Consumer protection and all that. If someone is going to get hit in the nuts it's going to be VW and not the consumer. The cars will get fixed or VW will buy them back, but it's a ridiculous waste of resources to have police pulling over people driving VW's.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#26

Post by lyschoening »

sageabilly wrote: post #2

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…

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.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#27

Post by johansch »

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.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#28

Post by ptaipale »

BurningFrog wrote: post #7
Theodores wrote: post #3

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 ap…

> It depends on whether air quality matters or not. That is a fairly black and white thing - either it matters or it doesn't. If you really mean that you should only accept zero emission vehicles.

Even that is not enough. The vehicle itself may emit zero, but just moving on the roads with wheels on the ground will produce emissions, as tyres grind particles out of the road and turbulence lifts dust up in the air.

Emissions very definitely is not a black-and-white thing.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#29

Post by Shivetya »

masklinn wrote: post #22
sageabilly wrote: post #2

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…

> 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…

process driven cultures tend to generate a lot of apathy from the standpoint that speaking up is systematically discouraged as there is no reward. doesn't matter how right your position is, far more will follow a process to any end as the process itself provides cover from fallout and failure
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