VOLKSWAGEN EMISSIONS SCANDAL

VOLKSWAGEN EMISSIONS SCANDAL
A corporation is a legal entity that is separate and distinct from its owners.Corporations enjoy most of the rights and responsibility that an individual possesses, that is, a corporation has the right to enter into contracts, loans and borrow money, sue and be sued, hire employees, own assets and pay taxes therefore Volkswagen as a corporation is a German multinational automotive manufacturing company whose headquarters is in Wolfsburg, Germany.It is mainly involved in the designs, manufacturing and distribution of passengers, commercial vehicles, motorcycles, engines and turbo machinery and also offers related services including financing, leasing and fleet management.
The Agency with the duty of Environmental Protection found that many Volkswagen vehicles that were being sold in America had a ‘defeat device’- software in the diesel engines which could trigger when they were subjected to test, shifting the performance accordingly so as to better the results. When on motion, the cars would emit more than 40% Nitrogen Oxide more than what is allowed in the United States, specifically, but during lab tests, the device would assume the car’s lowest emissions production. The persons owning Volkswagen agree to the alteration of the omission tests through cheating.
Volkswagen has had a very big drive to trade their diesel cars in the USA, backed by huge marketing campaigns trumpeting its cars low emissions. The USA’s findings cover over 482,000 vehicles in the USA only, that is, inclusive of the Volkswagen manufactured Audi A3 and the models Passat, Golf, Jetta, and Beetle.

Volkswagen has concurred that at least 11 million cars worldwide, inclusive of 8 million in Europe and 500,000 in the USA are fitted with the defeat devices.
The Agency entitled to the protection of the environment has also accused the company of alteration of the software on the 3-litre diesel engines fitted to some Audi and Porsche and also Volkswagen models. However, the corporation denied the claims that affect almost 10,000 vehicles.
Volkswagen said that it found irregularities in examinations to measure carbon dioxide emissions standards that could interfere with about 800,000 vehicles in Europe, however, after investigations, it established that only about 36,000 cars were affected as opposed to the earlier feared 800,000.
The emissions cheat associated with Volkswagen were for the first time noted in the USA last year, were later on researchers discovered that at least 11 million vehicles throughout the world are emitting more pollutants into the atmosphere which was most definitely ironical to the advertisements exhibited on their car windows.
An in-depth analysis showed that the affected Volkswagen vehicles in the USA were likely to be responsible for the emission of tons of toxic nitrogen oxides into the air every year. This was a result of an analysis based on ordinary yearly mileage counts. If those vehicles had adhered to the laid down federal pollution standards, then they would have emissions at only 1039 tons annually. The researchers are convinced that Volkswagen had added an amount of between 10 and 40 times more nitrogen oxides pollutants into the atmosphere than the USA itself.
Volkswagen is offering up to $ 18.2 billion to counter its emissions alteration nightmare, but the lovers of nature are confused if all the money on this planet will be able to remedy the injuries caused towards the confidence of the consumer. A study released by public researchers from MIT and Harvard provided that some 59 Americans will die pre-maturely from the excesses of pollution as a result of the Volkswagen cheating emission tests in the USA. The researchers did the arithmetic on the amount of extra particulate and pollution of the ozone as a result of the rigged vehicles as of 2008 to 2015. In their conclusion, they recommended that Volkswagen should prevent early U.S deaths by taking back all the altered cars in the U.S by the end of 2016.
The scandal was a major fallback for the Volkswagen; there recovery could take way longer to get back up and win the trust of their dealers since the cheat was intentional and not a fault that they were not aware of. Immediately after the scandal broke out on the 18th of September 2015, the Company apologized and announced a recall of all affected vehicles for them to fix the emissions manipulation.
The corporation also offered to buy back cars with the ‘defeat device’ in the United States, which was about 480,000 VW and Audi cars with 2.0-liter diesel engines and also each car owner to receive up to 10,000 US dollars.
The corporation, therefore, had to consider the plight of the VW and Audi brand owners at the moment also the future buyers as they played a major role in their business.
An option for Volkswagen to avoid the diesel emissions scandal was through the use of an engine part costing 200 pounds. A memo revealed that the firm was advised to take up a system which cleans exhaust fumes, but bosses then, in 2007 lamented that it was so much expensive and used Bosch’s ‘cheat switch’ software, manipulated at Volkswagen instead even albeit a Bosch’s letter stated it was for testing and not for the normal operation. He said they were obliged to respect the confidentiality (Volkswagen 87).
It comes as the owners of Volkswagen prepare to give cash ‘brides’ to the British owners for them to sign up for a package in a means to seeking out of court settlement. The move is expected to bring about a cost the to firm worth billions of pounds. The issued memo, discovered at Volkswagen’s headquarter in Wolfsburg, Germany, exhibited that the formerly employed staff Wolfgang Bernhard and Knobs Rudolf created a prototype of the diesel engine, which was expected to adhere to the USA emission regulations.
A German newspaper reported that they advocated Ad blue, a liquid which is pumped into exhaust gasses through a tank to get rid of pollutants, but Volkswagen said at 200 pounds per vehicle was very expensive. Volkswagen was ready to come clean as the report on 21 August 2015 at a conference in Pacific Grove, California.
Being one of the largest automotive companies in the world, there are lessons that can be learned from the way Volkswagen have attempted to minimize the damage done to their brand following the scandal, which has led to some successes and some mistakes. Firstly, A Company should brief its people or its employees if a crisis in the company begins to attract media attention. It should ensure that all employees speak with one voice and delivers a clear, consistent message. Any staff to this end expected to engage with the media need to be briefed properly. Volkswagen fell at this hurdle when they sent Paul Willis, the managing director of Volkswagen UK operation, to speak to the transport select committee about the scandal as he struggled to answer questions that pertained to the customer’s interests. Therefore a company should have a representative who is at any time ready to handle questions firmly and has a strong plan as a backup (Scheer 42).
Secondly, A company should take a stand, either to wholly accept the blame and apologize to the affected party or to defend itself from the accusations and provide sufficient evidence if at all its there but in this case, the fault was totally on the Corporation side.
Works Cited
“Volkswagen: The Scandal Explained – BBC News”. BBC News, 2016,
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772.
Scheer, Roddy. “Environmental Impacts Of Volkswagen Emissions Scandal”.
Earthtalk.Org, 2016, https://earthtalk.org/volkswagen-emissions-scandal-impact/.