
VW engineer sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case - doener
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-sentencing/vw-engineer-sentenced-to-40-month-prison-term-in-diesel-case-idUSKCN1B51YP?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=59a05e9b04d301050bce8161&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
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JohnGB
Okay, so it's okay to go after an engineer at VW for gaming the system, and
causing higher emissions than everyone thought, but not okay to go after
bankers for fraud which screwed the world economy?

I'm not saying that the engineer shouldn't be responsible - he should - but
it's an extreme double standard.

~~~
ju-st
Banks are too big to fail in the US. German car companies are not too big to
fail in the US.

~~~
taneq
I'm starting to think that the measure of "too big to fail" is campaign
donations, not percentage of GDP or something.

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skrebbel
Fantastic precedent. When your boss tells you to do something unethical and
possibly illegal, you now have a great reason to say no.

~~~
baddox
Is it a good enough reason though? That would depend on the likelihood of
losing your job by refusing, the ease of finding a different job, the
seriousness of the unethical request, and the likelihood of getting caught.

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wffurr
When asked why you were fired, being able to say "I was asked to do something
illegal or unethical" is a strong response. That certainly helps with the
"find a new job" part.

~~~
gech
I could easily see the interviewer twist this to ask the next question "But
does that mean you won't be loyal to us??"

~~~
GolDDranks
On the other hand, you could always respond by saying: I expect not to be
asked to do something illegal; I have no interest in working for such a
company. However, I have high expectations of you, and that's why I believe I
can be fully loyal to you.

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neya
While the article does mention one more guy (Oliver Schmidt), it's a shame
they just put the whole thing on this Engineer, when in reality there is no
way this could have been pulled off by two people without the rest of
management's knowledge/approval.

Are you seriously telling me that only this single guy was responsible for all
the emissions that were found in the TDI range of diesels, all the way from A3
to A8? Sorry, I'm not buying it.

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Tomte
This is a common sentiment here on HN, and it is entirely devoid of factual
grounding.

This is one guy who happened to travel to the USA (stupid move: asking US
authorities before travelling "hey, are you going to arrest me?" and taking
their word that no, they don't plan to…). Another American VW guy has already
been sentenced.

The "real culprits" are all living in Germany. And the investigation in
Germany is ongoing. It may not make a splash in the US press, but there have
been raids at VW offices and in managers' private homes.

Former CEO Martin Winterkorn is amongst the now thirty-seven people
investigated (so it is certainly not the case that German prosecutors focus on
a few lowly engineers as "fall guys", as HN commenteers love to claim).

The investigation is ongoing, and it is generally expected that there will be
criminal charges. But this takes time.

Press release by the public prosecutor:
[http://www.staatsanwaltschaften.niedersachsen.de/startseite/...](http://www.staatsanwaltschaften.niedersachsen.de/startseite/staatsanwaltschaften/braunschweig/presseinformationen/zahl-
der-beschuldigten-steigt-150570.html)

~~~
chiefalchemist
So, in short, these guys are being charged because they can. They're a victim
of circumstances. Scape goats. Political/power pawns if you will.

Understand the reasons why, but it does feel like justice.

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dsfyu404ed
"everybody who has anything to do with this affront to the EPA shall burn at
the stake"

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mankash666
Executives need to be punished - not just lowly engineers who followed orders
under the duress of losing employment

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stonogo
He moved to the US specifically to lie to federal authorities.

Lowly?

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mankash666
Who was the boss who suggested this be done?

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eninetytwo
Who said it was his job on the line if he didn't? Quite frankly, it was his
choice to engineer the cheat, whether he was ordered to by threat of
employment or not.

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dreen
Good.

For context, air pollution kills 200,000 in the US and 40,000 in UK every
year.

You have to consider ethics in your work as an Engineer. Refusing an unethical
task is your moral duty.

~~~
draugadrotten
>You have to consider ethics in your work as an Engineer. Refusing an
unethical task is your moral duty.

It's easy to say, but ethics isn´t always so black and white. What about
yourself. Do you drive a car? Then you are guilty of contributing to the air
pollution that kills 200,000 in the US ever year, and you also endanger
others' life by participating in traffic and making it more dangerous. You are
also contributing to sponsoring the salaries of the car industry overall,
which means you are indirectly sponsoring the development of more lethal
machines, which also by the way enables murderers to transport themselves more
rapidly to their victims.

Did you post a helpful comment on HN or stackoverflow, and this comment helped
a programmer in North Korea to develop their nuclear weapons just a little bit
further, is that ethical?

You have to consider ethics, but an "unethical task" depends so much on
context.

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dreen
The context was pretty clear here. This particular engineer got asked to do
something he knew was unethical and he did it anyway. That is pretty black on
white to me.

Consumer behaviour is an entirely different thing.

~~~
timthelion
I agree with you that the unethical nature of what he did was black and white.
But why is consumer behavior any different?

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Dowwie
Let this be a lesson to all that refusing unethical Management decisions might
get you fired but at least you won't go to prison.

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saas_co_de
Unfortunately I think most people will conclude that this kind of enforcement
only applies to non-US companies. I guess people from the US might start
worrying about travel to the EU though.

~~~
jacquesm
I'd love for that to happen but it probably won't. US companies routinely
break EU laws and get away with it.

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jpdus
And all this, while the VW share just reached new record highs...

~~~
marenkay
... which is kind of weird, considering they promised low emission cars since
the 1980s and have not been able to deliver on that.

And now all of a sudden the invest marginal sums (lower than what gets
invested for new car models usually) to make electric cars work, and suddenly
bankers think they'll make it work?

I seriously doubt it.

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SZJX
The problem I find with the whole episode is that it would be incredibly naive
to think that only VW cheats the emission tests (as apparently also evidenced
by the recent news that Fiat Chrysler also did it, with likely many other
carmakers doing it as well. There was also news about Samsung cheating the
emission tests on their electronic products, but that made no splash
whatsoever). Though all the provisions for fining VW and sentencing those guys
are theoretically sound in legal terms, I can't help but feel it highly
political, just like the EU's crackdown and fines on Google, Microsoft etc.
There's basically an implicit trade war and accompanying trade protectionism
going on.

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hutzlibu
The astonishing thing for me is, that this is not at all new:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeat_device](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeat_device)

Yet everybody involved acts totally surprised.

So good, that they do strong punishments, but maybe don't stop with VW, as
others apparently do the same now (or working on it to put it silently under
the carpet). Which makes me wonder if there is some backdoor agreement, that
VW gets the public shame now, but recieves funding/legal aid, etc. from other
companies as they are all involved in this and they don't want VW do the
aggressive defense, of "everybody else is doing it as well" ...

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zardo
This is a baseless conspiracy theory. Cheating is not par for the course, it
was shocking to the emissions compliance community that VW had blatently lied
and cheated.

The history of defeat devices is... complicated. Keep in mind the EPA chief is
a political appointment. Their own interpretations of their own regulations
can vary significantly from one administration to the next.

~~~
hutzlibu
Erm, do you count the wikipedia article as a conspiracy theory as well?

edit: which is the base of my "baseless" theory which I clearly stated as a
possible theory, not a fact

edit2: and maybe mark your edits, as edits? Otherwise it looks like
manipulative arguing.

And to me defeat devices seem not so complicated. Simply cheating. VW just
took it to a new level.

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ewoodrich
Setting aside the environmental impact of the false emissions claims --
deceiving millions of customers about a big ticket product should have a
commensurate punishment.

I hope this isn't the last VW conviction.

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tryingagainbro
Not enough, and I have a feeling that he should've been one of the dozens, if
not hundreds.

Fraud in the case is commuted upon the buyers and everyone that breathes that
air (cancers, asthma...etc). You're talking tens of billions. Go rob a store
and you get a lot more jail time. Yeah the store owner and 3 customer were
traumatized but so were the thousands or millions of people that suffered
(directly or indirectly) from your fraud.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I think the re-calibrated software that hurt performance and fuel economy
caused customers to suffer a lot more than the pollution did.

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coldtea
Of course, who else would be responsible but an engineer?

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basicsbeauty
Domestic companies get a free pass even if their cars literally kill people.
But rules are different for foreign companies.

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eeZah7Ux
Punish one engineer and leave manager and __other companies __alone?

