The European auto-manufacterer test cheating is really, really pernicuous. It is mistake to view this as simple test cheating. These tests are a greater part of the "green/carbon reduction" policies that is europe's primary industrial policy of the last decade.<p>Domestic auto manufacturers have been primary authors of these policies. The bootlegger and baptist dynamic has been very strong here. The "baptist" objective has been carbon/pollution reduction. The "bootleggers" wanted to sell more European cars by (A) giving them an advantage over imports and (B) shortening the lifespan of older cars. They have had an extremely favourable regulatory environment, EU & locally. Pollution-centric tax bands favouring local manufacturers (based on these tests) are just a piece of that. To cheat the tests on top of all this is beyond the pale.<p>All that said, I think we have no way of holding corporations accountable. Prosecuting individuals is important (and effective), but it also semi-absolves the company. It makes it seem like individual bad actors acted against the law, and against the company. There aren't really ways of holding the company accountable, and limited liability becomes no liability in this sense.<p>I don't even know what should be done. "Justice" (IMO) would be fairly harsh. Volkswagon Group have annual Revenue & Gross Profit of 230bn & 40bn respectively. Trillions and hundreds of millions over the life of this scam. Some nontrivial portion of these sales were unearned in the sense that they would not have happened without fraud. €1bn-€2bn isn't even meaningful.<p>I think that shareholders should get a haircut, with a meanigful portion of the company's current value being turned over as a fine. Of course, this would only encourage a restructuring from equity to debt. IDK....<p>An individual business owner acting under full liability would have (in addition to jail time) almost certainly lost her entire business over something like this. To Volkswagen Group, it's a bump in the road. This is not fair.
> <i>Until now, backing of the Porsche and Piech families, who control the world’s biggest carmaker, ensured him continuing in the role he’s held since 2007.</i><p>It’s healthy to step back and consider how rare, in our world today and across human history, such an expression of the rule of law is. As fashionable as political cynicism may be, patience has a place before one reacts to every scandal with presuming the powerful and guilty will walk free. (It’s an unfortunate way inattentiveness produces a self-fulfilling prophesy.)
I wonder if the fallout of this will be VW/Audi/Porsche investing more seriously into electric cars.<p>Their major bet on fleetwide emissions reductions has been clean diesel, but clearly that's been all smoke and mirrors. There's been articles suggesting that <i>all</i> the diesel OEMs are 'optimizing' their emissions testing (another poster pointed out this leads to an unrealistic ratcheting effect that furthers unrealistic expectations... regulators think their goal was achieved, so we set even tighter ones).<p>In the 2000's, BMW bet big on hydrogen fuel cells. That one hasn't panned out either... electric is what's left.
This is what happens when management mandates crazy requirements. Same sort of rubbish happens in tech. Manager comes in and demands "100% code coverage of unit tests" Or every developer to write at least 100 lines of code each day. Push enough and you will get what you ask for, but lift the veil and you will find out that the participants are gaming the system.
In a recent thread about the Daimler diesel recall, a poster claims the issue is more systemic than just cheating at individual companies.<p>> <i>The actual programmer & designer of the software is the supplier of the engine control units (ECUs), in most cases Bosch. The software that they supply actually already contains these cheating routines. These routines are delivered as a part of the software packages, and can be turned on/off with some flags.<p>It is up to the auto company how to set these flags.</i> [0]<p>Is it legal for Bosch to sell ECUs that can cheat? Should it remain legal?<p>[0] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286697" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17286697</a>
If corporations are considered people in the USA, will this corporation be punished for spewing thousands or more of tons of pollution onto our streets and lying about it? Oh no, corporations can't be tried like people, they just get to use their money ("free speech") to be people, but when it comes to accountability, only one man is responsible?
If the culture in the automotive industry is to change, then many more executives will have to face the consequences of supporting current common practice.
people have died and will continue to die because of excessive emissions and this program of evasion conducted by audi and volvo was willful and malicious.