Ethics of Volkswagen’s (VW) Emissions Scandals

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Ethics of Volkswagen’s (VW) Emissions Scandals
Introduction and Description of VW’s Case
Volkswagen (VW) emission scandal is one of the latest examples of how companies participate in unethical practices to boost their revenue and remain leaders in the global market. The company is headquartered in Germany and owns vehicle brands such as Lamborghini, Bentley, Porsche, Skoda, Bugatti, SEAT, among others. The company operates globally and has several outlets all over the world, including the United States. Selling motor cars that do not meet the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emission requirements are strictly prohibited in the USA (Blackwelder et al. 3,4,5). Before the VW scandal, the company aggressively promoted its diesel vehicles as one of the most fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly cars on the market. Nevertheless, researchers from West Virginia University conducted a study to ascertain the claims by the company that their vehicles were the most efficient as far as the reduction of emission of greenhouse gases is concerned. The outcome of the investigation indicated that the engineers in the company had fitted the cars with software that could mask the real amount of greenhouse gas emitted when subjected to lab tests. During the lab tests, the installed program produced different figures to the actual results. The EPA indicates that according to their rules and regulations, the VW vehicles emitted pollutants of levels higher than 40 times the minimum required (Blackwelder et al. 3,4,5). Thus, after these findings, the company was found to have violated the EPA’s Clean Air Act for installing illegal software into their diesel cars to cheat emission tests (Blackwelder et al. 3,4,5).
Initially, the company denied allegations and indicated that discrepancies were only mere technical glitches (Blackwelder et al. 3). Nevertheless, VW executives in Germany eventually admitted that their cars had been installed with engine software to circumvent the EPA emission tests. The acknowledgment of the cheat came after the EPA issued an ultimatum to withhold approval for VW’s 2016 Audi and Volkswagen diesel models. The executive indicated that the incidence was as a result of a mistake by a few people in the company. They indicated that approximately 11 million vehicles worldwide had been installed with cheat software (Rhodes 1502). There were several calls for the CEO of the VW at the time, Martin Winterkorn, to resign, and he did so in September 2015. Following the scandal, VW soon became subject to several regulatory investigations in various countries such as South Korea, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom (UK). Investigations were done in these countries to determine the number of people who were aware of the deceit that happened in the corporation. After the news broke, the company’s stock price plummeted significantly (Rhodes 1502). While the scandal had serious effects on the company’s reputation and its overall performance, its biggest tragedy is the emission of the enormous amount of Nitrogen Oxide gas into the atmosphere (Jacobs and Lawrence 18). The gas has a severe impact on the environment ...