Volkswagen’s Public Ethical Dilemma
Name
Institution
Course
Instructor
Date
, Volkswagen’s Public Ethical Dilemma
Volkswagen AG is the biggest car making business in Europe and one of the world's top
automakers. Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (VWGoA) is a wholly owned business of
VWAG. VWGoA is the headquarters for Audi, Bugatti, Volkswagen, Lamborghini, and Bentley
in the United States (Babel et al., 2020). Volkswagen Credit, Inc. The Chattanooga, Tennessee,
assembly facility is run by Volkswagen Group of America Chattanooga Operations, Limited
Liability Company, a wholly owned business of VWGoA (Babel et al., 2020). VWGoA was
established in 1955 and had its headquarters in Herndon, Virginia. It employs over six thousand
people throughout the United States and sells automobiles via a network of roughly one thousand
independent dealers (Babel et al., 2020).
My investigation focused on the emissions problem at Volkswagen Group, a German
multinational automaker. The United States Environmental Protection Agency discovered in
2015 that the corporation had put software on its diesel vehicles that allowed them to cheat their
emissions testing (Jung & Sharon, 2019). The VW Group had installed so-called "defeat devices"
in its automobiles. These devices were able to detect when the vehicle was being tested and
activate software that would cut emissions for the car to pass the tests (Mačaitytė & Virbašiūtė,
2018). In the actual world, these cars were releasing up to 40 times the permissible limit of
pollutants, which caused a significant backlash from the general population.
A small group of engineers and some other executive staff members concluded that
installing these defeat devices would be beneficial. Even though the persons in the highest
positions of authority in the corporation were the ones who decided to install the devices, the
company as a whole was unaware of what was going on. The corporation might have been fined
billions of dollars, had to recall millions of cars and lost the faith of its consumers as a result of
Name
Institution
Course
Instructor
Date
, Volkswagen’s Public Ethical Dilemma
Volkswagen AG is the biggest car making business in Europe and one of the world's top
automakers. Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. (VWGoA) is a wholly owned business of
VWAG. VWGoA is the headquarters for Audi, Bugatti, Volkswagen, Lamborghini, and Bentley
in the United States (Babel et al., 2020). Volkswagen Credit, Inc. The Chattanooga, Tennessee,
assembly facility is run by Volkswagen Group of America Chattanooga Operations, Limited
Liability Company, a wholly owned business of VWGoA (Babel et al., 2020). VWGoA was
established in 1955 and had its headquarters in Herndon, Virginia. It employs over six thousand
people throughout the United States and sells automobiles via a network of roughly one thousand
independent dealers (Babel et al., 2020).
My investigation focused on the emissions problem at Volkswagen Group, a German
multinational automaker. The United States Environmental Protection Agency discovered in
2015 that the corporation had put software on its diesel vehicles that allowed them to cheat their
emissions testing (Jung & Sharon, 2019). The VW Group had installed so-called "defeat devices"
in its automobiles. These devices were able to detect when the vehicle was being tested and
activate software that would cut emissions for the car to pass the tests (Mačaitytė & Virbašiūtė,
2018). In the actual world, these cars were releasing up to 40 times the permissible limit of
pollutants, which caused a significant backlash from the general population.
A small group of engineers and some other executive staff members concluded that
installing these defeat devices would be beneficial. Even though the persons in the highest
positions of authority in the corporation were the ones who decided to install the devices, the
company as a whole was unaware of what was going on. The corporation might have been fined
billions of dollars, had to recall millions of cars and lost the faith of its consumers as a result of
