TangoRed

I can agree with this. Amazing what I've seen working for large corporations...

Sulu

I never said there was no cheating. Just look at Enron and all the banks in the Great Recession of 2008. And there is also "do it at all costs -- no questions asked" going on, but there is no plausible deniability. All senior managers, especially the ones smart enough to get away with great levels of cheating for years before they get caught are all extremely smart people -- they know exactly what is going on; their problem is getting complacent and being too greedy, carrying on the cheating for too long in the hope that they can have more and more and more of what they have already swindled the company out of.

chikoo

The plausible deniability is that the senior management ( smart ones) will find a scapegoat and claim that that person breached their corporate values and they themselves will get a slap on wrist and a training session on how to manage people and additionally a lesson on better governance and QC. This will result in firing some existing folks and hiring new folks to beef up the newly learnt aspects of management, and life goes on.

jadu

iTrader: (42)

The EPA finds the defeat device in the V6 diesels of Audi, Porsche and VW: http://www.autoblog.com/2015/11/02/v...ns-defeat-epa/

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

shocked. i'm shocked i tell you.

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Toyota should offer to easy VW's suffering and take Lamborghini and Bugatti off their hands

spwolf

who exactly is "senior managment" when CEO and head R&D were taken off their jobs first? Those are two guys that had to do know about it, two guys that were at most seniors positions in the company and they already have fallen.

Any other "senior management" executive had to be below these guys.

Life will never go on as before, since it is now estimated that it will cost VW even more than 30 billion when this finishes. German media says that German police taskforce is current looking at over 20 defendants.

In any case, nothing will be like it was before, simply too much money went away, money partially owned by German government that has partial stake in VW.

roadbike56

The CEO already stated he knew nothing about the fraud and I believe he never ordered the code to be written. In fact, I don't believe anyone on the board knew about how they got the engines to pass the emissions tests in 2007. They just mandated that they find a way to meet the standard and some engineers afraid for their jobs probably initiated the use of the code. But that doesn't let the board off the hook.
When the lawyers contact an investigator (like me) they want to know WHO knew WHAT and WHEN did they know it. I do believe that at some point, either during the 2011 internal investigation that was quashed, or during 2013 when it was announced that the VW engines failed during testing or in 2014 when the US Fed contacted VW about the emissions issue and they denied any problem. At some point they knew and failed to take action until the US investigators did enough testing to prove the point and forced acknowledgement by VW. Senior management can not walk away from being ultimately accountable for not reporting the problem when they were informed. That's what the investigators are looking for right now.
Also, the German government investigators have offered amnesty to any low level engineer or manager who comes forward with information about the implementation of the code. Someone or a group of persons will come forward and that along with e-mails and documents will pull the entire mess together and spell out, Who knew What and When did the know it. Senior management is not being offered the amnesty deal.

mmarshall

I don't know about Bugatti, but Lamborghini's build quality would probably not be up to Toyota standards. Too unreliable.

spwolf

From Autobild, via machine translation - investigators will offer leniency for workers willing to tell on their managers for their role in this fraud, but managers and CEO's need not apply :-)

rxonmymind

Now some 2015 Porsche & Audi may be involved. VW is denying it. Shocker.

roadbike56

Not surprising. If they did it once, "twice is better" is the mindset that occurs once a firm goes down the non-compliance path. VW is denying the report (big surprise). If it's proven to be correct, then the mindset at VW is still in denial and more heads must roll until a Mary Barra type is found who creates an atmosphere of "let's put the past behind us, expose any non-compliance, correct it and move forward". I've seen it happen in another industry and it works. The resulting company is much stronger than it was previously, while complying with industry regs.

LeX2K

I don't buy this at all. So let me get this straight, management basically told the engineers meet this emissions/efficiency target or you're job is on the line? Really? So instead of telling management well I'm sorry but that can't be done given the cost structure you want, instead they decided to write complicated software to cheat the emissions test and somehow no one outside a certain circle of engineers ever knew about it for 6+ years?

Not even remotely believable.

coolsaber

VW response on the new allegations: Calling BS on EPA.

Theyre gonna be fighting these new ones as it affects their big profit margin cash cow vehicles/brands

This is the outline for this debacle:

1) Current New Boss will have to step down as it effects Porsche as well and like VWs boss his image is also gone
2) VW has to pay fine thats usually half of what all analysts forecast (cause thats what happens)
3) VW dealers will have to get extra rebates to absorb the faster depreciation curves on all their vehicles
4) VW pricing for new vehicles will be interesting as they have to effectively pull in frugal buyers who can ignore the cheating scandal
5) Porsche dealers could care less....theyre probably gonna have to either forget selling above MSRP for a while but will maintain above MSRP for hot models like the MACAN
6) Audi will care somewhat and then return to business as usual
7) Used Car Lots will class action VW for the depreciation curves, but will probably settle
8) Senior Engineers who were the main culprits will retire asap in their glory
9) scapegoats will be there to take the blame
10) And we will forever consider VW as the Chevy Vega of the 21st Century

mmarshall

We may never know the entire story, or exactly what happened, but never underestimate the arrogance of the German auto industry and its managers. It can, in some instances, make Donald Trump or Ross Perot look tame in comparison.