Name: Faster, Higher, Farther
ISBN: 9781543642513

Faster, Higher, Farther

"A shocking exposé of Volkswagen's fraud by the New York Times reporter who covered the scandal. In mid-2015, Volkswagen proudly reached its goal of surpassing Toyota as the world's largest automaker. A few months later, the EPA disclosed that Volkswagen had installed software in 11 million cars that deceived emissions-testing mechanisms. By early 2017, VW had settled with American regulators and car owners for $20 billion, with additional lawsuits still looming. In Faster, Higher, Farther, Jack Ewing rips the lid off the conspiracy. He describes VW's rise from 'the people's car' during the Nazi era to one of Germany's most prestigious and important global brands, touted for being 'green.' He paints vivid portraits of Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand Piëch and chief executive Martin Winterkorn, arguing that the corporate culture they fostered drove employees, working feverishly in pursuit of impossible sales targets, to illegal methods. Unable to build cars that could meet emissions standards in the United States honestly, engineers were left with no choice but to cheat. Volkswagen then compounded the fraud by spending millions marketing 'clean diesel,' only to have the lie exposed by a handful of researchers on a shoestring budget, resulting in a guilty plea to criminal charges in a landmark Department of Justice case.

What Hacker News says

Melting_HarpsNov 2022

> Why is catalytic converter theft seemingly worse in the US/UK than in Europe/AU/NZ?

Many reasons, but chief among them are that EU is oddly really relaxed on emissions (hence diesel gate not being as big of an issue in it's own Country) and don't use the same equipment on their cars also because AU/NZ are big markets for used Japanese export vehicles that have exceeded its Shakin/Km limits in Japan and there isn't the local demand for these components as the laws don't reflect such strict standards.

By contrast those cars are not legal in the US due to emissions, until they fall out of the testing period: see used the massive headache created with the post Motorex Nissan Skyline market by-laws. The UK is odd because MOT and carbon tax things play a part, but it's way easier to register a RHD car from Japan if you're outside of London, and even within it if you know where to go. But both the US and UK also have lots of poverty based crime (theft) underlying their society.

Europe, but especially Germany, has many auto-manufactures writing their laws for them; and the higher ubiquity of diesel cars on the road in those markets as opposed to benzene (gasoline) means they cannot just make them all vanish without having immense backlash. So, they greese the right wheels, and things carry on: business as usual.

I won't touch the other reasons, but if you really want the nitty-gritty of how relaxed EU standards are read: Faster, Higher, Farther.

There is a reason it was some college kids in CA with a home-brew emission tester in a rented Tdi that butsted VW, and not the EU's climate Nazis/Green party in Baden-Wuttenburg. (I lived there and was subject to their stupid vanity based green washing laws as an environmental activist, so I can say that!)

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helperDec 2017

Oliver Schmidt, the person the current article is about, is a former engineer, now executive.

James Liang was previously convicted. He was an engineer working at the VW test center in LA. His group was directly working to keep CARB and the EPA from discovering the defeat device. My understanding is he was really a mid level engineer.

My source for this information is a book about the scandal and also the history of the VW/Audi engineering culture called "Faster, Higher, Farther: The Volkswagen Scandal". Its well worth the read.

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0898Oct 2017

The book 'Faster, Higher, Farther: The Inside Story of the Volkswagen Scandal' is a good account into the cheating that went on at Volkswagen.

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rwmjAug 2017

I just finished this book which is pretty interesting: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/039325450X "Faster, Higher, Farther: The Volkswagen Scandal"

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Melting_HarpsJun 2022

> I don't think you fully appreciate how massive volkswagen is, as an organization. There is literally no place for whims and feelings at a company that big.

I do, I worked for VAG during Dieselgate and got a first hand look at the sheer monstrosity of a Megacorp that it is when dealing with the processes, and actually it has a long history of doing just that. In fact the way they got the engineers on board for the cheat device wasn't through a committee or board, it was upper management intimidating engineers to comply by way of threatening their continued employment there.

Furthermore, they could have gotten away with it after the first alarms were sounding off that they were being investigated, but they decided to keep doing it anyway.

It's really eye opening after having gone through the chaos of it all it first hand working within the TDi buy back program and dealing with Bosch and VW corporate in the early phases of the program, while doing a customer facing role and then reading Jack Ewig's book [0] now.

As for Tesla lay offs, they do this when they expand their lineup, it's like a calibration thing at this point.

Right after Tesla model 3 roll out which failed to meet its targets in '17 [1] which incidentally was days after my first round of interviews at Fremont they started to lay people off. These layoffs extended to 2018 ultimately led to shedding off 9% of total workforce by 2018 [2] when M3 ramp up was the only thing that could stop the never ending hemorrhaging that was likely to bankrupt Tesla if they didn't. I know this because that was the time that they asked me if I was still interested in the role and if I'd want to re-apply and take another round of interviews. I declined and told them I'd made efforts since then to make my way to SpaceX instead, the recruiter understood and kindly wished me well.

0: https://www.amazon.com/Faster-Higher-Farther-Volkswagen-Scan...

1: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/17/tesla-firings-former-and-cur...

2: https://text.npr.org/619426602

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fbdjskajxbJan 2018

The difference with dieselgate is that the cheating was known by European regulators, who did not bother enforcing the law.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/20/european...

VW was surprised by the American response, since they simply did not expect the law to be enforced (they were apparently unaware of a similar diesel scandal that occurred with US truck manufacturers in the 90’s).

Source: Faster, Higher, Farther: The Inside Story of the Volkswagen Scandal Book by Jack Ewing

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