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Comment by kimdouglasmason | Hacker News Reader

Nope, definitely systemic within the company. The engine is a system that must meet certain requirements. The standard way of meeting those requirements is to have a urea injection system. That's what the competitors in the US do; it's also what Subaru, for example, don't do, and they don't sell into the US market.

In order to pull off this little 2-person hack that Horn alleges, those couple of software engineers would have to have a major say over the entire engine design. I call bullshit. This little hack ONLY makes sense in the absence of other major engine components.

The company culture is clearly absolutely rotten and their execs are liars. Employee morale, especially in engineering, must be through the floor.

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> those couple of software engineers would have to have a major say over the entire engine design. I call bullshit.

I agree. Developers wouldn't take that amount of corporate risk on for such a hack without having significant backing from management.

Even if they were completely on their own, which is impossible for me to believe, at some point another developer would have noticed and said something. Developers are smart enough to know anything that can go wrong will go wrong and that such a hack would be exposed, taking a lot of people down with it.

The "individuals" VW is claiming are responsible are 10 managers and 3 top engineers, which include the head of R&D, the head of engine design and the head of Audi.

The definition of "individual" might be different between what VW claims and what you read, though.

Michael Horn, CEO of VW America: "This was a couple of software engineers who put this in for whatever reason." That sounds nothing like what you're describing. The article alludes that many were suspended, but it doesn't directly attribute blame to them.

I find it impossible to believe any software engineer at the implementation level would assume that level of risk. This is obviously scapegoating. I really hope they set those engineers up for life, because they'll never be able to find another job again.

Well, I’m extremely disappointed with VW US. VW Germany instantly had CEO resigning and taking full responsibility and in days started suspending top managers.

In contrast, VW US seems to be even more a bunch of liars.

Well, he's kind of a dead card anyways, so why not use him through all the Congressional hearings. Replace him with someone else when the blizzard is over.

Isn't that sort of like a company president blaming "unauthorized excesses by employees" while neglecting to mention that the "employees" were actually all VP-level?

It sounds to me like they're either casting the blame on the rank-and-file, or they're heavily bending the truth by trying to make it seem like the culprits were "merely" regular employees.

LOL. By that logic almost any decision in the company is essentially individual decision because only humans make decisions in a company.

"that's what the competitors in the US do"

It's also what another VWAG member, Audi, does on the TDI's in America.

These were also very high level engineers.

I can also totally believe that, in order to not seem like a they wasted billions on engine development that they literally would not be able to sell without significant changes, that people in charge of the project would just figure out a way to make it seem like a success.

Contrary to what you say, this doesn't require an entire corporate culture be rotten. It's like branches of a tree. The fact that one branch is diseased does not mean the entire tree is bad.

I've seen this happen in other companies before just in my little open source licensing world.

(some group head and his group lie to me about what they are doing, skirt the rules, etc. right up until i catch them. His boss then asks him what the fuck he was thinking and demotes or fires the group head)

As you get higher up, one of your biggest problems is, fact, people don't want to tell you bad things. My VP used to have a sign on his desk that said "no surprises". Because he wanted to know everything, whether it was good or bad.

"Branches on a tree" makes more sense if VW didn't drag their feet for a year and a half when the report of the failing vehicles first came out. I agree that the whole company cannot be rotten, because it would have leaked to the public long before now, but upper management may be far too ok with rules skirting.

Look into the VW / Porsche infinite share squeeze. These people aren't affable fools. They didn't just accidentally let engineers write code to skirt around international rules by a factor of 10-40.

Actually, the Passat has urea injection and is implicated as well -- though it didn't exceed emissions by as much as cars without aftertreatment.

And the "couple of engineers" was in reference to the head of engineering and another guy. It wasn't implicating rogue low-level engineers.

http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-real-cause-of-the...

The current scandal is only about the "EA189" engine family with NOx traps for exhaust treatment. The new "EA288" engine family with urea injection was designed from scratch, and, I hope, doesn't need cheating software.

Edit: the EA288 is/was -- at least in Europe -- also sold with NOx trap, but VW still claims it's free from cheating software.

Considering all we've learned in this saga about the industry in general and Volkswagen in particular, I would say it's more than likely that it had cheating software anyway.

I think this is part of the problem. The EA189 without AdBlue needed the cheating software. The Passats with AdBlue also had the EA189 and likely could have been tuned to work without the cheating software, but likely have it anyway.

It's a bit of a shame that EA288 cars are stacking up at dealers nationwide and will apparently never be certified for sale (VW said they would not ask for certification), even though they almost certainly don't need the cheat. (Although it's possible that it's still present, which is of course still illegal, need it or not).

Yes, completely different families.

EA189 was a Pumpe-Düse system able to get up to 280mpg in production vehicles, at the cost of high NOx emissions.

EA288 is a standard common-rail engine with AdBlue.

The 189 may be either Pumpe-Düse or Direct Injection. AFAIK all the post-2009 models implicated are common-rail direct injection.

Independently tested Peugeots also have urea injection, but delay injecting it for 10-20 minutes when on the road, and only do it in bursts.

You're making an awful lot of assumptions there.

>those couple of software engineers would have to have a major say over the entire engine design. I call bullshit.

The two people they're mainly talking about are head of R&D group and engine development. Yeah I'd imagine they have major say over engine design.

Having a lot of say in design, and keeping secret an intentional violation of government regulations from your entire international company are two pretty different things.

I'm making assumptions, and I believe this story is pure, unadulterated bullshit from top to bottom.

Is it likely that the heads of R&D and engine development at VW are hands-on and writing code themselves? No, its extremely unlikely. Having worked in several large companies, there are 0 people at that level of management that perform hands-on work.

It is likely that those particular positions benefit and are motivated to cheat on regulations for the benefit of the company? No, the bottom line of the company is affected, and it is far more likely that business people are applying pressure.

Is it likely that they could make those changes in a company that size, without anyone noticing? No, not really. Software in a large organization leaves trails everywhere and requires explanation, they had to interface with other systems, and people had to interface with theirs.

Is it likely that the same narrative structure that our government attempted to use to excuse torture, is something VW is also trying? "Oh, we had no idea, it was one deranged guy who did this." Yes, it is highly likely that prominent executives are scrambling to get out of the way, and highly likely that the company is trying to come up with a story that makes it look less corrupt than it is.

> It is likely that those particular positions benefit and are motivated to cheat on regulations for the benefit of the company? No, the bottom line of the company is affected, and it is far more likely that business people are applying pressure.

I agree with most of your comment, but not with this point. Being the Head of R&D who is able to boast about bringing a "breakthrough" new diesel engine to market is bound to come with some personal perks.

You can re-define this as "business people are applying pressure" if you like, but that does not change the responsibility of those position - and besides, it's kind of a cop-out. With that thinking, you can re-define everything as being down to market pressure.

Somebody made a decision to do this, and I can easily see an unethical head of R&D making that call for personal career reasons - just like unethical researchers cheat by making up data. I'm not saying that that's necessarily how it happened, but it's a definite possibility.

The thing is, you are currently defending the prominent executives.

We’re talking about the heads of R&D and the head of engine development – both more business people than engineer.

Additionally, 2 CEOs have resigned over this (in just 6 months!)

And it’s known that the first of these CEOs tried to focus on engines without Urea injection – which did get 280mpg, though – because he personally was invested into their development and tried to push the heads of R&D and Engine development to do this.

R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y ... find out what it means to me, take care, TCB ... ... sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me ...

That’s why the CEO originally responsible even resigned before it became public. And why the second CEO resigned: because, despite not believing he himself did it, taking the responsibility for it.

“Having a lot of say in design, and keeping secret an intentional violation of government regulations from your entire international company are two pretty different things.“

But the difference between intentional benchmark optimization (which the whole industry is doing) and illegal certification manipulation is a rather subtle one. The former would a perfect front for the latter and the intersection of all employees who sufficiently understand the legal situation and those who sufficiently understand the engine could theoretically even be the empty set. (in which case blame would default to those high enough in the org-chart to have members of both groups under them)

The two heads who lead the R&D and engine development are not software engineers. But they would certainly require software engineers to help them carry out the deception. I highly doubt that only 2 people are involved.

perhaps 2 people who were intentionally intending to mislead. the software engineers could have been told the software was for factory testing only and it would have been their job to produce it. The actual program itself was not illegal just the fact that it was used to mislead official testing.

This ain't no 'independent contractors on the Death Star' issue here.

Not only that but by finding themselves a scapegoat, management has ensured that in the future, honest mistakes will go completely unreported. These execs are clearly more interested in CYA than actual results.

Also, although it's not proof, the simple "follow the money" principle should hint at the truth here. I can't see what 2 engineers would gain from putting so much time and effort into independently creating "defeat devices". In comparison, VW had a lot to gain from fudging the figures (if they hadn't been caught).

If I were an engineer at VW I'd be hunting for a new job right now. The company seems to have no problems pinning systemic failure on individual scapegoats, and I wouldn't want to hang around to be caught in the next round of ritual sacrifice.

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