Actions going forward

The best course of action VW could take is to start form scratch and attempt to rebuild the trust of its customers. To do this they have to force some of the higher ups in the company to resign and step down in order to let a new person of power or CEO to step in. The New Leader has not betrayed its customers and will hopefully be able to rebuild the credibility of VW so that they can become productive in the future. In this Case, the CEO is using trust to guide the next set of codes for his or her behavior. Ethical Trust is gong to become a major factor in VW and will be important towards how they operate in the future. They are going to be monitored very closely in the future so they will need a strong leader who has the right code of ethics behind the to take the company in the right directions.

The next step they would take is recalling all of their vehicles (which they have) to ensure that all the defeat devices are off the road and terminated. This is just another step to starting fresh. Issues are going to arise where they may need to provide compensation for those who were not satisfied and are offended by what VW tried to pull off. So they will have to deal with those as the company begins to take back their vehicles. The next step they are going to have to do is to redesign their engines. The whole reason they were in this mess was because it was going to cost too much to change their engines in order to reach the proper emissions level. They are going to need to establish a team to redo and revamp their automobiles that are going to consist of top level engineers. This is going to cost a lot of money but it is something they have to do. VW has set aside $1.2 Billion of its capital in order to fix this issue. It all could have been avoided if they spent the money in the future and making their cars the right way.

I think this is the only way they can continue to be successful in the future. They must base their ethical framework on trust and begin new stages of development. This course of action will ensure a fresh start and show its customers they are taking all the necessary courses of action to create the right ethical standards for the company in the future.

The word on the street

One U.S. customer was interviewed explaining how she was betrayed and would no longer drive a car from a company that did not care about the environment or people’s health. I feel she is jumping to conclusions a little but because it is not like the emission levels VW was operating at was completely ruining the health of people or leaving a huge mark on the environment. Their levels were still low it was just not meeting the restriction policies necessary to be legal. I feel the general public has a lack of insight because some are jumping to conclusions like this person.

The Wall Street Journal goes into depth about how officials in California are incredibly angered by what they did. It is mostly because the German auto makers thought they could get away with it. When they were finally caught all they said was we totally screwed up and were sorry. The Wall Street Journals insight shows us that Germany attempted to get away with a major scandal and knew about it the whole time.

ABC News did a piece on this and were wondering what people thought of the German automakers scandal as well. They interviewed a lady named Lisa Drockins who owned a new VW Golf. She said she really wanted an environmentally responsible car and that is apparently not what she got. She continued on saying it felt criminal and that she was disappointed and simply pissed off. She seems to have quite a bit of insight due to her being an owner of a scandalous car. ABC states car owners are worried about the value of their vehicles and how they will be fixed.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/volkswagen-probe-in-germany-extended-to-chairman-1478429066

VW explaining their actions

They are explaining their actions by saying the emissions standards that needed to be met were extremely difficult in diesel engines. The boundaries they would have to put on their engines to be legal would effect their performance and they did not have an answer so they chose to be dishonest. They are literally saying they have totally screwed up and regret their actions. VW is getting accused of being more worried about company profit over health and well being. The CEO issued an apology as soon as the issue became public and the resign from his duties to pave the way for a fresh start.

The New CEO is leaving no stone unturned while he rebuilds the company. The are giving compensation to those who owned the cars that had the issue and are doing this to try and gain trust again. They intend to fix their engines but VW says it is going to effect fuel economy and durability of the products while all costing them a lot of money in the process. The cars are going to be redeveloped in order to balance that machine properly and will take while to do. I do not think it will take them long to build trust back up but the fact is that they have to completely redo their engine so hopefully it meets the standards of their last one. I found it interesting that they knew willingly they were being unethical and not following the codes of the emissions tests. These decisions had to come from higher up and was carried out throughout the company. Obviously the “tone at the top” was not a very good one. VW are getting/got new people in command for a fresh start, dealing with the problem cars, and redesigning their engine to meet the requirements.

VW Operations and Company Description

Volkswagen is a German automaker found in the year 1937 by the German Labour Front headquartered in Wolfsburg Germany which was a Nazi organization at the time. This was Hitler’s pet project and it involved developing an affordable yet speedy vehicle that could sell for cheap. Hitler used Austrian engineering to design a vehicle that would be described as a car bringing transportation needs to its users. Although the idea was promising, Production of Volkswagen halted when World War II began in 1939. The war ended with the factory in ruins, but Germany would make Volkswagen its main focus to rebuild their auto industry.

Volkswagen began distributing their cars to many parts of the world. However, sales in the United States were slow due to the fact that Volkswagen had Nazi connections. The appearance of the car did not seem presentable to Americans as well. It wasn’t until 1959 where they began calling the car beetle that they would begin to make an impact in sales. By 1960 they were the top selling auto importer in the United States and began to sell their stocks to the public. They would eventually pass the world wide production record of 15 million that was earlier set by Ford. Volkswagens beetle style vehicles would eventually grow irrelevant and sales became weak I the 1970s. They then began to introduce sportier looking cars like the rabbit and Golf.

Today Volkswagen is one of the largest car makers in the world. Its 590,000 employees produce nearly 41,000 vehicles a day. They own 12 subsidiaries including Passenger cars, Audi, Seat and Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati, and Volkswagen commercial vehicles. In 2014 the company was one of the biggest firms in the world. It has factories in 31 countries and is sold in 153 countries across the globe. Finally, in 2015 they admit cheating emissions tests in the U.S.

Works Cited

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/volkswagen-is-founded

Emissions Scandal

Volkswagen is one of the worlds leading car manufacturers and is the largest car maker in Europe. They create 7 different brands of cars and are head of the class when it comes to designing automobiles. However, they were involved in a scandal in 2015 that lost them billions of dollars in their manufacturing industry. This scandal has come to be known in the US as the “diesel dupe”.

The Environmental protection Agency found 482,00 cars in the US that had a piece of technology or software called “Defeat Devices”. These devices could detect when the VW diesel engines were being tested for carbon dioxide emission levels, and then change the performance accordingly to improve the results. VW has admitted to about 11 million cars worldwide who have the “defeat device” implemented in them. Using and implementing these defeat devices is incredibly unethical and EPA is taking the matter seriously and is capable of fining the company up to 18 billion dollars.

VW has recalling about 8.5 million cars in Europe with about 500,000 being in the US as a result of this scandal. The car makers shares have fallen a third since the scandal broke, but slowly made gains but not have fully recovered.

Works Cited

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772