8 ms·

I am surprised that this guy hasn't been given job offers at other places. He did good things, is ethical, and is clearly skilled. It's a shame that people like

I am surprised that this guy hasn't been given job offers at other places. He did good things, is ethical, and is clearly skilled. It's a shame that people like this are not properly 'rewarded' for their good deeds. Exposing the evil of others should always be.

sundvor 7y ago
Yes. Those good things included saving scores of peoples' lives. Diesel particulates are very bad for the lungs, and he helped put a stop to so much of it. He deserved an award, not to be sent "home" after 17 - seventeen - years in the US.
- blattimwind 7y ago
  > Diesel particulates are very bad for the lungs, and he helped put a stop to so much of it. Dieselgate wasn't about particulates, and unlike petrol cars every diesel car of the last 10-15 years has a particulate filter... Now petrol cars are getting particulate filters too, because new emission standards (e.g. Euro 6c) include particulate restrictions for petrol engines, which they didn't previously have, and direct injection engines utterly exceed those restrictions.
  - gambiting 7y ago
    And yet, where I'm from(Poland) it's extremely common to have the DPF removed from a new diesel car, pretty much any workshop will do it and fit a DPF emulator instead so the computer doesn't complain. All of that to avoid a potential cost few years down the line to have the filter cleaned/replaced. I'm utterly disgusted by how common this behaviour is.
    - lb1lf 7y ago
      Wouldn't you need to have the DPF retrofitted prior to any periodic vehicle control (as mandated by the EU), pretty much neutralising any savings?
      - gambiting 7y ago
        No, to my knowledge you can pass the annual technical test without any issues even with the DPF filter removed, unless the engine has other issues and is literally emitting black smoke - the particulate emissions without the filter are not enough to trigger a fail(essentially the threshold is so fantastically high that modern diesels are far below it, dpf filter or not).
        lb1lf 7y ago
        -Oh. That was unexpected. Thanks!
        blattimwind 7y ago
        Honestly I've never heard of DPF removals before (edit: reason being mandatory car inspection usually finds this modification where I live, apparently it used to be a thing for some time and then the inspection protocol was changed). I only heard about people bypassing the AGR (exhaust recirculation), but that's independent of diesel/petrol (both have them nowadays). That being said DPF issues seem to mostly impact people who only use the car for short distances; I've lived with DPF diesel cars for ~10 years and no issues. That being said any ICE powered vehicle is completely unsuited for travelling short distances, not just from an ecology point of view. Some more than others, though, it seems.
        ergo14 7y ago
        Not anymore, since this year when you have DPF removed you will not pass the combustion quality check.
    - bluedino 7y ago
      It's not legal in the USA either, but it's very popular to do with diesel pickup trucks. Look up 'rolling coal' on YouTube
      - throwaway400 7y ago
        I wouldn't say it's very popular... I rarely see trucks that are sporting DPF deletes, though I guess if you live somewhere like Texas with an insane truck culture, it's probably more popular than elsewhere.
  - smurv 7y ago
    Strange how no one talks anymore about how much more efficient and more suited diesel engines are when it comes to everyday traffic than petrol engines. It's become all about particles, and yes, diesel is more dangerous to humans if not filtered correctly. But at the same time, diesel engines are using less fuel and there is no reason why we shouldn't use DPF when they are available. I switched to a diesel car not long ago, and I can safely say that as long diesel cars are being manufactured, I'll never go back to petrol.
    - blattimwind 7y ago
      I think for city traffic ICE cars (and more generally, cars) are just unsuited. Stop and go, very low speeds etc. are just the worst case for both fuel usage and pollution (low load = low exhaust temp = catalytic exhaust processing doesn't work properly, problem gets bigger with the engine; e.g. truck exhaust processing basically doesn't do much at all in cities). And you get a choice of "do I want to wear the engine or do I want to minimize exhaust and fuel"... For general driving I find it easier to drive a diesel for low consumption compared to petrol. I also like how diesels tend to have nice long gearing, leading to low RPMs and less noise. Pick-up from low RPMs is also quite nice, a diesel has no issues to start accelerating from, say, 1200 rpm (with practically all constant speed driving falling between 1000 and ~1600ish rpm for me, to see more you'll need the Autobahn). For petrolhead(?) purposes I have to say that diesel tend to sound like a loose bag of bolts when you rev them (which you normally won't do), obviously it's not going to sound like a race car. In that regard tiny (1 liter, 1.2 liter) non-DI, non-turbo petrol engines tend to surprise... :) though at least some of these are way worse at fuel efficiency than you'd expect.
      - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        >low load = low exhaust temp = catalytic exhaust processing doesn't work properly It's not 1970 anymore. Those cats are right behind the exhaust manifold for a reason and that reason isn't to save money on piping.
      - geggam 7y ago
        Audi A8 diesel on the autobahn is fun. Smooth ride at 250 kph :)
  - djaychela 7y ago
    "Dieselgate wasn't about particulates, and unlike petrol cars every diesel car of the last 10-15 years has a particulate filter..." Not true here in the UK - I buy and sell secondhand cars of this vintage as a side job, and not all the diesels I've seen have DPFs (I'd say it was 50% have them) - lots of models didn't have them, including quite a few vans (which pollute more due to bigger engines, lower mpg, etc). And anyone who's bought anything of this age range also knows that the DPFs are a reliability nightmare. Lots of people removed them (which is now at least tested on the MOT, although it's possible to remove it in a way that is not detected by an MOT test). But most importantly, although dieselgate wasn't about particulates, it still means getting diesels off the road, which is a good thing. If particulates had been accurately measured in vehicles after a few years, I'm sure many more would be off the road, particularly 1st gen DPF cars. The problem is that most people now equate a vehicle with a DPF as being a nightmare, and then by association don't care about the effect on the environment as the effect on their wallet is a more pressing need. Much the same as EGR valves, which are a reliability issue on most vehicles regardless of fuel. People block them off, leading to increased NOx pollution and better fuel consumption, and when it can cost hundreds of pounds to get it replaced (if it has to be calibrated to the ECU, etc, often a main dealer trip is involved), it's not surprising that this happens. The sooner we can all go electric, the better, IMO. And I say that as someone who has considerable skill and experience in repairing and maintaining ICE cars.
  - Reason077 7y ago
    Modern diesels are supposed to have particulate filters installed. Yet just yesterday, in “ultra low emission zone” Central London, I saw a Ford diesel van with a 16 plate (meaning, it’s a late-2015 Model at the earliest) spewing a cloud of black soot every time it pulled away at an intersection. It’s clear that there are still too many DPF removals going on, and lax controls about monitoring emissions from supposedly-compliant vehicles. (Motorcycles are another huge issue. They may be compliant with noise and emissions regs at the factory gate, but too many people swap the exhaust for a loud, polluting, illegal one.)
    - sundvor 7y ago
      What!? Cars/trucks that have been modded this way ought to have a mandatory crush penalty. Complete forfeiture of the asset, zero compensation. Then let's see how popular the practice would remain. Diesel cars should have a mandatory pre sale environmental inspection to root out buyers getting stuck in the 2nd hand market.
      - RankingMember 7y ago
        > Cars/trucks that have been modded this way ought to have a mandatory crush penalty. Complete forfeiture of the asset, zero compensation. I feel like you might get a wee bit of pushback on the idea of crushing people's modes of transport because they stuck a non-regulation exhaust on there. All-or-nothing regulations such as the one you propose are rarely sustainable. Even CARB (the California Air Resources Board), the bane of California automotive enthusiasts, isn't that draconian.
        sundvor 7y ago
        Why should people be allowed to act so selfishly? It would stop the practice dead in its tracks, and from then a non issue. I dare say that makes it worth it. Furthermore making it strictly illegal to perform the work would assist.
        bluGill 7y ago
  - ody4242 7y ago
    The way DPF works results in more <PM10 particulate than not having a DPF at all. (It does burn most of the soot, but results in more small particles at then end, and we know that those small particles are the ones that are causing most of the troubles in the lungs and blood stream)
    - selimthegrim 7y ago
      Can you cite anything that proves it’s worse
      - ody4242 7y ago
        Tom Denton: Automotive Technician Training: Theory page 213 no proof, just a statement though, but the same phrasing is seen all around the net, even on the DPF wikipedia page (without source though)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
tdsamardzhiev 7y ago
Perhaps other places don't want their shady practices exposed.
Xelbair 7y ago
He is ethical, and known to expose wrongdoings. No way in hell that he is getting hired in that industry.. and even if he is - no way that he'll have any kind of access to incriminating information.
- mcv 7y ago
  He should be hired by regulators. They need more people who can expose wrongdoings.
  - philpem 7y ago
    The sad fact is, the regulators are so underfunded they probably can't afford to hire him.
    - usrusr 7y ago
      Cherry on top, in a perfectly cynical (and hopefully hypothetical!) world: "After five years at the regulator, the car industry had paid him more than he would ever have earned as their employee"
  - negamax 7y ago
    Underrated comment. This seems like a great closure for this, which is a seriously embarrassing development
- navigatesol 7y ago
  >No way in hell that he is getting hired in that industry.. So you're saying that no one in the auto industry is ethical, and that they deliberately hire unethical people? Out of the millions of employees across the country and globe? Deplorables, all of them? That's rich. Silicon Valley is hypocritical and out-of-touch.
  - matz1 7y ago
    They are all ethicall, it's just might not have the same ethics as you. Ethics is relative afterall.
kenneth 7y ago
Hiring a known whistleblower is a risk not worth taking, even if you are not doing anything wrong. The risk vs. reward ratio is just too high.
- richardhod 7y ago
  It is unclear whether you approve of this decisionmaking heuristic
- cyphar 7y ago
  I am sure that this is the logic executives like to go through, but whistleblowers aren't people who compulsively reveal company secrets. They reveal secrets which the public should know about, and usually have to be very large and important in order to justify the personal risk involved. If your company is so ethically bankrupt that you can't afford the risk of someone who would only reveal things that are of critical importance to the public, then maybe you aren't the "good guys" anymore.
  - Krasnol 7y ago
    Is this a variation on "you don't need to be afraid if you have nothing to hide" thing?
    - cyphar 7y ago
      It's more like "you don't need to be afraid of whistle-blowers unless you're killing people through your actions". VW didn't make a small mistake -- their evasion of emission standards has directly resulted in thousands of preventable deaths due to air pollution (they also decided to unethically poison monkeys in order to "prove" that the gasses weren't toxic). Again, whistle-blowers don't just reveal secrets willy-nilly -- there is significant personal risk to being a whistle-blower and very few people make such decisions lightly. The thing is -- everyone has something to hide, which is why that adage is wrong. But not everyone is hiding a scheme they've cooked up to flaunt laws (and lied to regulators for years when they came knocking) which resulted in tangible deaths as a result. If you are worried that you have a scheme like that on your books, then yeah you should avoid hiring whistle-blowers.
roenxi 7y ago
Devils advocate for this one; to put a little meat on sibling comments. A whistleblower has demonstrated that there are circumstances where they will short-circuit the chain of command and attempt to attract external intervention. The only way a corporate hierarchy can react to such a person is to see them as a risk to be managed; ideally by not hiring them. Large scale corporations have hiring processes with all sorts of weird informal risk-mitigation measures built in (which is usually expressed as discrimination on weird traits). So people with that sort of whistle-blowing initiative who want to be employable need to build a strong informal network of people who will hire them because they think they understand what circumstances would trigger that behavior and that they are not present in the hiring corporation.
- richardhod 7y ago
  This may be true, but it's not how good business, corporations and executives should behave.
  - fredsir 7y ago
    When profit is king...
- bdhess 7y ago
  He’s not a whistleblower, and didn’t short circuit his management chain. FTA he was an engineering student at WVU the time, not employed by VW.
  - Ygg2 7y ago
    He has ethics, we can't allow that at our CORP. -- Some CEO probably.
    - cowsandmilk 7y ago
      Yeah, I'm sure the 4,000 person layoff was just to let go of this one engineer...
coldtea 7y ago
You'd expected them to be rewarded for doing a good ethical deed that hurts the company they were working for? I'm not sure other companies would jump to hire him, that's not how capitalism works...
- smt88 7y ago
  In some situations in the US, whistleblowers receive a portion of the money the government makes from fines. https://www.whistleblowersinternational.com/what-is-whistleblowing/rewards/ https://www.whistleblowersinternational.com/what-is-whistleb...

sundvor 7y ago

Yes. Those good things included saving scores of peoples' lives. Diesel particulates are very bad for the lungs, and he helped put a stop to so much of it. He deserved an award, not to be sent "home" after 17 - seventeen - years in the US.

blattimwind 7y ago
> Diesel particulates are very bad for the lungs, and he helped put a stop to so much of it. Dieselgate wasn't about particulates, and unlike petrol cars every diesel car of the last 10-15 years has a particulate filter... Now petrol cars are getting particulate filters too, because new emission standards (e.g. Euro 6c) include particulate restrictions for petrol engines, which they didn't previously have, and direct injection engines utterly exceed those restrictions.
- gambiting 7y ago
  And yet, where I'm from(Poland) it's extremely common to have the DPF removed from a new diesel car, pretty much any workshop will do it and fit a DPF emulator instead so the computer doesn't complain. All of that to avoid a potential cost few years down the line to have the filter cleaned/replaced. I'm utterly disgusted by how common this behaviour is.
  - lb1lf 7y ago
    Wouldn't you need to have the DPF retrofitted prior to any periodic vehicle control (as mandated by the EU), pretty much neutralising any savings?
    - gambiting 7y ago
      No, to my knowledge you can pass the annual technical test without any issues even with the DPF filter removed, unless the engine has other issues and is literally emitting black smoke - the particulate emissions without the filter are not enough to trigger a fail(essentially the threshold is so fantastically high that modern diesels are far below it, dpf filter or not).
      - lb1lf 7y ago
        -Oh. That was unexpected. Thanks!
        blattimwind 7y ago
        Honestly I've never heard of DPF removals before (edit: reason being mandatory car inspection usually finds this modification where I live, apparently it used to be a thing for some time and then the inspection protocol was changed). I only heard about people bypassing the AGR (exhaust recirculation), but that's independent of diesel/petrol (both have them nowadays). That being said DPF issues seem to mostly impact people who only use the car for short distances; I've lived with DPF diesel cars for ~10 years and no issues. That being said any ICE powered vehicle is completely unsuited for travelling short distances, not just from an ecology point of view. Some more than others, though, it seems.
      - ergo14 7y ago
        Not anymore, since this year when you have DPF removed you will not pass the combustion quality check.
  - bluedino 7y ago
    It's not legal in the USA either, but it's very popular to do with diesel pickup trucks. Look up 'rolling coal' on YouTube
    - throwaway400 7y ago
      I wouldn't say it's very popular... I rarely see trucks that are sporting DPF deletes, though I guess if you live somewhere like Texas with an insane truck culture, it's probably more popular than elsewhere.
- smurv 7y ago
  Strange how no one talks anymore about how much more efficient and more suited diesel engines are when it comes to everyday traffic than petrol engines. It's become all about particles, and yes, diesel is more dangerous to humans if not filtered correctly. But at the same time, diesel engines are using less fuel and there is no reason why we shouldn't use DPF when they are available. I switched to a diesel car not long ago, and I can safely say that as long diesel cars are being manufactured, I'll never go back to petrol.
  - blattimwind 7y ago
    I think for city traffic ICE cars (and more generally, cars) are just unsuited. Stop and go, very low speeds etc. are just the worst case for both fuel usage and pollution (low load = low exhaust temp = catalytic exhaust processing doesn't work properly, problem gets bigger with the engine; e.g. truck exhaust processing basically doesn't do much at all in cities). And you get a choice of "do I want to wear the engine or do I want to minimize exhaust and fuel"... For general driving I find it easier to drive a diesel for low consumption compared to petrol. I also like how diesels tend to have nice long gearing, leading to low RPMs and less noise. Pick-up from low RPMs is also quite nice, a diesel has no issues to start accelerating from, say, 1200 rpm (with practically all constant speed driving falling between 1000 and ~1600ish rpm for me, to see more you'll need the Autobahn). For petrolhead(?) purposes I have to say that diesel tend to sound like a loose bag of bolts when you rev them (which you normally won't do), obviously it's not going to sound like a race car. In that regard tiny (1 liter, 1.2 liter) non-DI, non-turbo petrol engines tend to surprise... :) though at least some of these are way worse at fuel efficiency than you'd expect.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      >low load = low exhaust temp = catalytic exhaust processing doesn't work properly It's not 1970 anymore. Those cats are right behind the exhaust manifold for a reason and that reason isn't to save money on piping.
    - geggam 7y ago
      Audi A8 diesel on the autobahn is fun. Smooth ride at 250 kph :)
- djaychela 7y ago
  "Dieselgate wasn't about particulates, and unlike petrol cars every diesel car of the last 10-15 years has a particulate filter..." Not true here in the UK - I buy and sell secondhand cars of this vintage as a side job, and not all the diesels I've seen have DPFs (I'd say it was 50% have them) - lots of models didn't have them, including quite a few vans (which pollute more due to bigger engines, lower mpg, etc). And anyone who's bought anything of this age range also knows that the DPFs are a reliability nightmare. Lots of people removed them (which is now at least tested on the MOT, although it's possible to remove it in a way that is not detected by an MOT test). But most importantly, although dieselgate wasn't about particulates, it still means getting diesels off the road, which is a good thing. If particulates had been accurately measured in vehicles after a few years, I'm sure many more would be off the road, particularly 1st gen DPF cars. The problem is that most people now equate a vehicle with a DPF as being a nightmare, and then by association don't care about the effect on the environment as the effect on their wallet is a more pressing need. Much the same as EGR valves, which are a reliability issue on most vehicles regardless of fuel. People block them off, leading to increased NOx pollution and better fuel consumption, and when it can cost hundreds of pounds to get it replaced (if it has to be calibrated to the ECU, etc, often a main dealer trip is involved), it's not surprising that this happens. The sooner we can all go electric, the better, IMO. And I say that as someone who has considerable skill and experience in repairing and maintaining ICE cars.
- Reason077 7y ago
  Modern diesels are supposed to have particulate filters installed. Yet just yesterday, in “ultra low emission zone” Central London, I saw a Ford diesel van with a 16 plate (meaning, it’s a late-2015 Model at the earliest) spewing a cloud of black soot every time it pulled away at an intersection. It’s clear that there are still too many DPF removals going on, and lax controls about monitoring emissions from supposedly-compliant vehicles. (Motorcycles are another huge issue. They may be compliant with noise and emissions regs at the factory gate, but too many people swap the exhaust for a loud, polluting, illegal one.)
  - sundvor 7y ago
    What!? Cars/trucks that have been modded this way ought to have a mandatory crush penalty. Complete forfeiture of the asset, zero compensation. Then let's see how popular the practice would remain. Diesel cars should have a mandatory pre sale environmental inspection to root out buyers getting stuck in the 2nd hand market.
    - RankingMember 7y ago
      > Cars/trucks that have been modded this way ought to have a mandatory crush penalty. Complete forfeiture of the asset, zero compensation. I feel like you might get a wee bit of pushback on the idea of crushing people's modes of transport because they stuck a non-regulation exhaust on there. All-or-nothing regulations such as the one you propose are rarely sustainable. Even CARB (the California Air Resources Board), the bane of California automotive enthusiasts, isn't that draconian.
      - sundvor 7y ago
        Why should people be allowed to act so selfishly? It would stop the practice dead in its tracks, and from then a non issue. I dare say that makes it worth it. Furthermore making it strictly illegal to perform the work would assist.
        bluGill 7y ago
- ody4242 7y ago
  The way DPF works results in more <PM10 particulate than not having a DPF at all. (It does burn most of the soot, but results in more small particles at then end, and we know that those small particles are the ones that are causing most of the troubles in the lungs and blood stream)
  - selimthegrim 7y ago
    Can you cite anything that proves it’s worse
    - ody4242 7y ago
      Tom Denton: Automotive Technician Training: Theory page 213 no proof, just a statement though, but the same phrasing is seen all around the net, even on the DPF wikipedia page (without source though)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

tdsamardzhiev 7y ago

Perhaps other places don't want their shady practices exposed.

Xelbair 7y ago

He is ethical, and known to expose wrongdoings. No way in hell that he is getting hired in that industry.. and even if he is - no way that he'll have any kind of access to incriminating information.

mcv 7y ago
He should be hired by regulators. They need more people who can expose wrongdoings.
- philpem 7y ago
  The sad fact is, the regulators are so underfunded they probably can't afford to hire him.
  - usrusr 7y ago
    Cherry on top, in a perfectly cynical (and hopefully hypothetical!) world: "After five years at the regulator, the car industry had paid him more than he would ever have earned as their employee"
- negamax 7y ago
  Underrated comment. This seems like a great closure for this, which is a seriously embarrassing development
navigatesol 7y ago
>No way in hell that he is getting hired in that industry.. So you're saying that no one in the auto industry is ethical, and that they deliberately hire unethical people? Out of the millions of employees across the country and globe? Deplorables, all of them? That's rich. Silicon Valley is hypocritical and out-of-touch.
- matz1 7y ago
  They are all ethicall, it's just might not have the same ethics as you. Ethics is relative afterall.

kenneth 7y ago

Hiring a known whistleblower is a risk not worth taking, even if you are not doing anything wrong. The risk vs. reward ratio is just too high.

richardhod 7y ago
It is unclear whether you approve of this decisionmaking heuristic
cyphar 7y ago
I am sure that this is the logic executives like to go through, but whistleblowers aren't people who compulsively reveal company secrets. They reveal secrets which the public should know about, and usually have to be very large and important in order to justify the personal risk involved. If your company is so ethically bankrupt that you can't afford the risk of someone who would only reveal things that are of critical importance to the public, then maybe you aren't the "good guys" anymore.
- Krasnol 7y ago
  Is this a variation on "you don't need to be afraid if you have nothing to hide" thing?
  - cyphar 7y ago
    It's more like "you don't need to be afraid of whistle-blowers unless you're killing people through your actions". VW didn't make a small mistake -- their evasion of emission standards has directly resulted in thousands of preventable deaths due to air pollution (they also decided to unethically poison monkeys in order to "prove" that the gasses weren't toxic). Again, whistle-blowers don't just reveal secrets willy-nilly -- there is significant personal risk to being a whistle-blower and very few people make such decisions lightly. The thing is -- everyone has something to hide, which is why that adage is wrong. But not everyone is hiding a scheme they've cooked up to flaunt laws (and lied to regulators for years when they came knocking) which resulted in tangible deaths as a result. If you are worried that you have a scheme like that on your books, then yeah you should avoid hiring whistle-blowers.

roenxi 7y ago

Devils advocate for this one; to put a little meat on sibling comments. A whistleblower has demonstrated that there are circumstances where they will short-circuit the chain of command and attempt to attract external intervention. The only way a corporate hierarchy can react to such a person is to see them as a risk to be managed; ideally by not hiring them. Large scale corporations have hiring processes with all sorts of weird informal risk-mitigation measures built in (which is usually expressed as discrimination on weird traits). So people with that sort of whistle-blowing initiative who want to be employable need to build a strong informal network of people who will hire them because they think they understand what circumstances would trigger that behavior and that they are not present in the hiring corporation.

richardhod 7y ago
This may be true, but it's not how good business, corporations and executives should behave.
- fredsir 7y ago
  When profit is king...
bdhess 7y ago
He’s not a whistleblower, and didn’t short circuit his management chain. FTA he was an engineering student at WVU the time, not employed by VW.
- Ygg2 7y ago
  He has ethics, we can't allow that at our CORP. -- Some CEO probably.
  - cowsandmilk 7y ago
    Yeah, I'm sure the 4,000 person layoff was just to let go of this one engineer...

coldtea 7y ago

You'd expected them to be rewarded for doing a good ethical deed that hurts the company they were working for? I'm not sure other companies would jump to hire him, that's not how capitalism works...

smt88 7y ago
In some situations in the US, whistleblowers receive a portion of the money the government makes from fines. https://www.whistleblowersinternational.com/what-is-whistleblowing/rewards/ https://www.whistleblowersinternational.com/what-is-whistleb...