VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal • Hacker News Board

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#31

Post by masklinn » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 9:29 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #29

masklinn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Feynman recounts very much the opposite (of apathy), that engineers and even factory workers had remained surprisingly (to him) involved, interested and high in morale, e.g. recounting his meeting with the workers reshaping and reassembling the solid rocket booster sections:

> the point is, the workers were thinking! I got the impression that they were not undisciplined; they were very interested in what they were doing, but they weren't given much encouragement. Nobody was paying much attention to them. It was remarkable that their morale was as high as it was under the circumstances.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#32

Post by Eric_WVGG » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 9:29 PM UTC

ahupp wrote: post #14

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" On the contrary, I don't think it could be less of a "black or white thing". It sounds like you're making an argument that these cars are producing a material increase in overall NOx, causing a public health hazard. I haven't seen that argument anywhere else. Do you have data on what the net increase in NOx is? .1%, 1% and 100%…

I’ve read conflicting arguments (which range from pretty bad to incredibly bad)… The Guardian estimates 230-950 thousand tons of NOx per year for seven years, “equivalent to the emissions of all power stations, vehicles, industry, and agriculture in the United Kingdom over a one-year period.”

Not a percentage, which would be more useful, but even the lowball estimates indicate a measurable change in pollution levels.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/22/vw-scandal-c...

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#33

Post by Shivetya » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 9:33 PM UTC

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…

I am more willing to have the market punish VW long term, the owners of said cars already have suffered because of VWs actions but beyond any step the government can do public opinion has already shifted against VW and Audi.

If any punishment were to meted out I would assign a value similar to how insurance companies must when a vehicle is less than a year old is involved. There are loss of value rules already in place. Use those.

As for noticeable changes in pollution, that is laughable. You already see more significant changes to pollution just by the school year ending and all those buses being off road. Let alone in winter pollution goes up as more cars run rich to maintain operating temperatures.

We should not use government to punish innocent buyers. Government should be used to protect them

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#34

Post by sliverstorm » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 9:34 PM UTC

bri3d wrote: post #18

eropple wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

States with state inspection could plausibly require proof of some form that the update has been applied. States which use OBD-II diagnostics should generally already be capable of doing this by reading the CALID supplied by the ECU (it's part of the standard), so they could work off of that.

Hell, if we're lucky maybe the testing center can flash the update themselves right there on the test rig over OBD-II if the car doesn't have it. Would save everyone- the State, the consumer, even VW, a lot of heartache in handling a mandatory update.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#35

Post by Shivetya » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #31

Shivetya wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Feynman recounts very much the opposite (of apathy), that engineers and even factory workers had remained surprisingly (to him) involved, interested and high in morale, e.g. recounting his meeting with the workers reshaping and reassembling the solid rocket booster sections: > the point is, the workers were thinking! I got the impression that they were not undisciplined; they were very interested in what they were do…

apathy does not necessarily manifest in bad morale, if anything it can be a coping mechanism. let alone in such groups the idea of not rocking the boat is similar to the Wilder effect; you be what they expect when asked because to disagree causes discomfort or the need to be seen as a team player is real

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#36

Post by vladsanchez » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 9:45 PM UTC

Rulebreaking!?!?! They must be PuertoRicans! :-D

Disclosure: I am PuertoRican

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#37

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 9:50 PM UTC

woody223 wrote: post #15

anigbrowl wrote: post #5

'Move fast and break the law' might not have been the best slogan to put on the wall....

It's working alright for Uber ;)

Arguably the laws Uber is breaking are themselves immoral.

When it comes to emissions controls, though, even the worst lawbreakers among us need to breathe.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#38

Post by ams6110 » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 9:52 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #17

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…

> On the bright side, VW is a very small portion of the market In the US. In Europe Volkswagen accounts for 25% of new car registrations. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-17/volkswagen...

They weren't violating European NOx standards.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#39

Post by ams6110 » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 9:54 PM UTC

bri3d wrote: post #18

eropple wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

States with state inspection could plausibly require proof of some form that the update has been applied. States which use OBD-II diagnostics should generally already be capable of doing this by reading the CALID supplied by the ECU (it's part of the standard), so they could work off of that.

Or a nice market for VW diesels might develop in non-inspecting states.

Re: VW says rulebreaking culture at root of emissions scandal

#40

Post by LoSboccacc » Thu, Dec 10, 2015, 9:54 PM UTC

lyschoening wrote: post #26

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 creat…

eh, I find it hard to believe that this was a conspiracy by a restricted group.

engineers are know to know how to calculate an engine efficiency. this is not the 60's and they can have a pretty decent knowledge of an engine performance profile by their simulations and knowledge of previous iterations of the same engines.

if this really was an internal 'conspiracy' it should have run from the engine engineers of this engine iteration, the previous iteration, the software developers that touched near the code, all the testers testing that software code, all the qa that ran the endless benches run for the engine to qualify for robustness (a very tight and monitor environment [1]), whomever touched that data afterward etc etc.

[1] think like this, photi not actual wv center: http://assets.slate.wvu.edu/resources/1117/1304968590.jpg