The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal: Case Study
MGMT 512 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE EXAM 1
MELİKE UYSAL 53008 MODULAR MBA
The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal
In September 2015, it has been revealed that Volkswagen had programmed its diesel cars to defeat
emission tests. For the manufacturers, it was no secret that they are attempting to defeat those tests,
but for Volkswagen, the scale and method of the deceit was huge. The technology for cleansing Nitrous
Oxide emissions was coming with a trade off against fuel efficiency and performance so engineers of VW
have decided to manage the situation by introducing two different driving modes into the cars software.
One of them was for passing US Nitrous Oxide emissions requirements test and the other was for
different circumstances, so that the cars’ …show more content…
[1] The same tactic was used in all markets, valid for models of
2009 to 2015, number of affected vehicles in US was around 500.000 and 11 million worldwide. In
addition to that, Nitrous Oxide Emissions a side product of diesel combustion are harmful for human
health and some analysts suggest that this additional pollution aroused from VW cars might have
resulted in 100 additional deaths only in US related with respiratory illnesses. [2]
The official line from VW during internal investigation was that, this was under the responsibility of few
engineers and programmers of the software but, with such a large number of vehicles with models of 6
years, it seems like the senior management should have been aware of the situation until it was
revealed.
The main motivation behind this situation was cost saving because there were competitors like BMW
and Mercedes selling diesel cars to US market and they were using a more expensive technology to clean
Nitrous Oxide Emissions which was named as urea filtering. However VW choose not to license this
technology from them and by doing so, VW is estimated to save 4.8 billion dollars worldwide.
MELİKE UYSAL 53008 MODULAR MBA
The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal
In September 2015, it has been revealed that Volkswagen had programmed its diesel cars to defeat
emission tests. For the manufacturers, it was no secret that they are attempting to defeat those tests,
but for Volkswagen, the scale and method of the deceit was huge. The technology for cleansing Nitrous
Oxide emissions was coming with a trade off against fuel efficiency and performance so engineers of VW
have decided to manage the situation by introducing two different driving modes into the cars software.
One of them was for passing US Nitrous Oxide emissions requirements test and the other was for
different circumstances, so that the cars’ …show more content…
[1] The same tactic was used in all markets, valid for models of
2009 to 2015, number of affected vehicles in US was around 500.000 and 11 million worldwide. In
addition to that, Nitrous Oxide Emissions a side product of diesel combustion are harmful for human
health and some analysts suggest that this additional pollution aroused from VW cars might have
resulted in 100 additional deaths only in US related with respiratory illnesses. [2]
The official line from VW during internal investigation was that, this was under the responsibility of few
engineers and programmers of the software but, with such a large number of vehicles with models of 6
years, it seems like the senior management should have been aware of the situation until it was
revealed.
The main motivation behind this situation was cost saving because there were competitors like BMW
and Mercedes selling diesel cars to US market and they were using a more expensive technology to clean
Nitrous Oxide Emissions which was named as urea filtering. However VW choose not to license this
technology from them and by doing so, VW is estimated to save 4.8 billion dollars worldwide.