JCC Volkswagen's massive consumer fraud

Perhaps one of you can clear up what the role Wolfgang Hatz had in the R&D process for Porsche in addition to his duties for the VW AG?

 

How is anyone going to be able to answer that?

And how does that relate to Wocky's lack of understanding about how VW AG works?

 

You seemed to have been keeping up with this closer than I had, and I was curious if you could clear up his involvement in this entire thing. If not, that's cool and I'll just move on. The question wasn't meant to relate to Wocky at all.

 

Well Hatz headed up the R&D department at Porsche whilst concurrently heading up the Engines and Transmissions department at VW?

 

Yes, and so the question remains to what extent Mr Hatz had any awareness of the move to defeat emissions testing in that capacity, and if Porsche itself is actually compromised as a prestigious brand within the Group.

However, given we don't know the extent to which the Board et al knew of the decision to defeat the emissions regime the likelihood that corporate documents tying Mr Hatz to the affair being available to us is non-existent.

 

My feeling is that it is highly unlikely that somebody like Hatz would have been aware of the scam. He is ultimately responsible, but I seriously doubt he was in on it.

 

If I am not mistaken, VW's board became aware of the issue before it broke. Speaking from experience with ASIC here, you generally do know a regulator plans to make a statement and take action as you've been in talks for months before it comes out. So VW might have known before the Sept. headline; or they might have known before regulators did.
So there's knowing in advance of when it was reported or made known to regulators, and there's approving the process as part of the development process.

 

I can buy that Porsche was not in on the scam itself. VW orchestrated it themselves, and probably saw no need to take the risk on letting the brands they own know about it. So a VW diesel engine goes into the Cayenne and Porsche has no need to have concern. But if that story is saying that Porsche still didn't wonder about the Cayenne even after this whole thing got exposed, then I don't buy that. The scope of the whole thing (every diesel engine made by VW, including engines in the brands they owned if applicable) quickly became very evident.

And now this newest news is saying the scam may not have just been limited to diesel? Wow.

 

That's no surprise to me at all, though. I didn't think it would be limited to just diesel, even if it wasn't as extensive. You don't stop with one thing when you're making a lot of money in the process.

 

I lol'ed at this. Maybe because it came from Bob Lutz.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a27197/bob-lutz-vw-diesel-fiasco/

 

Well, no. Do you work in business? I know KW doesn't, and he seeks to remind us of it often.

Porsche AG is a fully owned subsidiary and related body corporate of the VW Group. Porsche's board, which may share executive and non-executive directors with VW's board, would have sought assurance from VW compliance that the VW sourced engine - which, if you look at the years VW engines are affected (2009-) and the year Porsche is affected (2015), tells you something - was not defective or in-scope for this EPA regulatory action.

Based on the statement Porsche released, they received that assurance from the VW Board.

Except... actually, no. It's more fun to watch you and Wocky compete for who has less idea about cars.

 

I agree with Ender.

 

Yes, I work for a large corporation. At any rate, I think I knew all that already, but I guess I must have missed that the VW board essentially lied to Porsche like that.

 

You should know how corporations work, especially if you have any entity management work like board reporting. I've now reported directly to 7 boards in total in a compliance role. So I know that boards - and many of the ones I reported to were required to be majority non-executive by regulators, therefore more conservative - are reliant on testimony from delegated responsible managers.

So, there's no evidence that the VW Board knowingly misleading the Porsche board. A number of very likely factors could be at play here:

1) The fact that VW continues to self-report breaches, such as the 800,000 petrol models, indicates they are still uncovering problems. So at the time they may have given Porsche assurances that were, to the best of their knowledge, accurate
2) We have no indication that any senior managers have been fired - and probably won't know either - as a result of giving inaccurate or misleading attestations to the board. I know when my old company went into an enforceable undertaking with the major regulator, a number of people fell on swords as a result but it didn't always make the press.
3) VW may have elected, as we did, to extend cooperation with regulators and widen the scope of possible non-compliance as a way of demonstrating openness and accountability. Therefore a decision may have been made to report any marginal or "barely safe" incidents which meant that the revised scope then included the 2015 V6 TDI engine in the Porsche Cayenne Diesel.

 

http://blog.caranddriver.com/vws-proposed-tdi-diesel-fix-rejected-by-regulators/

Whoops...

 

"rejected Volkswagen’s proposed fix for its 2.0-liter diesel engines"

Is that how you spell lighter in America, or litre?

It's hard to tell, with your habit of baby spelling.

In any event, the piece is lacking in detail with respect of what VW actually proposed. I assume it was a software fix, and the regulators wanted basically a "firmware" fix, i.e. recall of the engines.

Lack of facts will, I predict, not impede 'expert' commentary.

 

How possible is it that VW will have ceased to exist as we know it today within five to ten years because of what they did? Not all at once, of course, but through a gradual series of events.

 

Slim.

 

Unless more wrongdoing is discovered I can't see this being the kind of scandal which winds the company up, there's just so much brand loyalty. People will still buy VWs now and in the future. If it was Kia or Hyundai then I'd think differently.

 

I still love my VW, KW. And next? Audi for sure.

 

Right now, a company as big as VW could be found to be grinding babies to use as lubricant and expect nothing but a legal slap on the wrist and some half-hearted public backlash that will last for the brief duration of our shared attention span.

 

Right, but they're going to have to pay a massive amount of money because of what happened, and that doesn't include anything that's yet to come out which hasn't already. Do they have enough?

 

Yes.

 

Everything else aside, the German government is as likely to let VW go bankrupt as the US government was to let GM in 2008-09.

 

KW, look at this thread. Ender, a private citizen with no known affiliation with VW, tried to turn an announcement of massive, coordinated, intentional fraud into a fan club thread about his favorite products of theirs. When BP caused the greatest environmental catastrophe in the Gulf in recorded history, a major complaint was how public commentary about the company was too mean. Capitalists are lunatics. I don't know why you're expecting anything approaching that scale of consequences.