It would be nice if car manufacturers were always completely honest with us, but unfortunately, they’re run by human beings that are just as fallible as the rest of us.
Sometimes they make bad decisions and often they make it worse by trying to cover them up. One of the most recent examples of this type of scandalous behavior was Volkswagens recent admission that they’ve been lying about the environmental efficiency of their vehicles.
Essentially, they lied about emission testing they’d done on their diesel vehicles to make them appear more environmentally friendly and hence more attractive to the consumer. Volkswagen may be one of the most recent examples of a company trying to cut some corners in the automotive industry, but they’re certainly not the only one. Here’s a closer look at some of the most recent examples of car manufacturers trying to cover up their errors.
Volkswagens Emissions Scandal
As we’ve already alluded to in the introduction of this article Volkswagens emissions scandal is one of the biggest stories in the last few months.
When the US Environmental Protection Agency began criticizing Volkswagen over the legitimacy of their emissions standards and testing the company soon admitted that they had been tampering with the results.
This turned out to be quite an expensive deception for Volkswagen as they’ve now recalled over half 1 million vehicles in the US alone and approximately 11 million worldwide. You have to wonder what executives of a company like this are thinking when they try to get away with something like this as it’s inevitably going to end up costing them a lot of money in the long run.
Related: 5 Cars That Should Never Have Been Built!
GM’s Ignition Switches
In another recent recall, GM admitted that ignition switches on some of their vehicles could potentially shut off while you are driving. If you’re driving down the road and your engine cuts off it will definitely be a bit of a shock and could cause you to lose control of the vehicle.
The problem is if you crash as a result of your ignition switch shutting off in one of these recalled vehicles it will also cause your airbags to fail to deploy. In fact, there have been several examples over the years of injuries and fatalities due to this particular flaw.
GM argued for a few years that the two issues were unrelated and it turns out they were simply trying to cover up their mistakes. The problem is this particular deception not only cost GM millions of dollars, it also cost people their lives.
They have since created a victims compensation fund, but they’re still trying to minimize the costs of their mistake by denying a lot of these potential claims. If GM’s ever going to move past this particular issue it would probably be a good idea for them to settle all of these issues fairly with the victims that have been affected.
Takata Airbags
A company that makes air bags for most of the major automotive manufacturers is a company you’ve probably never heard of before. Takata is the primary supplier of airbags for companies such as Honda and it turns out many of their airbags have a defect that is potentially deadly.
When these airbags are deployed on impact after an accident they may actually explode sending shrapnel into the vehicle occupant they’re supposed to protect. The company initially announced the problem back in 2013, but the extent of the vehicles affected has only recently come to light.
While Honda is not the only automotive manufacturer affected by this recall they may be the one that’s most complicit in the cover-up of this issue. There are reports that Honda may have known about issues with these airbags as far back as 2004. It’s just another example of automotive executives trying to cover up problems rather than dealing with them.
The Need for Change
There Is no doubt that there are plenty of fine moral individuals running automotive companies, but unfortunately there’s always a few that think it’s easier to cover up a problem rather than dealing with it.
Hopefully, the seriousness of these recent scandals will convince some of these companies that it’s time for a change. If that doesn’t do it perhaps the massive expenses will.
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