Let’s go Germany!! Shouldn’t be the election to the rule
This sounds like actual impactful consequences and accountability for the rich exploitative asshole executives actually responsible? Did I forget to wake up in the morning?
One insanity in the following years was how they thought people still wanted their next generation diesel.
I’ve been working for them in the 2010s with the department to organise the staff car fleet. We ordered many electric vehicles years ahead from production and planned it all around electric vehicles: Charging stations, operating distance, some hybrids for long distance, software to calculate trips etc.
Then a few months before we needed them, they said: We overproduced on the latest diesel generation and can’t keep up with the demand for electric vehicles, so we have to sell the ones you ordered. You can either go with a Tesla (for official Volkswagen business trips!) or have the diesel for free.
It felt like there was a hysteria: Decision makers got it in their heads that the “hype” for electric vehicles was ideology-driven and not something people with buying power actually wanted today or in the near future. Bit like the republican administration thinking that “woke” is our main problem. Meanwhile, huge research and development departments did come up with the electric vehicles they sell today (and fully working hydrogen prototypes you won’t see in a store, just to be safe) and must have been quite frustrated that so few were produced.
Before anyone becomes to happy: the post’s title is inaccurate, the two people sent to jail are only middle managers:
deleted my happy post bc of this
What’s Volkswagen’s org structure like? I wouldn’t normally expect a department head to be middle management.
Think of them more like division heads. Not quite a regular middle manager, but not C-suite.
I… I thought a middle manager is any manager who’s not the very lowest manager, and not the CEO? As in, any manager who has managers above and below them?
Good question - I also don’t know how clear those definitions are. In my head all managers that are under department heads would be middle, and department heads + C-suite would be upper/senior management. And the subset of upper management that is C-level is, well, C-level.
I thought middle management was the guy in between the crew and upper management?
Absolute shit stressful job, btw. Never doing that shit again. If you have a heart, that job will kill it.
I mean the diesel engine department would probably be quite big for a company like Volkswagen. Each engine type has a team of engineers and a manager.
oh no, my VW stocks 🥲
Is that why my VWAGY and VWAPY have been slowly recovering from their late 2024 slump? Because the old managers were crooks but they’re out now?
Man, what a wild world.
This thing happened 2009-> and they got caught around 2015. Justice system is slow.
Ah, right then, the European stock market continues to shift up and down beyond any comprehensible logic. I am saying this unironically.
Good. Finally they’re facing some actual consequences for their actions.
If only also the politicians that decided what the limits should be without any consideration for the real world would face the consequences…
Not that the VW guys did the right thing, but what other option they had ? Close down and go home ?
The real world consequences of keeping fossil fuel cars is much higher than banning all of them.
I disagree. VW could have crashed their diesel production in favor of hybrids and EVs. They’re playing late to the game catch up now and may not survive at all. Putting off something you know is coming - the end of diesel vehicle prevalence - through deception YOU KNOW WILL RESULT IN MILLIONS OF VEHICLES CONTRIBUTING WORSE EMISSIONS BUT BEING REGARDED AS BETTER - that’s fucking heinous and criminal.
Oh maybe you have an extra biosphere we can slap on to the one being wrecked by CO2? No?
Anyone who knew the truth is complicit in that destruction and we’re only beginning to quantify the harm.
I disagree.
Fine, but aside the fact that everyone lied in this matter, why we should spare the ones that make an absurd law with no ties to the real world and only fueled by ideology ? I repeat, I don’t think that what VW did was right.
VW could have crashed their diesel production in favor of hybrids and EVs.
The hybrids maybe, but that not really solve the problem, even the first hybrids from Toyota had a 1.5 liter gasoline engine.
For a full EVs we are just now at a point where they start to become usable. And the reason is that you need a whole infrastructure around the EV cars, just think about chargers, additional space there to put them, place where you cannot put them and so on.They’re playing late to the game catch up now and may not survive at all.
I agree on that.
Putting off something you know is coming - the end of diesel vehicle prevalence - through deception YOU KNOW WILL RESULT IN MILLIONS OF VEHICLES CONTRIBUTING WORSE EMISSIONS BUT BEING REGARDED AS BETTER - that’s fucking heinous and criminal.
Well, from a technical point of view, the diesel engine is cleaner in some way and dirtier in other so I would say that the diesel is not better but also not worse. It only produce a different type of emissions.
And, by the way, the emission’s limits for a diesel engine in the Euro-X normatives are always way lower then the ones for the gasoline.
Oh maybe you have an extra biosphere we can slap on to the one being wrecked by CO2? No?
Of course not. But on the other hand I am not stupid enough to adhere blindly to an ideology.
Anyone who knew the truth is complicit in that destruction and we’re only beginning to quantify the harm.
So the politicians are the first you need to jail.
Of course not. But on the other hand I am not stupid enough to adhere blindly to an ideology.
ah yes, the silly ideology of breathing.
So how we can call what is behind the “ban this and that” mentality which is without any real study about the consequences and without any suggestion for alternatives ? Pre-intentional stupidity ?
Look, I am fully aware that what VW (and everyone else) did was a crime and I agree that they must pay. On the oher hand I also fully understand that you cannot change the reality only because you write a law to change it, in this case all the Euro-x normatives about emission levels.
Do you think that it is a silly idelogy to ask that also the people that make silly decision that they will not suffer are asked to pay for the consequences ? Fine, think this way.
Do we really lost the concept that one can agree with something but also see what the problems of that thing are ?
Yes, VW could have switched to hydrid or EV but not in the timeframe they are given.
Not to consider that switching the entire production to hybrid and EV without the necessary infrastructure to use them in the real world is useless, you simply build cars that nobody will buy.
I’m getting a paywall or adblock block or something. Anyone have a less problematic link to the article?
Here you go:
Four former Volkswagen managers have been convicted of fraud for their roles in the so-called Dieselgate scandal, which erupted when U.S. regulators discovered that the company had installed software to cheat emissions tests on millions of VW, Audi, and Porsche vehicles worldwide.
The court sent the former head of diesel engine development behind bars for four years and six months, and the former head of powertrain electronics to two years and seven months. Two others — Volkswagen’s former development director and a former department head — received suspended sentences, according to Der Spiegel and Deutsche Welle reports from the Braunschweig courtroom.
The verdict follows nearly four years of proceedings and adds to the mounting legal troubles for Volkswagen. Prosecutors had asked for prison terms of two to four years, while the defense argued the men were scapegoats. Appeals remain possible.
After being caught cheating in 2015, the company admitted to installing software in its diesel engines that activated emissions controls only during laboratory testing, allowing the vehicles to meet U.S. standards while in real-world driving, the vehicles emitted up to 40 times more pollutants.
The fallout forced CEO Martin Winterkorn to resign, although he denied wrongdoing. U.S. authorities issued an arrest warrant for Winterkorn in 2018, but Germany does not extradite its nationals. His trial in Germany was paused in 2021 due to health issues, but he remains a key figure under investigation.
Meanwhile, the arrest of Audi’s then-CEO Rupert Stadler in 2018 marked a dramatic shift, as German prosecutors expanded their probe into current executives. Stadler was accused of continuing to sell cars with illegal software even after the scandal broke.
Across the Atlantic, two former VW engineers — Oliver Schmidt and James Robert Liang — are already serving prison sentences in the U.S. Schmidt, who once led VW’s environmental office in the U.S., was sentenced to seven years after initially denying guilt but later reaching a plea deal. Liang received 40 months after cooperating with prosecutors.
Currently, German authorities are investigating up to 40 executives and engineers across Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche, with parallel cases against Daimler (Mercedes) and BMW under way.
OCCRP previously reported on Volkswagen’s 2017 U.S. guilty plea and multibillion-dollar settlement.
The Dieselgate saga has so far cost VW an estimated €33 billion ($37.5 billion) and the legal and financial fallout is far from over.
Thousands of European customers continue to press for compensation, while investigators on both sides of the Atlantic keep pushing for accountability at the highest levels.
defense argued the men were scapegoats.
If you are at the top of an organisation then you can you be a scapegoat? You are literally in charge. Your only chance is if an employee committed fraud and deliberately hid something from you.
Head of department is middle management. Middle management is certainly the most vulnerable position in situations like this.
The top manager got a nice compensation and very high pension (according to Gemran media €1.3 million per year), while the owners (Piech/Porsche family) still earn billions every year.
Top managers do seem to be targeted.
CEO Martin Winterkorn’s trial in Germany was paused in 2021 due to health issues, but he remains a key figure under investigation.
The arrest of Audi’s then-CEO Rupert Stadler in 2018 marked a dramatic shift into current executives.
Owners responsibility is interesting. I think the concept of limited liability protects them, but should it? If they actively influenced the policy I don’t think it should (but proving that is difficult).
US Republicans be like “ANTI-BUSINESS! Enjoying communism?”
That’s all we need! We will take back control, restore law and order!
Anyone have a link without the anti GDRP cookie trackers?
content itself https://lemmy.world/post/30292632/17298348
Gefängnisvergnügen
Was this really that hard? If money can buy justice then there is no justice.
Checking in from the US: Now you’re getting it.
This! Finally! This will make other execs scratch themselves behind the ears and consider their life choices. Fines for the company they work for won’t, as these same execs just budget these fines into the crimes they’re planning to commit.
Fuck these frauds, hope they stay in for years.
Also, continue doing this, jail all the execs that break the law.
Despite what the headline says, no execs went to jail. The two who were punished with jail terms were middle management.
Martin Winterkorn, the CEO, will probably avoid any serious consequences.
Luigi the C-Suite.
Damn, assassination for air pollution is new for me.
The rich choose to exert violence on everyone else daily. This is community defense.
Lying about emissions is violence? Like chemical warfare?
Profit over people is violence. If a single person is harmed by your lie, that is violence against humanity.
But they have to be rich, right? I’m interested in the criteria.
What about a nation that supports a company who produces goods that allow the company to make profit, and the production of the goods harms people’s lives (e.g. pollution or poor working conditions in the production country). Somebody should police that nation. Maybe bomb the nation?
I only have cursory knowledge of this incident, but: It’s possible that was the right outcome. A lot of middle managers do some heinous shit, and then report only positive news to upper management with a “Don’t worry about it” attitude.
We all know there’s also evil CEOs in the world as well, but maybe the investigation found this wasn’t one of them. 'Course, maybe they were just better at keeping plausible deniability.
Yeah, the second one. It’s the ones prepared to do shit like that who get promoted in the first place.
The Board had discussions about how to stonewall California. US prosecutors have filed charges against the CEO but Germany won’t extradite.
They are all guilty as fuck.
The US really like their prisoners, don’t they.
They demand extraditing of prisoners from other countries, but won’t ever extradite to other countries themselves.
Of course Germany won’t extradite we don’t extradite nationals to non-EU countries. It can even happen that we don’t extradite Americans to the US because they can demonstrate that they’re likely to face torture in the US, such as isolation cells.
I mean, apart from the apparent guilt, do you think any country would simply hand over its prominent nationals? If there were a case against an US CEO in Germany, hell would freeze over before extradition.
The point is that the US has gathered enough evidence to get indictments against them. Germany has access to that same evidence and has very similar laws that were violated – but has done basically nothing.
Neat! Punishing conspiracy and engineered lying is a good thing!
