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I do remember reading an article which made it sound like it was all the fault of a couple of engineers. I wouldn't be surprised if VW had a hand in the publica

I do remember reading an article which made it sound like it was all the fault of a couple of engineers. I wouldn't be surprised if VW had a hand in the publication of these articles. VW probably ended up tweaking their damage-control strategy after realizing that people just wouldn't buy it. That seems to be a pretty common approach for PR damage-control; first you try to lay the blame on the most helpless people possible, if the public doesn't buy it, you have to shift the blame to progressively more senior people until the public is satisfied. That's pretty much what happened with the Watergate scandal.

usrusr 11y ago
But even those article were mostly about leaders of huge engineering departments. Here on HN (and in the article linked today), there seems to be much uproar about "blame the engineer" because "engineer" is read as the underdog "little guy in the trenches". But that uproar is completely beside the point because in the communication of VW, "engineer" has a very different meaning. There it may apply to anyone in a department that is not strictly manufacturing, marketing or organizational like finance our HR, no matter how high up in the hierarchy and no matter how little actual engineering they still do - provided they actually have the academic grade. In german, you do not get to call yourself "Ingenieur" because you are doing engineering. Academic grades take very strong precedence over job descriptions (and terminologal collisions between those two areas are strictly avoided). The only source for "blame the engineer" in the way it is read here on hacker news are some completely clueless excuses made by the CEO of Volkswagen USA, but that guy is hardly more than a glorified car dealer.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  Engineer in this context appear to mean: anybody not present in the board room or in the sales and marketing departments.
  - dagw 11y ago
    Engineer in this context appear to mean: anybody not present in the board room Which is kind of ironic since 4 out of 7 of VW's board hold technical or engineering degrees.
  - usrusr 11y ago
    Well, you would not expect their ad agency to get the blame for fraudulent engineering, would you? Do you imply a dichotomy between engineers and "board people"? The car industry is one of the last areas where top positions are routinely given to engineers who raised through the ranks, so to most of the board, an engineer isn't a "one of them" but a "one of us". From what i remember about the careers of german car CEOs, being head of engineering (still "an engineer") actually seems to be pretty close to "next in line for CEO".
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Exactly. So there is zero (and I really believe that is 0 to several decimal places) credibility to the story that they had no idea this was going on. Unless with 'a couple of engineers' they meant their board of directors... It is just about unthinkable that a C level exec would be able to tell the board and the CEO that they came up with something 'magical' that drops the emissions of that engine by a factor of 40 and it can only be done in software without someone asking why. So I fully expect them to be in on it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

usrusr 11y ago

But even those article were mostly about leaders of huge engineering departments. Here on HN (and in the article linked today), there seems to be much uproar about "blame the engineer" because "engineer" is read as the underdog "little guy in the trenches". But that uproar is completely beside the point because in the communication of VW, "engineer" has a very different meaning. There it may apply to anyone in a department that is not strictly manufacturing, marketing or organizational like finance our HR, no matter how high up in the hierarchy and no matter how little actual engineering they still do - provided they actually have the academic grade. In german, you do not get to call yourself "Ingenieur" because you are doing engineering. Academic grades take very strong precedence over job descriptions (and terminologal collisions between those two areas are strictly avoided). The only source for "blame the engineer" in the way it is read here on hacker news are some completely clueless excuses made by the CEO of Volkswagen USA, but that guy is hardly more than a glorified car dealer.

jacquesm 11y ago
Engineer in this context appear to mean: anybody not present in the board room or in the sales and marketing departments.
- dagw 11y ago
  Engineer in this context appear to mean: anybody not present in the board room Which is kind of ironic since 4 out of 7 of VW's board hold technical or engineering degrees.
- usrusr 11y ago
  Well, you would not expect their ad agency to get the blame for fraudulent engineering, would you? Do you imply a dichotomy between engineers and "board people"? The car industry is one of the last areas where top positions are routinely given to engineers who raised through the ranks, so to most of the board, an engineer isn't a "one of them" but a "one of us". From what i remember about the careers of german car CEOs, being head of engineering (still "an engineer") actually seems to be pretty close to "next in line for CEO".
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Exactly. So there is zero (and I really believe that is 0 to several decimal places) credibility to the story that they had no idea this was going on. Unless with 'a couple of engineers' they meant their board of directors... It is just about unthinkable that a C level exec would be able to tell the board and the CEO that they came up with something 'magical' that drops the emissions of that engine by a factor of 40 and it can only be done in software without someone asking why. So I fully expect them to be in on it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]