Content area
Full Text
In 2014, emissions violations were discovered in Volkswagen diesel vehicles. The research was conducted initially by a range of bodies, including a team at the West Virginia University, financed by the International Council on Clean Transportation. The results confirmed suspicions by other carmakers, such as General Motors, who were unable to replicate the results claimed by Volkswagen for their diesel engines. In 2015, these initial results were corroborated by the US EPA and the California Air Resource Board, and the scandal became global. It had been found that Volkswagen engineers had fitted cheat software that allowed the vehicles to run within the strict boundaries of Californian regulations for nitrogen oxide emissions during tests, but when run in the real world, the engine emissions were significantly higher. The furore was greater in the USA, but the ramifications for Volkswagen were felt around the globe. Importantly, the issue for the USA was the potential damage done to the diesel engine industry.
The fast-pace and global nature of communication and news means that the fallout of corporate scandals is larger, faster, and much harder to mitigate against. The rise of consumer groups and the ubiquitous use of social media to highlight and criticize corporate issues by users means that such scandals are no longer able to be kept within the...