h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sure you must have heard about the debacle surrounding the company by now. Which is a damn shame because VWs are the only vehicles I've ever owned, and if I should ever learn to drive here and buy a car, the only ones I'd want to own. I wish they made motorbikes too.

How do the people who perpetrate that kind of thing, whether it's a deliberate intention to do something underhand or an attempt to cover something up, imagine they're going to get away with it? I'm reminded, for instance, of the rootkit Sony put on some of their CDs ten years ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal Also Enron. Also the peanut business owner who was jailed yesterday for 28 years. Also Also... I could go on and on and on.

They must know they're eventually going to get found out.

Or are we to assume there are some that have never been uncovered? I think it's a given there must be others that are going on right now.

As for people who think regulation is a Bad Thing... put them all on the B Ark

Well, for too long recently even if they do get caught there are no repercussions personally for anyone involved. Just look at the banks that were responsible for The Great Recession. Not a single CEO or hedge fund manager or their ilk were held personally liable. Not a day in jail and not a dollar from their wallets. The companies involved were given what sounded like huge fines but in comparison to the profits they earned during and after, it was just the cost of doing business.


I suspect this mentality is what drives this sort of thing.

But yeah, when I read about this VW scandal, I also wondered how they thought they could get away with it. Also, if VW is doing it and if their cars typically spew from 10 to 40 times the legal amount of pollution, I find it hard to believe other car makers aren't doing something similar to pass testing.

That's got to be a part of it. That and the idea that somehow you're not going to caught, despite the fact that so many do, whether it's huge corporate scandals or small time villains shinning up a drainpipe. And it's true that a lot of the small time stuff doesn't get cleared up.

And the idea that prison, or fines, is a deterrent is (mostly) bunkum. For sure, the idea of doing stir is one of the things that's kept me on the right side of the law all these years, so it works for some people. It doesn't work for the people who see it as an occupational hazard, nor for those who simply don't think they'll ever get their collar felt by someone whispering "You're nicked" in their ear.

And I think I've read that many CEOs are psychopaths.

Given that the free-market model fits in so well with so many psychopathic tendencies, that doesn't surprise me.

Here's a sample article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/

Recumbentman shared this link in Ask's News Story thread.

http://jalopnik.com/your-guide-to-dieselgate-volkswagens-diesel-cheating-c-1731857018

I find it very interesting how VW got caught. They would have gotten away with it but an independent study was done expecting to show how efficient and clean VWs TDI engines were. They were not expecting to find otherwise.

"And even in an era of recall after recall"
Patrick George: jalopnik.com

"The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."
Montgomery Scott: Starfleet

This is one of the reasons I'm loathe to get a car here, and possibly back in the UK now, and especially since this (unbelievably stupid) idea arose that cars need to be networked to teh interwebs. If I ever did get one it'd have to an old one. A car that doesn't have any kind of computer controlling anything, except maybe the music player and the radio.

My 1998 Subaru Outback with over 103k miles has a computer, but it's pretty simple. The first I knew of it was after I brought my car to get inspected shortly after replacing the battery. Apparently it takes a few trips to get the computer straightened back out after it reboots and I couldn't pass the inspection that day. I was told to drive it around for a while and bring it back and that worked.

I'm not looking to replace this car for at least another 100k, maybe 200k. I've got a good mechanic now, maybe I'll make that 300k.

I know I've said this before (and I'm certain he's not the only one who feels this way). My former father-in-law often laments that the way cars are made now you can't get under the bonnet and tinker with them the way you used to be able to when engines were just engines and not computer-controlled pieces of machinery. In most cases you'll be voiding the warranty; in some you might actually be violating a regulation or law protecting intellectual property.

Progress? Pah. You can keep it.

I think the reason they expect to get away with it is that, very often, they do get away with it. We only know about the cases where they get found out. If someone had said a month ago that VW were faking emissions data by putting a clever gadget in cars, that knew when a car was in a lab test and when it was not, we would have dismissed them as a crackpot conspiracy theorist.

but they did make a motorcycle
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Volkswagen+motorbike&es_sm=122&biw=1300&bih=586&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CCIQsARqFQoTCIfbta2Ml8gCFYo7FAod8x4GFg

Very true, KB, but the ones we never get to hear of probably aren't as easily find-outable as this one (disclaimer - and some probably are).

It must have raised some alarms somewhere along the line when it was being formulated, and there would have been a line. Someone would have come up with the idea, possibly alone, possibly in conversation or a meeting; it would be suggested to other people either in a meeting or via email; and someone would eventually have given it the green light.

I wouldn't like to say whether the head of VW who just resigned was part of that process - it sounds like the kind of thing which the people involved would want to keep from the toppest of the top brass in case said top brass told them what to do with it, where to go, and don't let the door hit your arse on the way out. And yet he's the one who suffered the consequences. If any of the people who dreamt this scheme up also get the boot I don't think we'll ever get to hear about it. By then the world will have moved on to the next big news story(s).

On hitting the Post Message button, something else has come to mind.

This software that's at the heart of the scandal; it doesn't seem to me like the kind of thing that VW, a car manufacturer would have developed and produced on its own. Which means another company is involved, and people at that company must also have gone through the process of discussing it and giving it the go-ahead.