Volkswagen Emissions Scandal

Presented By:

Md. Tanzid Hossain Shawon 2011-2-80-007

East West University (EWU)

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE)

Group: 02

EEE 404, Fall 2015

Contents Company profile

Case background

Analysis according to

Virtue

Utilitarianism

Duty

Right

Conclusion

References 2

Company profile

Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer established in 1946

Headquarter in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany

Ranked as the 3rd largest manufacture in 2009 according to OICA

The word Volkswagen means "People's car" in Germany

Its current CEO is Matthias Muller

Production facilities in 27 countries

Sales in 153 countries

3

Case Background

4

Volkswagen cheat nitrogen oxide emission test

Contained software to turns off emission control

Emit nitrogen oxide up to 40 times the standard

In 2014 Environment Protection Agency (EPA) investigation begins

Volkswagen argues third party tests are flawed

3 September 2015 Volkswagen admits using software to trick regulator

18 September 2015 scandal goes public

7 October 2015 Volkswagen expects recall of cars in January-2016

Case Background (Cont…..)

Ethical Issue:

Volkswagen not only disregarded EPA laws and restrictions but

also invented software to avoid them

Volkswagen vehicles were emitting an enormous amount of

nitrogen oxides negatively impacting the United States air

5

Virtue ethics

Virtue

Volkswagen's conduct did not carry any virtue

Vices

Dishonesty

Lack of professionalism

Lack of responsibility

6

Utilitarianism Benefit

Made profit for certain period of time

Costs

Company’s reputation is now damage

Global sales declined

Fine up to $ 18bn (€11.6bn)

Rise downtime cost

Loss of customer goodwill 7

Duty ethics

Company's duty to look after the welfare of customer

Company's duty to maintain EPA's law and restriction

Company's duty to produce environment friendly product

Engineer's duty to make trusty software

8

Rights ethics

Customer has a fundamental right about their purchase product

EPA has a right to check the defective devices

Customer right to get environment friendly product

Software quality control inspector right to check the quality

9

Conclusion

Failure of ethical theories

Huge amount of air pollution

Recall the defective cars

10

11 References

1. BBC news, on emission test [Online]

Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34857404

2. CNN News, on Volkswagen scandal and cheating [Online]

Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2015/09/28/opinions/schneier-vw-cheating-

software/

3. Wikipedia report [Online]

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

Thank You