Volkswagen was a trusted family car brand which brought fuel-efficient diesel cars into the North American market, until they were caught of emissions fraud by European researchers.

In previous classes Paul and Jeff have talked about ethics and morals one should have when carrying out any task. Mahesh Nagarajan said in our ethics lecture (class 6), “very good people can even run off of the rails. Businesses can turn good people into bad people”, an example of this is, Volkswagen. “Das Auto” (the car) holding the emissions chip results in a domino effect, effecting not only Volkswagen, but society as a whole.

This act by Volkswagen shook the stock market and wallets of trusting employees, employers, investors, stockholders by plummeting the stock “36%” lower than what it was at the beginning of September.

As a member of society and concerned environmentalist I feel disgusted and violated by the standards Volkswagen held itself to. The worlds, countries, cities and my trust in Volkswagen is shattered, knowing they care more about making a dirty penny than playing a fair ballgame and earning their profits. I think this is the demise of Volkswagen. Other than recalling “11 million cars and vans”, Volkswagen have also helped further destroy our ozone layer, which could have been easily avoided.

After building a reputation to establish itself a one of the world’s best car makers, I think Volkswagen’s needs an ethics chip embedded into its head representatives. They will feel each one of their domino’s falling down as more problems with their cars are unveiled.