The Volkswagen Emission Test Scandal

The Volkswagen Emission Test scandal
In light of the year 2015, the scandal regarding diesel cheat damaged the image of the
Volkswagen Company which is one of the noticeable market players amongst automakers. The
biggest tragedy of this entire scandal is the release of enormous amounts of nitrogen oxide into
the atmosphere. The harmful and mortal effects of nitrogen oxide, which is a pollutant found in
car exhaust have led to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to tighten emission control
considering the attention paid to conservation and saving the green. The management decided
to pursue short-term needs forgetting the prospects of the company. The cheat was in line with
the stringent measures initiated by the EPA. These strict measures are necessary considering
that nitrogen gas emitted is harmful to human health and results in diseases such as asthma,
premature death, bronchitis, respiratory, and cardiovascular.
In recent decades conservation and sustainable environment are of great concern to the
nations. The natural phenomenon such as globalization and also environmental pollutants such
as emission have been considered by a great number of environmental protection agencies and
united nation agencies. Noticeable attention to conservation and saving green have led the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to tighten emission control because of the harmful and
mortal effects of nitrogen oxide which is a pollutant found in the car’s exhaust. The agency had
found that Volkswagen had intentionally programmed computers in their diesel cars to detect
emission tests. It is believed greatly by a great number of individuals that this unethical scandal
occurred because technology shortcoming prompted Volkswagen to cheat in emission tests. In
December Hans-Dieter Pötsch, chairman of Volkswagen revealed to the public that a group of
Volkswagen engineers decided to rig diesel emission tests in 2005 when the United States EPA
imposed the toughest emission standards on the automobile industry. The significant reason
that forced them to take this decision at that time was in virtue of technology shortcomings. The
engineers were unable to meet the United States emission standards through Volkswagen's
given time and allocated budget. After a specific period, Volkswagen engineers managed to find
a solution to face emission standards, yet they preferred to continue rigging rather than
implementing the method. Under Volkswagen's chairman public admission, the unethical
scandal is not a one-off mistake, but it is a whole chain of mistakes taking place without any
disruption. The Justice Department announced that Volkswagen had agreed to pay $14.7
billion, the agreement calls for a record product buyback, which will require the company to
repurchase from consumers at market price, as many as four hundred and seventy thousand or
so automobiles with model years 2009 through 2015, which came equipped with stealth
software capable of masking, during testing, their engines’ ability to emit up to forty times the
legally permitted levels of nitrogen oxide. In light of this, Volkswagen vowed to set aside 6.5
billion euros (about $7.3 billion) to use towards fixing the cars to comply with pollution
standards. Also, as part of the settlement, Volkswagen will have to pay billions to support
various pollution-control projects, the largest punishment ever meted out under the Clean Air
Act. Also, California will receive $41 million of that, and the California Air Resources Board
(CARB) wrote into the settlement some very specific requirements for the sale of electric
vehicles. Since then, VW has sought to overcome the negative impacts of the scandal through
various means. Although its response has differed from country to country, it has promised to
ensure that affected vehicles comply with local emission standards. It has also agreed to
settlements with governments and consumers in a small number of countries while refusing
similar settlements in others. Immediately after the scandal, VW’s main objectives were saving
financial resources and maintaining stability. It achieved those goals, in the short term, by
limiting costs and payouts. The company remains under the shadow of the scandal, however,
and is still dealing with various claims and lawsuits in several countries. More importantly, it still
needs to recover the trust of its diverse group of stakeholders, and that will take time.
Perhaps the company made the wrong decisions and followed a wrong strategy, but this
scandal was way too big to be an accident. Firms must be open and honest to owners and
managers should be held accountable to stakeholders. To prevent such a scandal from
happening in the future, it is recommended that companies value their employees through a
value-based approach. Besides, EPA recommended providing support programs to automakers
to ensure the level of pollutants and emissions are under control.

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