One insanity in the following years was how they thought people still wanted their next generation diesel.
I’ve been working for them in the 2010s with the department to organise the staff car fleet. We ordered many electric vehicles years ahead from production and planned it all around electric vehicles: Charging stations, operating distance, some hybrids for long distance, software to calculate trips etc.
Then a few months before we needed them, they said: We overproduced on the latest diesel generation and can’t keep up with the demand for electric vehicles, so we have to sell the ones you ordered. You can either go with a Tesla (for official Volkswagen business trips!) or have the diesel for free.
It felt like there was a hysteria: Decision makers got it in their heads that the “hype” for electric vehicles was ideology-driven and not something people with buying power actually wanted today or in the near future. Bit like the republican administration thinking that “woke” is our main problem. Meanwhile, huge research and development departments did come up with the electric vehicles they sell today (and fully working hydrogen prototypes you won’t see in a store, just to be safe) and must have been quite frustrated that so few were produced.
Before anyone becomes too happy: the post’s title is inaccurate, the two people sent to jail are only middle managers:
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I long for the day that ANYTHING close to this happens in the USA
Seems like it also doesn’t happen in Germany, as the post title doesn’t match the article.
The two people sent to jail are middle managers (Head of XY), not executives.
Why aim low, why not public flogging, and pillories?
How about we don’t bring back corporal punishment. I get the sentiment, but i’d rather our justice system didn’t turn into a torture system.
Good. Finally they’re facing some actual consequences for their actions.
If only also the politicians that decided what the limits should be without any consideration for the real world would face the consequences…
Not that the VW guys did the right thing, but what other option they had ? Close down and go home ?
I disagree. VW could have crashed their diesel production in favor of hybrids and EVs. They’re playing late to the game catch up now and may not survive at all. Putting off something you know is coming - the end of diesel vehicle prevalence - through deception YOU KNOW WILL RESULT IN MILLIONS OF VEHICLES CONTRIBUTING WORSE EMISSIONS BUT BEING REGARDED AS BETTER - that’s fucking heinous and criminal.
Oh maybe you have an extra biosphere we can slap on to the one being wrecked by CO2? No?
Anyone who knew the truth is complicit in that destruction and we’re only beginning to quantify the harm.
I disagree.
Fine, but aside the fact that everyone lied in this matter, why we should spare the ones that make an absurd law with no ties to the real world and only fueled by ideology ? I repeat, I don’t think that what VW did was right.
VW could have crashed their diesel production in favor of hybrids and EVs.
The hybrids maybe, but that not really solve the problem, even the first hybrids from Toyota had a 1.5 liter gasoline engine.
For a full EVs we are just now at a point where they start to become usable. And the reason is that you need a whole infrastructure around the EV cars, just think about chargers, additional space there to put them, place where you cannot put them and so on.They’re playing late to the game catch up now and may not survive at all.
I agree on that.
Putting off something you know is coming - the end of diesel vehicle prevalence - through deception YOU KNOW WILL RESULT IN MILLIONS OF VEHICLES CONTRIBUTING WORSE EMISSIONS BUT BEING REGARDED AS BETTER - that’s fucking heinous and criminal.
Well, from a technical point of view, the diesel engine is cleaner in some way and dirtier in other so I would say that the diesel is not better but also not worse. It only produce a different type of emissions.
And, by the way, the emission’s limits for a diesel engine in the Euro-X normatives are always way lower then the ones for the gasoline.
Oh maybe you have an extra biosphere we can slap on to the one being wrecked by CO2? No?
Of course not. But on the other hand I am not stupid enough to adhere blindly to an ideology.
Anyone who knew the truth is complicit in that destruction and we’re only beginning to quantify the harm.
So the politicians are the first you need to jail.
Of course not. But on the other hand I am not stupid enough to adhere blindly to an ideology.
ah yes, the silly ideology of breathing.
So how we can call what is behind the “ban this and that” mentality which is without any real study about the consequences and without any suggestion for alternatives ? Pre-intentional stupidity ?
Look, I am fully aware that what VW (and everyone else) did was a crime and I agree that they must pay. On the oher hand I also fully understand that you cannot change the reality only because you write a law to change it, in this case all the Euro-x normatives about emission levels.
Do you think that it is a silly idelogy to ask that also the people that make silly decision that they will not suffer are asked to pay for the consequences ? Fine, think this way.
Do we really lost the concept that one can agree with something but also see what the problems of that thing are ?
Yes, VW could have switched to hydrid or EV but not in the timeframe they are given.
Not to consider that switching the entire production to hybrid and EV without the necessary infrastructure to use them in the real world is useless, you simply build cars that nobody will buy.
In Canada we were told that putting execs in jail would “hurt jobs” and we had to pass a law that said they just get a fine instead.
The execs in question were caught selling hookers to Qaddafi’s son.
Before this, I afraid Justin Trudeau was privileged elite, born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
After what he did to Jody Wilson-Raybould, I knew Justin Trudeau was a out of touch tone deaf, nepo baby. Truly he was never able to relate to us Canadian “normies”.
This! Finally! This will make other execs scratch themselves behind the ears and consider their life choices. Fines for the company they work for won’t, as these same execs just budget these fines into the crimes they’re planning to commit.
Fuck these frauds, hope they stay in for years.
Also, continue doing this, jail all the execs that break the law.
Despite what the headline says, no execs went to jail. The two who were punished with jail terms were middle management.
Martin Winterkorn, the CEO, will probably avoid any serious consequences.
I only have cursory knowledge of this incident, but: It’s possible that was the right outcome. A lot of middle managers do some heinous shit, and then report only positive news to upper management with a “Don’t worry about it” attitude.
We all know there’s also evil CEOs in the world as well, but maybe the investigation found this wasn’t one of them. 'Course, maybe they were just better at keeping plausible deniability.
The Board had discussions about how to stonewall California. US prosecutors have filed charges against the CEO but Germany won’t extradite.
They are all guilty as fuck.
Yeah, the second one. It’s the ones prepared to do shit like that who get promoted in the first place.
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Damn, assassination for air pollution is new for me.
The rich choose to exert violence on everyone else daily. This is community defense.
Lying about emissions is violence? Like chemical warfare?
Profit over people is violence. If a single person is harmed by your lie, that is violence against humanity.
But they have to be rich, right? I’m interested in the criteria.
What about a nation that supports a company who produces goods that allow the company to make profit, and the production of the goods harms people’s lives (e.g. pollution or poor working conditions in the production country). Somebody should police that nation. Maybe bomb the nation?
The dieselgate scandal is why I am so disappointed when I heard that Volkswagen outsold Tesla in Europe for the number one spot since the start of the year. I have been hoping it would a more scrupulous company (and non-Chinese EV manufacturer) that took the number one spot for European EV cars sold.
If it makes you feel any better, all brands had illegally high emissions. People only tie it to VW so much because they were the first to be tested, and they owned up to it, meaning media could call them out on it without fear of libel.
VW wasn’t even close to the worst offender.
They only owned up after lying and obfuscating for years. California said they work with manufacturers when they are out of compliance, but brought their lawsuit because VW wouldn’t cooperate
Anyone have a link without the anti GDRP cookie trackers?
content itself https://lemmy.world/post/30292632/17298348
Thanks!
Gefängnisvergnügen
It took 10 years? Well even longer because they figured something was wrong before it came public.
The court sent the former head of diesel engine development behind bars for four years and six months, and the former head of powertrain electronics to two years and seven months.
well I guess there are some places where the law does not always serve the rich, that is mildly good news
This is the way.
“A good start…”
Is that why my VWAGY and VWAPY have been slowly recovering from their late 2024 slump? Because the old managers were crooks but they’re out now?
Man, what a wild world.
Rich people going to jail what fantasy is this. And i can i live there
It’s amazing what you can find if you don’t just look at memes - https://www.forbes.com.au/news/billionaires/billionaires-behind-bars/
