The Volkswagen Scandal Isn’t Harmless
Michael Babboni
Recalls
This year, one of the most surprising stories to emerge from the automotive industry was the deceptive practices of the Volkswagen automobile company. Traditionally known as one of the bastions of German engineering in cars, the company made promise that seemed to be too good to be true. They had created a technology that allowed everyday consumers to enjoy the power and efficiency of using diesel fuel, without contributing additional pollutants to the environment.For people all over America who were concerned about the kind of environmental legacy they were leaving to their children, but unwilling to compromise on the quality of their transportation, the idea of a low emissions diesel fuel engine was a fantastic offering. The Audi A3, and the VW Jetta, Passat, Golf and Beetle were all fitted with this impressive technology.
Unfortunately, scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency had always found Volkswagen’s claims to be too good to be true to the point of stretching scientific credibility. After conducting their own stringent tests, they realized they were right. The cars did not, in fact, provide diesel power with low emissions. Volkswagen’s engineers had turned their ingenuity towards crafting a “defeat device,” a sophisticated electronic system that actually lowered diesel fuel efficiency when it realized it the car was being tested, in order to provide the low pollution emission figures Volkswagen claimed in their advertising. However, as soon as this same device was aware that the car was no longer being tested, it removed the limitations on the engine, allowing the diesel fuel to be consumed at normal levels, which, of course, were high in emissions. In other words, Volkswagen exploited the desire of people to participate in positive environmental change by fooling them into thinking some VW automobiles were more environmentally friendly when this was not remotely true.
One of the big differences between the Volkswagen scandal and others such as the Takata air bag production recall, or the Sanlu dairy scandal in China is the lethality of the product. In the case of the Takata air bags, injuries, possibly even death were the consequences of an air bag with explosive components. In the case of China’s Sanlu dairy scandal, adding melamine to the baby formula actually killed infants and hospitalized tens of thousands of others because of kidney stone formation. Here however, no one is getting “hurt” in the physical sense.
But just because a product is not actually causing physical harm to its purchasers, this does not let the company responsible off the hook. Every consumer has basic rights that are protected by American law, and those rights extend to buying a product with confidence that it will work as advertised. Volkswagen has breached this law, regardless of whether people are actually harmed by higher fuel emissions or not. And that means that if your rights as a consumer are violated, you are entitled to some kind of compensation. No company should be allowed to deceive consumers simply because that deception wasn’t harmful. Any kind of deception is harmful in far more than a physical capacity, and it is up to consumers and the lawyers they work with to ensure that companies like Volkswagen answer for their attempts to mislead the public. “No one got injured,” is not a justification in a court of law.