Please provide some research articles to help with these questions and an understanding of the basic reasoning behinf Emissiongate

1. Why do you think the engineers who tampered with the emissions systems made the choices they did?
2. What does the "Emissiongate" incident tell you about the corporate culture at Volkswagen?
3. What does this and other recall issues suggest about ethics in the automobile industry?

ARTICLE:

"Emissionsgate" at Volkswagen

Volkswagen, often abbreviated as VW, is a German automaker founded by the German Labor Front. The company is headquartered in Wolfsburg. It is the flagship marquee of the Volkswagen Group and, for the first time ever, became the top automaker in the world in 2017 and has maintained that number one position. Volkswagen said it delivered 10.8 million vehicles worldwide, while the nearest competitors Renault Nissan Mitsubishi (10.3 million) and Toyota (10.3 million) had very similar global sales, some 500,000 units below VW (with General Motors following just behind, but with strong sales in China).

To go along with its car numbers, VW had revenue of about $129 billion for these vehicles and an employee workforce of some 630,000 people. These staggering numbers and the ranking as the top automobile manufacturer in the world came at the same time Volkswagen was facing perhaps the biggest challenge in its 80-year history (the company was founded in 1937).

Sometimes referred to as "emissionsgate" or "dieselgate," the Volkswagen emissions scandal began in September 2015 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a notice of violation of the Clean Air Act to the German automaker. EPA is an agency of the U.S. federal government that was created to protect human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by the U.S. Congress. The EPA has been around since 1970, although the Trump administration has proposed a series of more than 40 cuts to the EPA (slashing the EPA workforce by more than 3,000 people and $2 billion in funding).

In a rather astonishing finding, the EPA determined that Volkswagen had intentionally programmed engines to activate emissions controls only during lab testing. The unethical programming by VW caused the vehicles' nitrogen oxide outputwhich is the most relevant factor for air pollution standardsto register at lower levels to meet strict U.S. standards during the crucial laboratory regulatory testing. In reality, the vehicles emitted up to 40 times more NO_x on the streets. Volkswagen used this unethical and very sophisticated computer programming in about 11 million cars worldwide, out of which 500,000 vehicles were in use in the United States (for model years 2009-2015).

VW went to great lengths to make this work. The software in the cars sensed when the car was being tested in a regulatory lab, and then the software automatically activated equipment in the vehicle that reduced emissions. Think about that in terms of the decision making that had to go into making this unethical choice! Additionally, the software turned the car's equipment down during regular driving on the streets or highways, resulting in increasing emissions way above legal limits. The only reasoning for doing this is to save fuel or to improve the car's torque and acceleration. Thus, not only were the emissions off, and unethically adjusted, the car's performance statistics were also affected in a positive waywhich, obviously, can be seen as another unethical decision or by-product of the emissions software.

The software was modified to adjust components such as catalytic converters or valves that were used to recycle a portion of the exhaust gases. These are the components that are meant to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide, an air pollutant that can cause emphysema, bronchitis, and several other respiratory diseases. The severity of this air pollution resulted in a $4.3 billion settlement with U.S. regulators. VW also agreed to sweeping reforms, new audits, and oversight by an independent monitor for three years. Internally, VW disciplined dozens of engineers, which is interesting because it at least implies that the top-level managers were not aware of the software installation and unethical use.