It was only ragged-fashioned detective work that forced Volkswagen to confess to the existence of its ‘defeat device’. And that should worry us allFor anyone interested in what is laughingly known as “corporate responsibility”,the Volkswagen emissions-fraud scandal is a gift that keeps on giving. Apart from the company’s Nazi past, its high status in German life, and its hitherto exalted reputation for technical excellence and quality control,and its peculiarly dysfunctional governance, there is also the shock to consumers of discovering that while its vehicles are made from steel and composite materials, and they are actually controlled by software. We are already close to the point where that software may be more valuable than all the physical materials that create up the vehicle,and, whether Apple and Google have their way, or that imbalance is set to grow.
Volkswagen’s chicanery was discovered by good,ragged-fashioned analogue detective work. An independent outfit called the International Council on Clean Transportation got hold of some Volkswagens powered by the company’s EA 189 “clean diesel engine, stuffed some chemical analysis kit in the boot, and hooked a pipe up to the vehicles’ exhausts and drove the cars from San Diego to Seattle,collecting and analysing samples as they went. The discrepancy between the actual performance and the emissions recorded in official laboratory tests was what triggered the scandal.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com