- Volkswagen AG is a German multinational company founded in 1937.
- Headquarter in Wolfs burg , Lower Saxony,Germany.
- The word Volkswagen means "people's car"in Germany.
- It designs manufactures and distributes passenger and commercial vehicles.
- The largest automaker by worldwide sales in 2016 and 2017.
Volkswagen emissions scandal
The announcement in 2015 that "defeat devices" were placed in the diesel engine by car
car company Volkswagen to reduce pollution emissions during testing exposed a corporate scandal and resulted in a 40% decrease in the stock price of the organisation in 2 weeks.The United States Environmental Protection Agency issued a notice to Volkswagen group for violation of Clean Air Act.
What has Volkswagen done?
Volkswagen has fooled emissions testing by making its cars look far less polluting than they are. The U.S environmental protection agency has found that 482,000 V W diesel cars 40 times more toxic than permitted on American roads and Volkswagen has since confirmed that the scam affects 11 millions vehicles in all over the world . They equipped defeat device software in the engine management system on the modern Volkswagen 2.0 liters engine that can switch on pollution controls when they detect the car is undergoing testing . Then they.switch off the controls when the car is on the road allowing it to spew out harm- full air pollution (40 times higher)
How did they do it?
V W's " defeat device" is not a physical device but a programmed in the engine
software which can read steering wheel position, tire rotation atmospheric
pressure, duration of engine run time to determine if car was on road or in
The software has been updated to adjust parts such as diesel engine or valves
which is used to help in recycle some of the exhaust gases
How was scandal exposed?
The international council clean transportation (ICCT) an NGO runs separate
road vehicle test . They perform their task on Volkswagen passat , the
Volkswagen jetta and a BMW X5 . The test performed on the Volkswagen
vehicle was so much worst than expectation and criteria of the organisation
than (ICCT) ran further tests and contact this report with Environment protection
agency.
ETHICAL ISSUES-
- Company social responsibility to produce environmental friendly product.
- It is a duty of organisation to maintain the law and order while doing business.
- Customers have rights to be fully aware of the devices which are equipped.
- Any brand is expected to deliver the promises it makes to the customers.
- The credibility of software technologies were degraded .
Company claims false #clean_diesel advertising.
The ethical theories that applicable to this are that all business has moral and social responsibility of complying with the ethical standards. It is mandatory for all business to follow the ethical code of conduct in order to make profit, engaging in unethical activities will surely spoils the brand value and company goodwill.
Thank you.....