The International Council On Clean Transportation

Volkswagen is one of the largest automakers in the world and it has a global reputation as a high-quality German auto brand. Social responsibility is included in VW’s corporate culture and it seems that Volkswagen made some advances in Corporate Social Responsibility because the corporation was ranked 11th 2015 in the Global CSR Rep Track 100, which listed companies by reputation (Reputation Institute, 2015).However, the company has been threatened by an emission scandal which broke in September 2015, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disclosed that Volkswagen had installed defeat devices on diesel cars which were sold in the US. These devices equipped on VW cars cheated regulators in such a way that it could detect

The mistrust between the Volkswagen Company and their customers developed after the scandal associated with the incorrect emission of data and cheating of the system unfolded.  The scandal occurred on the eighteenth of September 2015 when it was found that the company had made a car with a turbo that released emission directly into the real word atmosphere. The allegations were genuine and were proved by the Environment Protection Agency in the United States (EPA) (Hotten, 2016).The chief

Volkswagen company put sensors in the emission component, so when tested, the examiner sees that the car meets emission standards. But because the sensors are to meet U.S emission standards, the car itself can be modified to ignore the sensor’s override and make the car believe it was in use. TFL motors was curious about the scam, so they decided to put a Jetta TDI turbo diesel on an AWD Dyno, to confuse the car into thinking it’s on the street, not being checked for emissions. Being in emissions mode, the AWD dyno lost horsepower and torque, but without the sensors active the car produced excess diesel exhaust, going over the EPA regulated limit. The car itself was able to perform at a higher level without the sensors active, proving reason to hide the fact that excess exhaust is produced. Certain companies realize the regulations hold their products back, so to promote the fuel efficiency and or horsepower of the car, they would gladly hide the fact that their cars are emitting excess diesel exhaust. Some ways to prevent excess exhaust would be to install EGR coolers, or to buy tuners for your engine’s valves. But many professional truckers tend to stick with rolling coal. “Rolling coal” can happen by making a smoke switch, or removing emission controls on truck models, and adding a tuner to produce fine smoke build ups. Diesel exhaust is actually less harmful then a

Volkswagon was caught cheating on their diesel emissions by a man named Daniel Carder and his small research team at West Virginia University in late 2012 through May 2013. The team consisted of a research professor, two graduate students, a faculty member and himself. Their team originally wanted to investigate emissions to help the diesel cars in Europe. There has been much data suggesting vehicles in Europe have high nitrogen oxides and dioxides. The goal was to look at emissions in the U.S. where the emission standards were very strict. It was thought that if the cars were found to be clean, then they could take the data results to Europe, and say “why can’t you do the same in Europe?” The small research team had been granted $50,000

As a multinational corporation, the implication of the scandal determines the fate of numerous stakeholders both internal and external. Internal stakeholders comprise of the board, managers and employees while external stakeholders subsume shareholders, customers and suppliers. The economic, political and social impacts of the dishonest practices would shape the fate of Volkswagen and affect the future prospects of the automotive industry. Common shareholders whilst not involved in the day to day running of the business placed faith and belief in the firm by providing capital had suffered severe economic loss as share prices (get something for stat). Despite the callous deception in advertising the defeat device displayed no signs of disturbing vehicle performance, however, customers of Volkswagen and its subsidiary vehicles suffer from lower resale value. In addition, even though the scandal was global, European consumers were the most affected with diesel cars accounting for 41% of all European cars (Fontaras, 2016). This high percentage in respect to other nations is a result of incentives provided by the European Union for the purchase of diesel vehicles such as subsidies towards the production process resulting in lower premiums compared to petrol counterparts (Vidal, 2015) In additional with sales falling suppliers of Volkswagen would likely lose future contracts or have current contracts downgraded as less parts are required. Thus, this loss of future

Companies betrayed their employees, consumers, supplies, shareholders, and the government by using unethical techniques and being dishonest to keep their company on top. For example, Volkswagen Company is now in a business ethical dilemma, because the company wanted their latest cars to pose as a diesel friendly. In 2015, “the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that many Volkswagen cars being sold in America had a defeat device or software in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance accordingly to improve results. The German car giant has since admitted cheating emissions tests in the U.S. VW has had a major push to sell diesel cars in the U.S, backed by a huge marketing campaign trumpeting its cars’ emission. The EPA’s finding cover 482,000 cars in the US only, including the VW-manufactured Audi A3, and the VW models Jetta, Beetle, Golf and Passat. But VW had admitted that about 11 million cars worldwide, including eight in Europe, are fitted with the so-called “defeat device” (Russell Hotten).” “Volkswagen had been intentionally and scandalously cheating on their nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions for

First, by drawing from Burki’s (2015) article on, I will discuss one of the main factors that gave rise to VW being able to falsify their emission tests and how it can be prevented in the future. Burki noted that the testing system

In 2014, questions began to arise surrounding the Volkswagen and the emissions that their diesel cars produced. It came to light that the company was violating U.S. environmental regulations by installing software in their cars that was able to sense when emissions were being tested and limit the operations that increase emissions during the test thus producing a lower score. The result of this was that Volkswagen had produced and sold approximately 10,000 vehicles that violated U.S. law. In the early part of 2017, the FBI arrested Oliver Schmidt, a Volkswagen official, in Florida based on his connection to Volkswagens criminal activities. This case illustrates an ever growing issue in the world: international white collar crime. Globalization

In September the world of car industry went upside down when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revealed the car manufacturer company Volkswagen had installed a software on their cars to evade the emission of high pollution during the tests. Volkswagen was proven of violating the United States code title 42 chapter 85 Subchapter I Part A 7412 that specifies that any modification in a product that increases the emission of any air pollutant is considered dangerous and violates the Clean Air Act. Other than Volkswagen more companies are being suspects like Robert Bosch who is believed of being the developer of the device.

BMW’s main competitors on the UK market are Daimler Ag well-known with Mercedes and Maybach, Vauxhall Motors offering Opel, Ford, Audi and Volkswagen Group UK. Ford has been first on the market share for the last two years (See AppendixB), attracting the customers with a combination of price, power and efficiency. Ford’s engine technology plays a key role, reducing both running costs and emissions while delivering rewarding levels of power and performance (Ford, 2015). This model may serve as an example to BMW in terms of considering emissions causes and the public sensitivity of this matter. After the recent emission scandal Volkswagen has lost positions among the leaders in the industry and people lost their trust and respect of the company. According to estimates, the cost of the entire dieselgate scandal for Volkswagen, including government fines and settlements, private settlements, recall expense, and future loss of sales, could be up to $34.5 billion (Trefis, 2015). According to the previous source, BMW’s diesel emission was also questioned, in particular, the model X3 was reported to be eleven times above the European norms which led to a 10% decline in BMW’s stocks. Further investigations will follow in BMW’s case but nonetheless it is a serious issue and a sign that the company must be very careful with its offered products, otherwise, BMW may follow Volkswagen’s collapse. Mercedes is arguably the toughest and the most challenging competitor to BMW as both

Engineer James Liang found himself entangled in a deep running scandal by means of an organized effort by Volkswagen to dupe emissions testing performed by the United States Government (Tabuchi, Ewing). With upcoming changes to the United States emission standards, Liang and his team came to the realization that their new diesel engine concept would come up short to meeting the new specifications (Department of Justice). Rather than scrapping the idea and spending additional time, effort, and resources to develop an engine that complied with the new standards, Liang and associates made the conscious decision to develop and equip new vehicles with a circumventive system (Tabuchi, Ewing). This system possessed the ability to detect whether the

As engineers, they strived to create a new diesel engine with lower emissions, not for their own personal gain, but because it was their duty as engineers at Volkswagen. Once they realized they couldn’t design an engine to specifications, their duty to tell the truth was disregarded completely.

Volkswagen stunned the world on September 18, 2015 with its response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA), see that Volkswagen's "clean diesel" vehicles were seen to abuse the Clean Air Act. In its response, the German automaker accepted that it had deliberately arranged its line of Turbocharged Direct Injection (TDI) diesel engines with a "defeat gadget" that was relied upon to "neglect, fail, or render out for the count parts of a vehicle's release control structure" in the midst of emission testing. Initial reports proposed around 500,000 Volkswagen diesel vehicles, indicate years 2009 through 2011, were impacted by the device. As the shock continued spreading out, the assessed number of vehicles affected created to 11 million

The people at the West Virginia had tested vehicles as well as the EPA (Patel). Volkswagen chose to include rout programming device to cheat the system to pass the testing laws. Volkswagen as a corporation was basically trying to cut the cost of engines to be built by limiting the NOx emission system that controls how much dirty chemicals that goes into the air (Patel).By the company putting this device in their cars they were trying to cut down the cost that they would have to spend, at the same time Volkswagen cars had better performance. The ethical question would be is it really worth it to CHOSE to overlook the laws to save money on cash (Patel). "We expected better from Volkswagen," said Cynthia Giles, the E.P.A's. colleague manager for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance. She called the automaker's activities "a danger to general health of our

I. Volkswagen is one of the world’s best-known car manufacturers; unfortunately it has damaged its credibility and reputation with the recent emission scandal that the company was involved in. Volkswagen failed in establishing the triple bottom line, social responsibility, and sustainability.