Significance of Honesty

By: Kevin Chung

I’m sure that you’ve heard about the Volkswagen emission scandal that happened earlier this year. Well this happened because they didn’t follow one of the fundamental ethics of the NSPE, honesty. This post will talk about how Volkswagen cheated their carbon emissions tests and how/what they lost because of this.

Picture Credit: autogyaan.com

Volkswagen was able to cheat their emissions tests by equipping software that incorrectly recorded how much exhaust was produced in laboratory conditions. When the software sensed that it was being tested, it activated equipment that reduced emissions. But during regular driving, the car’s engine would emit nitrogen oxide, 40 times the legal in the US. They did this to the car’s computer so it could save fuel by allowing more pollutants to pass through the exhaust system. Saving fuel is one potential reason that Volkswagen’s software could have been altered to make cars pollute more.

So what has this done to their company? Well first off, the EPA ordered Volkswagen to recall seven of its American car models with affected engines, which is about 600,000 vehicles. Then after word got out, investigations began in UK, Italy, France, South Korea, Canada and, of course, Germany. VW will recall 8.5 million cars in Europe, including 2.4 million in Germany and 1.2 million in the UK. So in total, about almost 12 million cars must be recalled.

Volkswagen has agreed to pay $15 billion to settle claims in the US, and that the cars must be fixed by December 2018. As part of the settlement, more than $10 billion has been set aside to buy back the roughly 475,000 Volkswagens and Audi A3 models that have 2-liter engines. And not only that, but the EPA has the power to fine a company up to $37,500 for each vehicle, for a possible max of $18 billion.

So in all, what have they lost? Besides the trust of all Volkswagen fans and the automobile industries, their stocks have plummeted. The first day after the EPA had announced about Volkswagen violation of their emission testing, share prices of Volkswagen AG fell 20% on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The next day, the shares fell another 12%. And then on the third day, it dropped a further 10.5%. And in all of this, their chief executive and head of its operations, Martin Winterkorn, has stepped down, meanwhile the company has suspended several top ranking executives.

All in all, this shows why is so important to have strong ethics in the field on engineering. They lied about their emission tests to that their cars could have better gas mileage. But of course, people found out and the company suffered greatly. If the executives and the engineers at Volkswagen had just properly built a fuel system, they wouldn’t have suffered so much losses. That’s why honesty plays such a huge role in engineering, because now they’ve lost the trust of everyone and money. If you have anything to add please leave a comment, I’ll reply as soon as I can.

Sources

Hotten, Russell. "Volkswagen: The Scandal Explained." BBC News. N.p., 10 Dec. 2015. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.

Gates, Guilbert, Jack Ewing, Karl Russell, and Derek Watkins. "Explaining Volkswagen’s Emissions Scandal." The New York Times. The New York Times, 12 Sept. 2016. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.

              "Volkswagen Emissions Scandal." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.