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Dirty Diesel was No Accident

9/26/2015

8 Comments

 
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by David Hagenbuch, Founder of Mindful Marketing
​“Everyone makes mistakes.”  “To err is human . . .” (Alexander Pope).  “All have sinned . . .” (Romans 3:23, NIV Bible).

It’s not surprising that people mess up. It’s also no wonder that organizations misstep; after all, they’re collections of people. What is amazing is when a group of very smart people puts their heads together and plans a misdeed, case in point: Volkswagen.

By now you’ve heard of the German automaker’s emissions scandal. In a brief, VW “cheated diesel emissions tests in the U.S. for seven years.”  More specifically, the company programmed the software in many of its diesel vehicles to recognize when they were undergoing an emissions test and to temporarily reduce emissions in order to trick the testing instruments.

Why did Volkswagen cheat? As you might guess, cost was a consideration. The company chose to save money by not installing in its vehicles what most manufacturers use to reduce auto emissions: “a urea-injection system, often called AdBlue, which uses a chemical catalyst to make sure unburnt fuel doesn’t get into the exhaust.”  Without AdBlue or similar technology, VW vehicles would pollute more than EPA emission guidelines would allow.  So, the company decided it would be more economical to trick the testing equipment than to legitimately lower emissions.

How a small lab in West Virginia uncovered the scheme of one of the world’s largest automaker’s is another fascinating part of the story, which I’ll not elaborate here. The end result is that about 11 million vehicles appear to have been affected, which has caused VW’s stock price to plunge and has led to the resignation of the corporation’s CEO, Marin Winterkorn.

Although huge, the number VW cars involved is still dwarfed by Ford’s “Failure-to-Park” recall of 1980, in which the American automaker had to foot the bill for over 20 million vehicles whose transmissions inadvertently shifted from park to reverse. This defect cost Ford around $1.7 billion, but more significantly, it led to about 6,000 accidents, 1,700 injuries and 98 deaths.

In the case of these auto recalls, some mistakes appear bigger than others because of the size of the human toll and other damages. VW’s emissions scam caused no direct harm to people or property; still, the German automakers’ emission scandal will live in infamy for another reason—its malevolence.

Most other auto recall cases have been the result of negligence, i.e., people overlooking critical details because they failed to perform their work as carefully as they should. The ensuing consequences were very negative, but they were largely accidental. Even if there were attempts later to cover up the carelessness, the original error was unplanned.

VW’s case appears to be the exact opposite: employees weren’t careless; rather, they were precise in their intent to implement a defeat device that would operate outside the limits of the law. Volkswagen’s actions demonstrated criminal forethought and deliberateness that constitutes malice: “the intention or desire to do evil.” Or, to use a morbid metaphor of killing, while other car companies’ recall-related actions might represent unintended manslaughter, VW’s would represent premeditated murder.

Volkswagen created considerable stakeholder value via the 11 million or so supposedly clean diesel vehicles it sold over seven years in the United States. Unfortunately, that value is rapidly eroding in the face of the company’s compromise of important societal values such as respect for the environment and fairness to consumers and competitors. The lowest reading on the Mindful Meter is “Mindless,” but VW’s actions suggest that perhaps there should be one level lower: “Malicious Marketing.”
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8 Comments
Samuel Jackson
10/25/2015 05:56:30 pm

It was hard to believe that any company as large and influential as VW could be involved in a scandal of such magnitude. Upon first learning of it, many people thought that they must be misunderstood. How could VW make such an intentional and malicious mistake as to not only lie to their customers but also the government? VW officials originally decided to lie because the expensive engineering they had invested in did not meet the proper standard for emissions. Rather then spend the money to fix the issue, they decided to lie. The real cost of this decision though in not in the fact that they must now spend the money fixing the issue the right way, but rather in the cost it will take on their brand image. A problem that can never simply be fixed with money and could fester for years to come.

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Luke Webster
10/26/2015 10:58:38 pm

The incident with VW is hardly acceptable and is a crime in of itself. It would be easy to believe that the incident was a mistake, or in the case of Ford an accident yet it is harder to believe that management would intentionally lie to customers and fake governmental documents.

Yet this incident while horrible is a great example of the necessity of some governmental regulation over business. In other less regulated economies especially underdeveloped nations, businesses are able to cut corners and do anything in their power to cut corners. Seeing VW scandal it comforts me that we have such tight regulations in the US and in other developed countries.

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Dylan F
10/27/2015 08:18:08 pm

This is inexcusable behavior by Volkswagen and causes me to be skeptical about every action they take. This certainly is mindless marketing and the affects have been seen in its value to shareholders. The most disappointing part is the intention to be deceptive to their consumers and cheat legislation. Personally, I have no quarrel with them disagreeing to the strict regulations we have on vehicles, especially in California, but that is no excuse for the dishonesty by such a powerful auto manufacturer that has such a large potential consumer base.

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Lucas Lee
10/28/2015 12:42:31 am

I found it very interesting points you brought up about the VW scandal. I also found it very sad to hear that high-ranking officials in the company compromised their integrity to make their company more profitable. I was shocked to hear the lengths they went through to make their vehicles able to cheat the system. My family has owned VW vehicles over the years and I found it shocking that they would need to cheat in order to increase their sales and save money when during production. I found it very interesting that the people who found the problem with the diesel engines was not a major competitor but simply a small business.

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Pouya A
11/3/2015 04:21:17 pm

I've been following this story lately. Many said that this will be something that VW will be able to live down. Some have stated that VW did this to keep cost low on these cars. However, today I heard on the news that they have found more software hacks in higher end cars like the larger Audi and Porsche cars. While this is still a relatively small number of cars, finding this in the more higher end cars makes us start to question VW's foundational ethics. I'm an owner of a 2015 VW Tiguan and frankly since the issue doesn't concern me, I would still buy a VW. A good question to ask is, is this issue deterring buyer most buyers, or just the environmentally concerned ones?

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vehicle accident injury lawyer link
6/12/2016 03:25:13 am

It’s not surprising that people mess up. It’s also no wonder that organizations misstep; after all, they’re collections of people

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Trey
3/17/2019 03:59:57 pm

Although many would agree that cheating is unethical and wrong, it is prevalent in the world we live in today. As student, my exposure to cheating tends to be more along the lines of academic instances, but it is disheartening to hear about cheating on such a large scale such as this Volkswagen scandal. I guess it is further support for the world's need for the truth of the gospel of Jesus.

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