Ford Pinto
Summary
In America, the automobile engineers had first encountered imports such as the Volkswagen with compact cars including the Falcon, Covair, and Dart. These vehicles, with their six cylinder engines, were actually comprised as a larger class of vehicles. Due to the increase popularity of the smaller Japanese imports from Toyota and Datsun in May of 1968, the Ford Motor Company, based upon a recommendation by then vice-president Lee Iacocca, decided to introduce a subcompact car and produce it domestically. (Leggett, 1999) The Ford Pinto appeared on the market in 1970, and sales of the car were good for the first few years.
The engineers designed the gas tank to be positioned between the bumper and the rear axle. This design …show more content…
If Ford would have used the $11 to make the changes the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration figured it would have result in 180 less burn deaths, 180 less serious burn injuries, and 2,100 less burned vehicles, but since the benefit of $49.5 million was much less than the cost of $137 million Ford felt their decision was justified. Pertaining to the ethical aspect of Ford’s decision not to alter the fuel tank position, as discussed earlier there were no company or government standards in effect that governed the decisions. However, when the Pinto was still in the blueprint stage the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety was in working on Standard 301 which would have proposed that all cars should be able to withstand a fixed barrier impact of 20 mph without losing fuel. When a federal regulatory agency decides to propose a new standard by law it customarily requires the new standard to invite all interested parties to respond before the standard is enforced. However, the auto industry takes advantage of this process and uses to their advantage and delay’s the standards for years. In the case of the standard that would have corrected that defected Pinto fuel tank positioning, the delay was for an incredible eight years. (Dowie,
In America, the automobile engineers had first encountered imports such as the Volkswagen with compact cars including the Falcon, Covair, and Dart. These vehicles, with their six cylinder engines, were actually comprised as a larger class of vehicles. Due to the increase popularity of the smaller Japanese imports from Toyota and Datsun in May of 1968, the Ford Motor Company, based upon a recommendation by then vice-president Lee Iacocca, decided to introduce a subcompact car and produce it domestically. (Leggett, 1999) The Ford Pinto appeared on the market in 1970, and sales of the car were good for the first few years.
The engineers designed the gas tank to be positioned between the bumper and the rear axle. This design …show more content…
If Ford would have used the $11 to make the changes the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration figured it would have result in 180 less burn deaths, 180 less serious burn injuries, and 2,100 less burned vehicles, but since the benefit of $49.5 million was much less than the cost of $137 million Ford felt their decision was justified. Pertaining to the ethical aspect of Ford’s decision not to alter the fuel tank position, as discussed earlier there were no company or government standards in effect that governed the decisions. However, when the Pinto was still in the blueprint stage the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety was in working on Standard 301 which would have proposed that all cars should be able to withstand a fixed barrier impact of 20 mph without losing fuel. When a federal regulatory agency decides to propose a new standard by law it customarily requires the new standard to invite all interested parties to respond before the standard is enforced. However, the auto industry takes advantage of this process and uses to their advantage and delay’s the standards for years. In the case of the standard that would have corrected that defected Pinto fuel tank positioning, the delay was for an incredible eight years. (Dowie,