It would seem there was a lot of loyalty of some kind at VW. Otherwise how do you explain the conspiracy working? One person could have blown the whistle, but no one did. And to pull this off a substantial number of people would have to have been involved. It's not done with just one or two rogue employees.
If you got such an inference from that statement you're f***ed up. But we already knew that. Go soak your head, asshole.
Per Don Y:
I guess there are a number of ways, but the one that jumps into my mind first is this:
- Executive A issues an edict to his underlings: "Get this TDI engine ready for market by such-and-such an arbitrary date or people are going to lose their jobs. No excuses, just *do* it."
- Somebody further down on the food chain realizes that it's not possible to make that date and panic sets in.
- Somebody on the programming side comes up with the idea of turning emission control off except when hooked up to an emissions test machine.
- The code gets written, the code works, Executive A is placated, and nobody loses their job.
- Fast forward N months or years.... and the guys who actually did it have been seeking employment elsewhere - before the whole thing blows up.
- Executive A got his quarterly bonus for "Bringing the engine to market on time" and, since he has plausible deniability, he retires to a gated community with it's own golf course - on more money per year than most of us will earn in a lifetime.
Call me paranoid.... but that's how I think.
You pretty much nailed it.
IIRC, the executives in the China melamine case had the courtesy to commit suicide. Save all that court costs and prison time.
So exec. A is responsible whatever his underlings did. Top guy is always responsible. He must go to jail and serve hard time and become convict.
You know damned well what he meant but yet you took the time to criticize. Nice. Makes your mother proud.
Yeah, but he got caught. He had to quit and at his age, he may only have enough money to to have to get by with his yacht and only one vacation home.
Per Tony Hwang:
True, but you and I know he will not, right?
Right, at GM or Toyota no one went to jail even tho their problem caused loss of lives. GM and Toyota ignored issues. At least VW problem did not kill but they cheated on purpose.
Per Tony Hwang:
There was an interesting article in the May 4th New Yorker that explored automobile recalls and non-recalls from an engineer's perspective.
My takeaway: the news media's gross oversimplification of stories about automobile defects/recalls borders on demagoguery/disinformation.
The article is now online at
My latest fantasy of what I'd do if I had beau coups bucks is that:
First: I'd hire a bunch of experts to develop five curricula for courses in "Critical Thinking": Grade School, Junior High School, High School, Community College, and College.
Second: I'd hire the same guys that the Koch Brothers use to disinformationalize topics like global warming to legitimize those curricula and get them recognized as part of the basic teacher/student learning regimen along with math, English, science, and so-forth
Third: I'd start grass-roots organizations dedicated to getting those curricula into schools.
I'd *start* with the journalists! For whatever reason (bad training, market forces, etc.) *they* seem to have "checked out" completely wrt "critical thinking"! Cripes, you hear the sort of reports they make and interview questions they ask and have to wonder: do these people know how to connect dots?? Make inferences? Generate original thought??
As I do these sort of things for a living, it's hard to imagine that any "non-garage-shop" organization would have a "lone wolf" who could implement (and subsequently *hide*) this sort of implementation.
Typically, you have "code reviews" where your peers (perhaps even from other groups in the organization, "safety", "legal", etc. look through what you've done with a critical eye:
- how have you addressed contingency X
- what if Y proves to be untrue
- how do we verify your code operates AS SPECIFIED
- how do we BREAK it
While it's conceivable that the engineers will know how the "quality" guys will eventually do their emissions certification at "sell off", will they also know how this is done post-sale?
Did the guy/guys who wrote the nefarious code "move on" to some other job? If so, has NO ONE ever looked at it, again? (unlikely!) If so, how was the portion of the code that effectively disables the emission controls NOT detected? I.e., as a maintenance engineer, you would have access to the actual source code. You can see what the code is actually
*doing*. And, any description (commentary) about *why* it is doing those things. You'd have to be incredibly inept not to notice something fishy.That suggests the perpetrator(s) remained on hand to maintain the deception?
In "stock car" racing, one of the requirements is that the engine must not be "modified" from the original factory specifications. In fact, engines are *frequently* modified -- though always left "within specifications". And, made to look as if they were originally manufactured exactly as such!
This practice is grey area, at best. *Technically*, a car could come off the assembly line *exactly* as the modified car exists (AFTER MODIFICATION). The sleaziness comes in the fact that the owner has rigged that "random lottery" -- instead of waiting for a car with a particular set of characteristics to drop into his lap, he's taken a "random" car and tweaked it to *be* that "exception".
Lots of people are complicit in these acts. While technically disallowed, it could be argued that it is entirely within the
*spirit* of the rules!
Add to that list of orders the EPA ordering higher pollution standards and Congress ordering every higher arbitrary CAFE standards. The latter has already lead to some bad things that we're all paying for. As an example, BMW is using a complex variable speed radiator fan, instead of a simple one speed one, to save some energy. The downside is the variable speed fan has electronics in the fan which goes in the worst possible environment. Consequently they fail frequently, cost $450 and are difficult to replace.
Another example is BMW has gone to mostly or only charging the battery when the car is coasting. That's lead to the need to register the new battery with the car computer, meaning you can longer just go the local auto parts store to get it replaced. Not sure I buy that, maybe they did the battery registration thing to sell you the battery themselves, but it's what BMW claims, ie that the computer needs to know that there is a new battery and it's characteristics. Even better, this charging while coasting apparently results in the batteries not being charged enough, putting strain on the batteries. So much so that with their flagship twin turbo V8, they now call for a new battery to be put in at every oil change. Fortunately they cover that under the maintenance for new vehicles, but after that, you're gonna pay. Problem that makes it worse for those cars is they have a cooling system that stays on after the car is shut off to cool the turbos down. Between that and only charging while coasting, the batteries get screwed fast.
I'm sure there are plenty of other examples like that, where car manufacturers are squeezing .001 MPG out of something. So, collectively we wind up getting a couple MPG more, but paying 10x what we save on gas in increased upfront costs and maintenance costs.
You know what happens to whistleblowers, right? Instant unemployment in the vast, vast majority of cases. Plus, they're blackballed within that industry. NOBODY will hire a snitch. And NOBODY believes a 'disgruntled employee' which is how their employer will describe them after the media gets the story. Worse, all of you outsiders will believe the company's claim that it is just a disgruntled employee making up shit.
That's why the US has whistleblower protection laws in place, but in reality they help very little. After all, once you've blown the whistle, your superiors are simply not going to like you or want you around. Even if they don't fire you, they will make your work life a living hell until you give up and quit.
At some point, people who find themselves in this position have to choose between their current/future employment prospects and doing the right thing. Doing the right thing is always simple and obvious when it's someone else in the hotseat. When it's yourself, and you suddenly realize all the personal repercussions - losing your job, losing friends, losing references, fights with your spouse ("Why did you have to do that? Couldn't you see what it would do to our family?") it is perfectly understandable why most people in these circumstances just shut up and go along. If they really can't stand it, they'll find another job and quit.
Sounds like bad engineering, to me. No reason the electronics
*need* to be in the fan. They *chose* to put them in the fan, trading installation/manufacturing costs for repair costs. Buyers *see* the manufacturing costs (in the price of the vehicle) but don't see the repair costs -- until they've made the purchase.Does the battery come with characterization data that is somehow conveyed to the ECU at installation? Or, does the ECU *learn* the characteristics of the battery at/after installation? In the latter case, there's no reason the ECU can't learn the characteristics of a non-BMW-supplied battery -- so long as the replacement was made to the same standards as the BMW replacement.
I looked at a company that made medical instruments. Their instrument required distilled water as part of its process. So, the company sold distilled water in special (expensive) cartridges. Do they think a lab doesn't have access to distilled water from other, cheaper sources? Does HP think folks can't find printer ink from other sources of equal quality??
Battery cable disconnected -- then reconnected: initiate new battery characterization procedure. (yawn)
Twin turbo. Obviously designed to be fuel efficient vehicle, right? Sort of like my neighbor's 'vette?
They're pinching pennies on battery charging -- but throwing in all sorts of electronics that drivers don't want or use (automatic parking systems, navigation, fancy audio systems, in-vehicle internet routers, web browsers, etc.). Adding weight for features that have little value to many users -- yet requiring them to be *standard* (moonroofs, power liftgates. power seats, power windows, etc.). Headlights that stay on *after* you've exited the vehicle?
If they were *so* concerned with MPG, they'd bias their fleet offerings towards products that didn't carry all this extra weight around or extra electronics, etc. Instead of educating their customers as to why these features are NOT present, they're piling on even more and trying to pitch them to their customers as if they were "essential". (and, in many cases, not giving the customer the option of eliding them!)
I recall doing tuneups *frequently* back in the 70's. And oil changes. And replacing mufflers, wires, plugs, caps, rotors, coolant, belts, hoses, etc. Most of those activities have been made far less frequent.
Folks in Calif might notice some differences in the color of the air they breathe in the decades since then!
Our last vehicle cost us just over $1,000 in maintenance/repairs over the course of the 13 years that we drove it -- and most of that was for new rubber. It wasn't uncommon to drop that sort of money into a single repair on an "earlier vintage" vehicle!
You can "fix" the problem, somewhat, by delaying compensation to the higher ups in an organization. E.g., give them a cash salary equal to that of their "average" employee. The rest of their compensation paid in stock -- that can not be executed (is held in trust on their behalf; it's not even a tangible asset for them!) for 10 years from the date of the "paycheck".
Make short-term decisions that hurt the company in the long run? Well, your "deferred compensation" will reflect that and *you* will bear a large portion of those costs! Make *smart*, long-term decisions and you will reap the rewards!
I.e., remove the incentive to focus on the short-term, "quick fix" (which inevitably comes at the expense of long term health).
Or, change the tax laws regarding investments so anything short term is treated as regular income. (how can you call something with a
1-3 year timeframe an "investment decision"? What do you call folks making "investments" in education - far longer timespans??)
A few anonymous letters to the EPA and EU regulators and some newspapers would likely have been all that was required. It would be very easy to determine if the allegation was true, by a simple test.
Another nutty idea. How would you like it if they paid you that way? Or to be bound to stock that you can't touch for 10 years and could be screwed by a depression, poor future management, etc. As usual, the "fix" is worse than the problem.
They already are. Wise up before you start fixing problems that don't exist.
(how can you call something with a
A one or three year CD isn't an investment now? Or how about my brother wants to start a business, so I make a loan or take an equity position for 3 years. That's not an investment? Good grief.
What do you call folks
Liars mostly, because that's actually spending.
Why wouldn't I? I'd receive cash *today* in an amount that was
*apparently* "good enough" for all the other folks in the organization to live on (or, is the CEO screwing over his workers and paying them LESS than a living wage??). If this wasn't my *first* job, I'd have deferred income from the job(s) prior to it that was elevating my *actual* pay to a level above what the other folks in my current organization were making -- and my *wise* efforts in my current position would "pay dividends" (so to speak) when those future stocks became payable. If I'd truly made good decisions at this (and previous) positions, my stock would be on an *upward* trajectory (unless my replacement was an idiot).Can you think of another way to avoid REWARDING short-sighted decisions? A bank robber makes excellent short-term decisions: as long as he doesn't get SHOT while committing the crime, his IMMEDIATE REWARDS are substantial!
Would you advocate retroactively prosecuting past corporate officers for all malfeasance committed while they were in office? Even if they weren't directly to blame (Hey, you're an officer! That's one of the risks you take!!)? Or, even just *fining* them? (Gee, sorry, but I've already spent the money...)
Yeah, and what we have now is SO GREAT! How many scandals can *you* recall in YOUR lifetime that were driven by short-term goals? Imagine what would have happened to the folks at Enron had they not been paid until AFTER their scandal was disclosed. Ooops!
How is a depression in the future any better/worse than a depression today? Or, are you claiming CEO's should be innoculated against losses? And, only Average Joes should be at the risk of The Market??
"I got mine. Tough luck for you!"
Investment income carries LESS of a tax burden than EARNED (as in, "through direct efforts/actions"). E.g., an "investor" sees a tax rate often 10 percent less than a "worker". If you're in the 39% tax bracket, your gains are taxed at *20%*! Only "short term" capital gains are taxed as "ordinary income". (we'll ingore carried interest, here)
So, how do you benefit from these preferential LONG TERM tax rates? Ah, hold onto an asset for "more than a year"! Wow! And we consider that an *investment* worthy of preferential tax treatment? To the tune of reducing the tax rate by HALF?? So, if I make a *truly* long term "investment", should the government PAY ME instead of taxing me? Or, do I just get the same treatment as if I'd held onto it for a year or two??
(what incentive do I have to make ANY long term decisions??)
You might want to talk to a tax accountant to see just how perverse the tax laws actually are! "Wise up"
In the tax laws, it's considered "long term". A CEO making decisions with 1 year timeframes is similarly thought of as making "long term" decisions. Cheating an emissions test and expecting NOT to get caught in that year looks like a WISE CHOICE -- in terms of the financial consequences!
Most folks own *cars* for longer periods than the "short term" period. You're starting to sound like Charlie Brown...
So, "spending" on an education is a silly thing for a doctor, lawyer, etc. to do. He should, instead, invest in financial instruments with 1 year time periods and reap those rewards from the monies he would have SPENT on his education.
Loaning your brother money is an investment. Anything else is an *expense*?
(sigh) Yup. Partisan. I can see why others find spots in their killfiles for you...
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