7 ms·

Volkswagen, Offering Amnesty, Asks Workers to Come Forward on Emissions Cheating

61 points by hvo 11y ago

deegles 11y ago
Do they not have a source repository with commit history and code reviews with names attached? Is that something unreasonable to expect from a multi-billion dollar company?
- dboreham 11y ago
  The code was supposedly written by a vendor or subcontractor, so it could have been delivered in a "drop" to VW without commit history. Also, the story seems to have been that the "cheat" was a special mode explicitly programmed for test purposes and not something totally under the covers. The "crime" was in enabling that mode under field conditions. That change may not be covered by source code revision control, if it were made in a config file outside of SCC. In a field more of us here understand, it would be similar to coding a feature in a server that dumps user passwords to the log file in plain text. Such a feature would be useful for certain debugging situations, but it would be disastrous to have it enabled on a production box. So you'd put a big all-caps warning in the source code, documentation, example config files saying whatever you do don't turn this on in production. Supposedly the engine management developers did something along those lines, but the folks who built the cars ignored the warning and enabled the mode anyway.
  - kbenson 11y ago
    That may be, but it ignores the fact that software was written for the express purpose of not just identifying if a test was being ran, but then taking action to change the results of the test has no real world use. Any case where you would want to change engine performance has no reason to be triggered only when testing. To get both included in production as-is and turned on requires quite a series of consecutive mistakes to be considered accidental. > In a field more of us here understand, it would be similar to coding a feature in a server that dumps user passwords to the log file in plain text. No, it's like coding that feature but explicitly making it turn off whenever it detects a security review. How is that justifiable?
    - dboreham 11y ago
      Yeah, I like your continuation of my analogy. However, as I understand it, from someone I know who worked in the automotive sector a while back, all vehicles have a special emissions test mode. It exists for legitimate reasons such as you don't want to have ABS turned on when on a dyno for safety reasons. It probably also exists for less legitimate reasons arising out of the history of testing practice -- essentially that the test never has been truly representative of real road conditions, and everyone involved in the testing process knew this. That being the case, all you need then is to add one more flag to the list of "things to enable/disable under test conditions". I agree that somewhere there must be some kind of record of when and who made that configuration change though.
      - kbenson 11y ago
        Okay, I can accept there may be a legitimate reason to want to determine if a test is being run for a case like that, but that's a component that isn't related to engine performance and emissions. I'm not sure there's any case where you could legitimately want the engine performance and emissions to be different during emissions testing. In any case you want it different (for example, testing different parameters), you would also want to test it on the road.
      - oxryly1 11y ago
        These details of emissions modes and engine control software configuration could easily explain the defeat. What remains is explaining how engineering managers higher up (all the way to the top) could remain willfully ignorant of the fact that VW's diesel engines "passed" emissions without resorting to exotic tech like Mercedes' bluetec exhaust fluids. They knew there was some sort of magic in their engines that set them apart, but they either understood it was cheating, or they never asked any questions.
        dboreham 11y ago
        I suspect this will turn out to be due to some corporate mass psychosis similar to when an airliner suffers controlled flight into terrain because nobody wanted to disagree with the captain.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    Interesting. If this is the story, then VW didn't really "need" to cheat to make the cars reasonable, so they shouldn't get too much worse when patched. That would be a nice outcome. I'm still cynical.
    - andreasvc 11y ago
      I don't understand how that follows. From all I've heard, people suspect that the difference between cheating and test mode is large.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    > Such a feature would be useful for certain debugging situations, but it would be disastrous to have it enabled on a production box. I've seen that exact thing (and worse...) on a production server in some job recently. But that big all-caps warning wasn't there, the docs were absent and there was no config bit to switch on/off, I found the file more or less by accident (wondering what all the io was that ate up the machine).
- toephu2 11y ago
  VW != Silicon Valley startup.
  - dexterdog 11y ago
    He did say code reviews
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago
  This is exactly the use case for signed commits and pushes.
- branchless 11y ago
  Agreed, but this has to be more than just software. The engineers must have some idea of emissions then suddenly it's not a problem any more? And they just think "that's lucky".
johansch 11y ago
I am impressed.
100k 11y ago
Shouldn't it be the US and German governments that are offering amnesty from criminal prosecution for Volkswagen whistleblowers?
- powera 11y ago
  Yeah. This seems like a calculated way for Volkswagen to make sure that nobody comes forward with anything, to "prove" that nothing else is happening. I mean, they even say you may still face criminal charges for coming forward.
- walshemj 11y ago
  Though playing devils advocate here should not the civil servants and politicians who pushed diesel over petrol (and to hell with the known health risks) be in the dock. I recall Mrs Thatcher queried this.
- kuschku 11y ago
  First, the US government has no power. Yes, they stole the passport of a VW manager[1], but VW since decided to instantly get all their people out of the US. But practically, since that, they have zero power. Second, the German government is the largest external shareholder of VW[2] – so you can assume that this action was made under acceptance of the government. [1] http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/sueddeutsche-usa-wollen-manager-von-vw-nicht-ausreisen-lassen-a-1061671.html http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/sueddeutsche-us... [2] Well, the largest shareholder of VW is Porsche Group. The largest shareholder of that is VW. It’s complicated. Effectively, most of it belongs to the Porsche/Piech family and the German government.
DougN7 11y ago
I don't get it. How many people could possibly have worked on that software? Surely less than a dozen. Why doesn't someone create a throw away email account and send an email? Better yet, why didn't they before the software shipped?
mtgx 11y ago
The best way for VW to come "clean" (sort of speak) out of this is to promise to everyone, including the governments, that they will be replacing all of their new models with EVs by 2025 (at least the street cars).
- kuschku 11y ago
  Well, they already promised (a) to refit all the cars without performance losses, (b) pay all fees and fines the car owners might face, (c) offer every single of their models as electric by 2020. Now, if the German government is going to make the cars exempt from the 0.26 € per kWh electricity tax, they will be cheaper than gas, too.
mapster 11y ago
I hope they paste these amnesty notices in the board room and exec offices.
oxryly1 11y ago
Amnesty? Pressuring employees to "snitch"? Are you kidding me? This is just blatant scapegoating. Your cars cheated on emissions test because you willfully ignored a decade of evidence! This is a case of pervasive organizational intent. You saw no evil, heard no evil, and spoke no evil, from the top management on down. Even the government regulators participated. This is such bullshit.
- eeZi 11y ago
  Well, the CEO stepped down and multiple managers were suspended. New management might actually want to know, not find someone to blame.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Exactly. It’s useful to know who of your managers was responsible for what so you can use that in court against them.
- MBCook 11y ago
  At this point they seem to be simply trying to figure out how all this happened and went on for so long. I don't think I'd take it. The article says you can still be transferred to a different department or given different duties, and they can't insulate you from criminal charges.
  - krapp 11y ago
    > At this point they seem to be simply trying to figure out how all this happened and went on for so long. "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!"
    - dredmorbius 11y ago
      Your emissions testing reports, sir.
- calinet6 11y ago
ocfx 11y ago
Hey is the same type of reply you get from businesses found guilty of abusing animals for slaughter. Blame it on the employees and the company assumes no accountability.
teddyh 11y ago
I don’t understand what “Amnesty” would mean in this context. We are used to governments offering amnesty, but that is specifically amnesty from prosecution, and a normal citizen does not otherwise have much interation with the state in their daily lives. According to the article, VW workers are being offered amnesty from being “fired or [facing] damage claims”. However, there are very many ways in which VW could make workers’ lives a living hell without firing them, since employees by definition interact with VW all day, every day. VW would have to enumerate every one of those bad things they could do and promise not do it, which is, of course, impossible. This feels like an empty promise.
- lyschoening 11y ago
  There's no reason for anyone in upper management to trust this offer, but I don't see why VW would harass any normal employees coming forward over this. VW has a good relationship with its workers and a strong works council and they need their full support at this time.
  - teddyh 11y ago
    If that were so obviously true as you make it out to be, VW wouldn’t have needed to even offer this “amnesty” to begin with – employees would have felt free to come forward without fear of being fired. Since VW did offer this “amnesty”, this is clearly not the case. Therefore, somewhat paradoxically, since VW have made the offer, it is an empty one.
    - gohrt 11y ago
      Not quite. Before amnesty, we have a case where coming forward may meed confessing to being complicit in misbehavior, which could be rightfully punished. Amnesty says that that won't exercise that right.
      - teddyh 11y ago
        No it doesn’t. Amnesty, in this case, is limited to amnesty from being “fired or [facing] damage claims”. Nothing else.
draw_down 11y ago
Oh give me a break. Company makes the money, company takes the responsibility. Not the employees.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
noonespecial 11y ago
So this German company's management says it was those lousy employees that did it and the employees say they were just following orders... wait, why'd my Godwin meter just peg?
- kuschku 11y ago
  No, the management was completely suspended. 10 board members and 2 CEOs were suspended or resigned over this. The new CEO and board just want to collect evidence whom of the board gave the order (and thereby can be sued in court for damages)
SherlockBeagle 11y ago
Lying to a federal official can land you in prison. (Ask Martha Stewart) Someone programmed these cars to 'lie' to the Feds. This caused damage to the environment and these cars dropped in resale value as a result, erasing millions of dollars of value from personal balance sheets. Someone (not the shareholders paying a fine) should be held personally responsible and face criminal prosecution.
- kuschku 11y ago
  That’s exactly why 2 CEOs resigned and 10 top managers were suspended. This amnesty seems to be – from what I get from the media – something the new CEO wants to be able to collect evidence against his predecessors.
  - developer1 11y ago
    The new CEO wants to collect evidence? The new CEO is a puppet for the board of directors. The CEO doesn't care, he's just there as a public face to play pretend that the company cares.
jacquesm 11y ago
It's getting worse every day for VW it seems. First a limited range of diesel engines, then a whole bunch more, then the gasoline engines. Now this very transparent ploy at distancing. I hope they do realize that it isn't fooling anybody and that if nobody steps forward it doesn't prove a thing. They're in heap of trouble. It's interesting how those 'workers' had absolutely nothing to gain except continued employment from this whole saga and the VW management and stockholders had lots to gain. If anything there should be whole slew of emails documenting this feature and its reasons for existence and who authorized this. VW 'asking' is tantamount to them saying they still don't know how this whole thing happened which is fairly incredible. It's quite something to watch an industry giant flail like this, when Mercedes had their A-class debacle they got the story under control relatively quickly, VW seems to go from a certain level of bad to something even worse every time I read the news.
- sounds 11y ago
  I think the key bit with this news is that they're doubling down on "the employees snuck this by us. We had no idea. Absolutely no clue whatsoever. Pinkie swear." They may even be able to "find" an employee who has some kind of plausible story. The reality is that most auto manufacturers cheat on emissions tests in europe. Mechanics who work on the cars know it. Even the regulators are hesitant to reform emissions testing. The silver lining is that perhaps an actual improvement in emissions is happening, with the EPA adding road-testing to their emissions test suite.
  - draw_down 11y ago
    > I think the key bit with this news is that they're doubling down on "the employees snuck this by us. We had no idea. Absolutely no clue whatsoever. Pinkie swear." > They may even be able to "find" an employee who has some kind of plausible story. Maybe! But then they are just claiming to be incompetent as an auto engineering organization, rather than malicious. An interesting choice.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    It won't be long before their email servers are going to be impounded. I assume they've long since been scrubbed of evidence but then there are the backups. It's going to be very tough to keep that house of cards standing if it isn't grounded in fact. Personally I wouldn't write a line of code like that even when authorized by management, I'd rather resign (but then again that's a argued from a position of relative luxury), but I hope that German programmers working for VW or Bosch would want to see some very explicit authorization that this is exactly what it is they are supposed to make with a note to the effect that they believe this is not legal or ethical or both. If not they may very well end up holding the bag, I have no doubt that this thing will be researched to the bottom.
protomyth 11y ago
I see Chevy when advertising their new diesel Colorado put great emphasis on the validity of the testing it underwent. I'm still at a bit of a loss on this whole rogue employee scenario. I'm a little more concerned about the rest of the software if this is true.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
forinti 11y ago
Either management is behind this, or they created the incentive for it to happen. They can't escape their responsibility; nobody would do it without a reason.
datashovel 11y ago
I think one of the biggest tells would be if the VW cars with the software issues weren't equipped well enough to deal with the emissions regulations. In other words, if the cars provably did not have the right equipment to meet emissions requirements, AND had the software issues, I think this would prove beyond reasonable doubt that VW was maliciously trying to circumvent the tests.
jld89 11y ago
It must be a witch hunt at VW right now... Not that any witches exist of course, just for a scapegoat.

61 points by hvo 11y ago

Do they not have a source repository with commit history and code reviews with names attached? Is that something unreasonable to expect from a multi-billion dollar company?

dboreham 11y ago
The code was supposedly written by a vendor or subcontractor, so it could have been delivered in a "drop" to VW without commit history. Also, the story seems to have been that the "cheat" was a special mode explicitly programmed for test purposes and not something totally under the covers. The "crime" was in enabling that mode under field conditions. That change may not be covered by source code revision control, if it were made in a config file outside of SCC. In a field more of us here understand, it would be similar to coding a feature in a server that dumps user passwords to the log file in plain text. Such a feature would be useful for certain debugging situations, but it would be disastrous to have it enabled on a production box. So you'd put a big all-caps warning in the source code, documentation, example config files saying whatever you do don't turn this on in production. Supposedly the engine management developers did something along those lines, but the folks who built the cars ignored the warning and enabled the mode anyway.
- kbenson 11y ago
  That may be, but it ignores the fact that software was written for the express purpose of not just identifying if a test was being ran, but then taking action to change the results of the test has no real world use. Any case where you would want to change engine performance has no reason to be triggered only when testing. To get both included in production as-is and turned on requires quite a series of consecutive mistakes to be considered accidental. > In a field more of us here understand, it would be similar to coding a feature in a server that dumps user passwords to the log file in plain text. No, it's like coding that feature but explicitly making it turn off whenever it detects a security review. How is that justifiable?
  - dboreham 11y ago
    Yeah, I like your continuation of my analogy. However, as I understand it, from someone I know who worked in the automotive sector a while back, all vehicles have a special emissions test mode. It exists for legitimate reasons such as you don't want to have ABS turned on when on a dyno for safety reasons. It probably also exists for less legitimate reasons arising out of the history of testing practice -- essentially that the test never has been truly representative of real road conditions, and everyone involved in the testing process knew this. That being the case, all you need then is to add one more flag to the list of "things to enable/disable under test conditions". I agree that somewhere there must be some kind of record of when and who made that configuration change though.
    - kbenson 11y ago
      Okay, I can accept there may be a legitimate reason to want to determine if a test is being run for a case like that, but that's a component that isn't related to engine performance and emissions. I'm not sure there's any case where you could legitimately want the engine performance and emissions to be different during emissions testing. In any case you want it different (for example, testing different parameters), you would also want to test it on the road.
    - oxryly1 11y ago
      These details of emissions modes and engine control software configuration could easily explain the defeat. What remains is explaining how engineering managers higher up (all the way to the top) could remain willfully ignorant of the fact that VW's diesel engines "passed" emissions without resorting to exotic tech like Mercedes' bluetec exhaust fluids. They knew there was some sort of magic in their engines that set them apart, but they either understood it was cheating, or they never asked any questions.
      - dboreham 11y ago
        I suspect this will turn out to be due to some corporate mass psychosis similar to when an airliner suffers controlled flight into terrain because nobody wanted to disagree with the captain.
- superuser2 11y ago
  Interesting. If this is the story, then VW didn't really "need" to cheat to make the cars reasonable, so they shouldn't get too much worse when patched. That would be a nice outcome. I'm still cynical.
  - andreasvc 11y ago
    I don't understand how that follows. From all I've heard, people suspect that the difference between cheating and test mode is large.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > Such a feature would be useful for certain debugging situations, but it would be disastrous to have it enabled on a production box. I've seen that exact thing (and worse...) on a production server in some job recently. But that big all-caps warning wasn't there, the docs were absent and there was no config bit to switch on/off, I found the file more or less by accident (wondering what all the io was that ate up the machine).
toephu2 11y ago
VW != Silicon Valley startup.
- dexterdog 11y ago
  He did say code reviews
ThrustVectoring 11y ago
This is exactly the use case for signed commits and pushes.
branchless 11y ago
Agreed, but this has to be more than just software. The engineers must have some idea of emissions then suddenly it's not a problem any more? And they just think "that's lucky".

johansch 11y ago

I am impressed.

100k 11y ago

Shouldn't it be the US and German governments that are offering amnesty from criminal prosecution for Volkswagen whistleblowers?

powera 11y ago
Yeah. This seems like a calculated way for Volkswagen to make sure that nobody comes forward with anything, to "prove" that nothing else is happening. I mean, they even say you may still face criminal charges for coming forward.
walshemj 11y ago
Though playing devils advocate here should not the civil servants and politicians who pushed diesel over petrol (and to hell with the known health risks) be in the dock. I recall Mrs Thatcher queried this.
kuschku 11y ago
First, the US government has no power. Yes, they stole the passport of a VW manager[1], but VW since decided to instantly get all their people out of the US. But practically, since that, they have zero power. Second, the German government is the largest external shareholder of VW[2] – so you can assume that this action was made under acceptance of the government. [1] http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/sueddeutsche-usa-wollen-manager-von-vw-nicht-ausreisen-lassen-a-1061671.html http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/sueddeutsche-us... [2] Well, the largest shareholder of VW is Porsche Group. The largest shareholder of that is VW. It’s complicated. Effectively, most of it belongs to the Porsche/Piech family and the German government.

DougN7 11y ago

I don't get it. How many people could possibly have worked on that software? Surely less than a dozen. Why doesn't someone create a throw away email account and send an email? Better yet, why didn't they before the software shipped?

mtgx 11y ago

The best way for VW to come "clean" (sort of speak) out of this is to promise to everyone, including the governments, that they will be replacing all of their new models with EVs by 2025 (at least the street cars).

kuschku 11y ago
Well, they already promised (a) to refit all the cars without performance losses, (b) pay all fees and fines the car owners might face, (c) offer every single of their models as electric by 2020. Now, if the German government is going to make the cars exempt from the 0.26 € per kWh electricity tax, they will be cheaper than gas, too.

mapster 11y ago

I hope they paste these amnesty notices in the board room and exec offices.

oxryly1 11y ago

Amnesty? Pressuring employees to "snitch"? Are you kidding me? This is just blatant scapegoating. Your cars cheated on emissions test because you willfully ignored a decade of evidence! This is a case of pervasive organizational intent. You saw no evil, heard no evil, and spoke no evil, from the top management on down. Even the government regulators participated. This is such bullshit.

eeZi 11y ago
Well, the CEO stepped down and multiple managers were suspended. New management might actually want to know, not find someone to blame.
- kuschku 11y ago
  Exactly. It’s useful to know who of your managers was responsible for what so you can use that in court against them.
MBCook 11y ago
At this point they seem to be simply trying to figure out how all this happened and went on for so long. I don't think I'd take it. The article says you can still be transferred to a different department or given different duties, and they can't insulate you from criminal charges.
- krapp 11y ago
  > At this point they seem to be simply trying to figure out how all this happened and went on for so long. "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!"
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    Your emissions testing reports, sir.
calinet6 11y ago

ocfx 11y ago

Hey is the same type of reply you get from businesses found guilty of abusing animals for slaughter. Blame it on the employees and the company assumes no accountability.

teddyh 11y ago

I don’t understand what “Amnesty” would mean in this context. We are used to governments offering amnesty, but that is specifically amnesty from prosecution, and a normal citizen does not otherwise have much interation with the state in their daily lives. According to the article, VW workers are being offered amnesty from being “fired or [facing] damage claims”. However, there are very many ways in which VW could make workers’ lives a living hell without firing them, since employees by definition interact with VW all day, every day. VW would have to enumerate every one of those bad things they could do and promise not do it, which is, of course, impossible. This feels like an empty promise.

lyschoening 11y ago
There's no reason for anyone in upper management to trust this offer, but I don't see why VW would harass any normal employees coming forward over this. VW has a good relationship with its workers and a strong works council and they need their full support at this time.
- teddyh 11y ago
  If that were so obviously true as you make it out to be, VW wouldn’t have needed to even offer this “amnesty” to begin with – employees would have felt free to come forward without fear of being fired. Since VW did offer this “amnesty”, this is clearly not the case. Therefore, somewhat paradoxically, since VW have made the offer, it is an empty one.
  - gohrt 11y ago
    Not quite. Before amnesty, we have a case where coming forward may meed confessing to being complicit in misbehavior, which could be rightfully punished. Amnesty says that that won't exercise that right.
    - teddyh 11y ago
      No it doesn’t. Amnesty, in this case, is limited to amnesty from being “fired or [facing] damage claims”. Nothing else.

draw_down 11y ago

Oh give me a break. Company makes the money, company takes the responsibility. Not the employees.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

noonespecial 11y ago

So this German company's management says it was those lousy employees that did it and the employees say they were just following orders... wait, why'd my Godwin meter just peg?

kuschku 11y ago
No, the management was completely suspended. 10 board members and 2 CEOs were suspended or resigned over this. The new CEO and board just want to collect evidence whom of the board gave the order (and thereby can be sued in court for damages)

SherlockBeagle 11y ago

Lying to a federal official can land you in prison. (Ask Martha Stewart) Someone programmed these cars to 'lie' to the Feds. This caused damage to the environment and these cars dropped in resale value as a result, erasing millions of dollars of value from personal balance sheets. Someone (not the shareholders paying a fine) should be held personally responsible and face criminal prosecution.

kuschku 11y ago
That’s exactly why 2 CEOs resigned and 10 top managers were suspended. This amnesty seems to be – from what I get from the media – something the new CEO wants to be able to collect evidence against his predecessors.
- developer1 11y ago
  The new CEO wants to collect evidence? The new CEO is a puppet for the board of directors. The CEO doesn't care, he's just there as a public face to play pretend that the company cares.

jacquesm 11y ago

It's getting worse every day for VW it seems. First a limited range of diesel engines, then a whole bunch more, then the gasoline engines. Now this very transparent ploy at distancing. I hope they do realize that it isn't fooling anybody and that if nobody steps forward it doesn't prove a thing. They're in heap of trouble. It's interesting how those 'workers' had absolutely nothing to gain except continued employment from this whole saga and the VW management and stockholders had lots to gain. If anything there should be whole slew of emails documenting this feature and its reasons for existence and who authorized this. VW 'asking' is tantamount to them saying they still don't know how this whole thing happened which is fairly incredible. It's quite something to watch an industry giant flail like this, when Mercedes had their A-class debacle they got the story under control relatively quickly, VW seems to go from a certain level of bad to something even worse every time I read the news.

sounds 11y ago
I think the key bit with this news is that they're doubling down on "the employees snuck this by us. We had no idea. Absolutely no clue whatsoever. Pinkie swear." They may even be able to "find" an employee who has some kind of plausible story. The reality is that most auto manufacturers cheat on emissions tests in europe. Mechanics who work on the cars know it. Even the regulators are hesitant to reform emissions testing. The silver lining is that perhaps an actual improvement in emissions is happening, with the EPA adding road-testing to their emissions test suite.
- draw_down 11y ago
  > I think the key bit with this news is that they're doubling down on "the employees snuck this by us. We had no idea. Absolutely no clue whatsoever. Pinkie swear." > They may even be able to "find" an employee who has some kind of plausible story. Maybe! But then they are just claiming to be incompetent as an auto engineering organization, rather than malicious. An interesting choice.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  It won't be long before their email servers are going to be impounded. I assume they've long since been scrubbed of evidence but then there are the backups. It's going to be very tough to keep that house of cards standing if it isn't grounded in fact. Personally I wouldn't write a line of code like that even when authorized by management, I'd rather resign (but then again that's a argued from a position of relative luxury), but I hope that German programmers working for VW or Bosch would want to see some very explicit authorization that this is exactly what it is they are supposed to make with a note to the effect that they believe this is not legal or ethical or both. If not they may very well end up holding the bag, I have no doubt that this thing will be researched to the bottom.

protomyth 11y ago

I see Chevy when advertising their new diesel Colorado put great emphasis on the validity of the testing it underwent. I'm still at a bit of a loss on this whole rogue employee scenario. I'm a little more concerned about the rest of the software if this is true.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

forinti 11y ago

Either management is behind this, or they created the incentive for it to happen. They can't escape their responsibility; nobody would do it without a reason.

datashovel 11y ago

I think one of the biggest tells would be if the VW cars with the software issues weren't equipped well enough to deal with the emissions regulations. In other words, if the cars provably did not have the right equipment to meet emissions requirements, AND had the software issues, I think this would prove beyond reasonable doubt that VW was maliciously trying to circumvent the tests.

jld89 11y ago

It must be a witch hunt at VW right now... Not that any witches exist of course, just for a scapegoat.