Each year the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issues a standardized test for all vehicles on the road that determines whether or not the car produces a moderate amount of pollutants. Because the EPA does not have enough resources and time to give every single vehicle on the market an environmental check-up, each automobile company must self-check their vehicles. Across all vehicles put on the market each year, the EPA only has enough resources to check about 15% of the vehicles. When given the privilege to assess one's own product, the EPA would expect nothing but cooperation from automobile companies. But in 2015, a major contributor to diesel cars in the US was caught cheating on the EPA's test and had been pushing faulty advertisement to their consumers.
Volkswagon, a German automobile company also known as VW, was caught using a "defeat device" on diesel cars from 2009-2015. A defeat device is a type of software within a VW diesel engine that will alter the results produced by the car and the diesel used to operate it. The EPA was tipped off and immediately inspected the automobile maker's models on the market. They found that the Volkswagon diesel vehicles that were being advertised as "clean diesel" to consumers all across the nation were actually producing 40 times more than the allotted amount of nitrogen oxide pollutants.
Personally, I believe that there are two major pieces of information that our class has learned relating to this scandal. The first piece is from the Eight Values of Free Expression, specifically, "Marketplace of Ideas" which is also known as "Discover of Truth."
The second piece of information from our class that relates to this scandal falls under the Six Clauses of the First Amendment. The third clause, the right to free speech, and the fourth clause, the right to freedom of the press, are misused here in my eyes. When a marketing team is devising a plan to advertise their product, they spend a lot of time and money researching what their target markets want. They interview customers, use focus groups, and send out surveys to people within their target market all just to figure out what they like and what they want out of the product that the company sells. Based on Volkswagon's "Clean Diesel" approach to their strategic marketing plan, this research probably concluded that VW customers and potential customers wanted vehicles to be more friendly to the environment.
If my assumption is true, Volkswagon recognized what their target market wanted, but they did not have the technology available to meet the type of value the consumers need in return of their purchase. This led VW to implementing the defeat device in their diesel engines, an intentional decision made to deceive the American public. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are very important rights that every citizen of the United States holds. Major corporations are treated as people because they are made up of people working for them, so they are treated the same. While a person is allowed to say something that is ignorant, it is immoral to knowingly deceive the public. VW did exactly that. They released "Clean Diesel" advertisements knowing that they were lying to the EPA and thousands of Americans who purchase their diesel vehicles.
This is extremely wrong because VW convinced thousands of consumers to purchase their diesel vehicles on the leading value that their marketing team decided to promote: clean, eco-friendly vehicles. Volkswagon vehicles range from $18,000 to above $40,000. For a customer to purchase a vehicle that they think will be contributing to the reduction of society's carbon footprint and to actually be doing the opposite is infuriating. In the end, VW was charged for their defeat devices, costing the automobile company over $25 Billion towards civil compensation and restitution for consumers and federal and state authorities..
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