Lavinia Uruc

CST 373 - Ethics in Comm & Tech

Resolving VW’s Ethical Challenges with Software Cheating Emissions Testing

My name is Lavinia Uruc and I am a student in CST 373 at CSU Monterey Bay. This class

was an eye opening to me and to the ethical issues in our Computer Science field. My online

major is Computer Science and when I started on this path as a student I went first to

Sacramento State University but then I had a chance to transfer so here I am. I totally love the

online courses because it helps me build more critical thinking depth and I am able to use my

time more efficiently. As part of the CST 373 class, we are looking at ethical issues surrounding

our computer science field. Our teachers, dean and the whole community have been very

professional, proficient and with great respect towards each other. I grew up in Romania, and

before coming to the United States I was a teacher for two years and I was fixing computers as

a hobby without any formal education in what regards computers. I was/am a self-thought in

several disciplines. As I came to the United States I quickly got my A+ Certification and I started

working as a contractor at Intel. In my first job there, my group worked together with the legal

team to gather and present suspicious data from the companies employees personal

computers and devices to the legal team. That was my first time when I was directly involved

and learn about ethical implications in your daily job and how your actions and decisions do not

only affect you personally but your coworkers as well.

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 In this paper, I will try to explore the ethical issues relating to Volkswagen’s Software

Cheating Emissions Testing Scandal. Also, I will look at the historical context of how it happened

and what were the legal consequences. The scandal shows how big companies like VW failed to

show values like transparency, honesty, and integrity. This happened under our very own eyes

and for a long time and makes you think about other big corporations today that could fake

numbers or data right before our eyes and affect our lives and our future generations for the

sake of making more money. I am very interested in the topic because it highlights the possible

ethical issues, addresses them and also shows the legal consequences of bad decisions. It is

worth writing about it because this way we can stop and think in depth about those

implications as future leaders, scientists, engineers and makes us better decisions makers and

helps us think first about others and then about ourselves.

The Volkswagen emissions testing scandal is also called “emissionsgate” or “dieselgate”

and the whole issue started in September 2015 when the Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) found out that many Volkswagen cars were sold in the United States with “defeat

device”. The “device” is quite sophisticated as it is able to detect know when the car is being

tested and when the car is on the road and just switch between those functions.

The EPA raised the bar on emissions restrictions in 2004, and the engineers became

challenged in how they can implement the new challenges and changes. Especially diesel cars

were impacted because those were the ones that were emitting more nitrogen dioxide than

most gasoline cars. Also, Volkswagen’s rivals were trying to introduce more diesel cars on the

market so Volkswagen had to come up with a very quick and efficient way to stay on top of the

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game. Thes were the main issues that have been the major culprit that led to the scandal in

2015. The Volkswagen Chairman Hans-Dieter Potsch said: “engineers decided to cheat on

emissions tests in 2005 because they couldn’t find a technical solution within the company’s

“time frame and budget” to build diesel engines that would meet U.S. emissions standard”

(Goodman, 2015).

The Volkswagen scandal affected more 600,000 vehicles in the US alone, and around

11million vehicles worldwide so it is probably one of the biggest car scandals in history. The

whole “conspiracy ran for about 10 years” and the “the affected vehicles emitted nitrogen

oxide levels up to 40 times the legal limit” (Ware, 2016).

Many companies before Volkswagen have failed to provide accurate numbers set by the

EPA. In 1998, Ford had to recall over 60,000 vehicles because they were “accused of equipping

its electronic control module with instructions to increase fuel economy (and override the

emissions control system) when the vans were driven at highway speeds”. After the

Volkswagen scandal, the EPA sent a letter to all car manufacturer looking for "additional

evaluations designed to look for potential defeat devices." It is not clear yet how the testing is

going to be done but there are theories that those tests would try also to incorporate some

real-world testing (Megan, 2017).

In Europe, Transport & Environment (T&E) campaign group conducted a study and

found out that many other car manufacturers are violating the “Euro 6” air pollution limits.

Companies like Fiat, Suzuki is selling models that “emit far higher levels of pollution that the

shamed German carmaker”.

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In 2017, the EU raised again the bar levels for emissions regulations in Europe. The car

companies have a hard time keeping up with the new standards and EU threatened this time

that will just remove the vehicles from the sale (Wood, 2016).

In New York Times magazine, we find out that Volkswagen had to pay “4.3 billion in

fines covers criminal and civil aspects of the government’s case, including environmental and

customs-related penalties. The fines would bring the total cost of the scandal to Volkswagen in

the United States to $20 billion, including settlements of civil suits by car owners, certainly one

of the most costly corporate scandals in history” (Tabuchi, 2017).

The environmental impact of Volkswagen car emissions was about 40 percent higher

than the federal pollution standards. That is not safe for people to breathe. US Researchers -

“recommend that VW prevent another 130 early U.S. deaths by recalling all affected

cars in the U.S. by the end of 2016” (Warden, 2018).

The media took the great stand in the scandal as well by calling out Volkswagen in

articles with headlines like “What Was Volkswagen Thinking?” New York Times or “As

Volkswagen Pushed to Be No. 1, Ambitions Fueled a Scandal” also New York Times. Looking at

some more examples of articles in the media that I highlighted in my references it seems that

media took a stand and most of them seemed concerned and truthful and unbiased about the

case of VW scandal. There is a good agreement between the researchers that tested the

emissions and what the media reported, also a great agreement between environmentalists

and what the media published, so I feel confident to say that most of the time the media

portrayed the story with the great sentiment of deception.

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 Other people impacted by the whole scandal are lawmakers, environmentalists, owners

of the vehicles in question and stakeholders. All these groups have been outraged when they

found out about the whole scandal. If we start with the lawmakers they have been working on

coming up with fishable solutions so this time of scandal does not happen at this scale again

(Behrmann, 2018). Then, environmentalists have been working hard to remove the remaining

vehicles off the roads as I was citing above, owners have been compensated and the lawmakers

are working on their behalf so Volkswagen will buy whatever remained affected vehicles are

left on the roads, and the stakeholders are working together is this kind of scandal will not

happen again at this scale.

The ethical problems that come up from this scandal are of course deceit, egoism and a

total lack of utilitarianism from the people that caused the scandal. I believe that at the top of

the scandal was this great deal of egoism and self-interest that led to the deceiving of millions.

The people responsible for the scandal did not think about the people that are going to die

because of the polluted air, they did not think about the money lost by the stakeholders in the

lawsuits and government fines, and they were not thinking about long-term consequences, and

they definitely did not think about the people that spent a log of money on their cars thinking

they are buying a car that had all the standards put in place by the laws. I don’t know here if I

would blame the whole corporation because as we find out from the material that we read not

every stakeholder or corporate executive knew about the secret devices. So, I think we should

only talk about “the people” that directly was involved in the scandal that caused all this havoc.

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 The second issue was the deceit, they deceived millions of people so the punishment

should have been greater. I think the law is still not there in what concerns this kind of issues.

People die due to high doses of bad emissions in the air, and people die of overdosing because

we do not have enough regulations and the law is always a step behind. Last week, many teens

died because the lawmakers are far behind in gun control laws. I find guilty the people that

installed the devices, but also the government to come up with stricter and stronger

punishments so the ones that are thinking to do something that threatens the common good

won’t have a second thought into doing anything wrong to anyone.

The lack of the utilitarian approach lies in our culture. We live in a society where the

capitalism is the key to success. The individual desires are above the desire of the many, so in

an ideal world if this approach would have been used none of the things would have happened.

If the people that installed the devices realized that they cannot produce vehicles that are bad

for the environment they would have waited until they had the right equipment and they

would produce and sell less of those vehicles and save many from death or from misery.

I think in the future many of these issues in the next 5 to 10 years will start taking a

different direction. I am hoping that major car manufacturers will start creating more and more

cars with low or zero emissions and that will fix an issue like the environment and health-

related problems for future generations. I am also hoping that the cost of the electric cars will

reduce drastically so people will be more inclined to purchase vehicles that are so much better

for our environment.

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 In 50 years from now, I believe that will the new developments of AI we would not

struggle anymore with issues related to the environment but we will have more ethical related

issues with the AI and their functionality in our daily lives. I think we will have bigger problems

than the emissions issue we discussed and our problems would be more of where humans

would be in the stage of the new era where I am sure cars will be scarce and we will probably

travel with drones or any other faster type of vehicles, we will have robots that would be in our

homes helping our grandchildren with homework, we will have virtual reality worlds embedded

somehow in our reality. So, the questions of ethics will be who will guide the regulations for

these future industries, who will and if they will make the right decisions in what concerns the

right approach and the right developments of these AI. Are we going to be just simple

spectators in this futuristic world or are we going to still steal the stage and dictate how and

where that future AI robots will behave, react, work in our behalf or would they be tools in a

big corporation's hands? Those I think will be the challenges in near 50 years.

My personal view on this issue is that what Volkswagen did was wrong and they should

not have taken this approach whatsoever. I believe the approach to cheat and deceive so many

people it's even and set the stage for other companies to do the same when times comes to

make quick decisions. I also think, that the laws are not yet developed to cover issues like the

environment or public health and we are still ruled by the might dollar. The punishments for

this type of behavior I believe is not sufficient to set the flag for future individuals or

corporations to just not pursue any of these pathways in the future. I think is necessary to

speak up, work hard, advocate anywhere and everywhere possible to protect our future

children and our fellow citizens from this kind of behaviors. I gave examples above, that we

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have lots to work on and as a society, we need to learn to apply more of a utilitarian approach

to our decisions. As future scientists, developers, CEOs, executives…we need to from the start

approach any issue by reflecting, by analyzing in depts any ethical possible issue that could

impact anyone in our projects. That way we will be able to change the course of many of these

evils and create a better US, a healthier world and change the culture for future generations so

they as well keep improving and get away from anarchy.

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Reference:

Edelstein, S. (n.d.). Illegal VW Diesel Emissions: Tallying Public Health Damage. Retrieved
February 22, 2018, from https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1102397_illegal-vw-diesel-
emissions-tallying-public-health-damage

Warden, E. (2018, February 19). Environmental Impacts of Volkswagen Emissions

Scandal. Retrieved February 22, 2018, from https://earthtalk.org/volkswagen-emissions-
scandal-impact/

EPA: Volkswagon Thwarted Pollution Regulations For 7 Years. (2015, September 21).
Retrieved February 22, 2018, from http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2015/09/21/epa-volkswagon-
thwarted-pollution-regulations-for-7-years/

Ware, D. G. (2016, September 09). VW engineer admits conspiracy to cheat U.S.

regulators with emissions device. Retrieved February 22, 2018, from

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https://www.upi.com/Business_News/2016/09/09/VW-engineer-admits-conspiracy-to-cheat-
US-regulators-with-emissions-device/9571473441964/

Danny Hakim, Aaron M. Kessler and Jack Ewing. (2015, September 26). As Volkswagen
Pushed to Be No. 1, Ambitions Fueled a Scandal. Retrieved February 22, 2018, from
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/business/as-vw-pushed-to-be-no-1-ambitions-fueled-a-
scandal.html

Goodman, L. M. (2016, May 08). Why Volkswagen Cheated. Retrieved February 22,
2018, from http://www.newsweek.com/2015/12/25/why-volkswagen-cheated-404891.html

Wood, Z. (2016, September 19). Many car brands emit more pollution than Volkswagen,
report finds. Retrieved February 22, 2018, from
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/sep/19/many-car-brands-emit-more-
pollution-than-volkswagen-report-finds

Megan Geuss - Sep 24, 2017 9:00 pm UTC. (2017, September 24). Volkswagen's
emissions cheating scandal had a long, complicated history. Retrieved February 22, 2018, from
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/09/volkswagens-emissions-cheating-scandal-has-a-long-
complicated-history/

Tabuchi, J. E. (2017, January 10). Volkswagen Set to Plead Guilty and to Pay U.S. $4.3
Billion in Deal. Retrieved February 22, 2018, from
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/10/business/volkswagen-diesel-settlement.html

Behrmann, E., & Matussek, K. (2018, February 21). How a German Court Case Could
Accelerate Diesel's End. Retrieved February 22, 2018, from
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-21/how-a-german-court-case-could-
accelerate-diesel-s-end-quicktake

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