Case Study Questions

1. What did the Volkswagen company (VW) do that was illegal?

2. What is a “defeat device”? (Google the term and include the name of the website you found this definition on in your answer.) How does it factor into this case?

3. What constitutes the “sin of fibbing” as a type of “greenwashing”? (Google the term and include the name of the website you found this definition on in your answer.)

4. Which laws specifically did VW break in the US?

5. How, specifically, were these laws broken? What levels of emissions were these cars actually responsible for compared to the advertised level? What’s so bad about the emissions?

6. How many of VW’s vehicles were ultimately affected?

7. What makes the VW automotive industry recall different from the normal recalls faced by the automotive industry?

8. What financial consequences have Volkswagen faced since the controversy?

9. What was VW’s reputation like before the controversy and recall?

10. Does VW have a history of this kind of greenwashing behavior?

11. What happened to this reputation as a result of the controversy?

12. How have VW automobile owners (those who own VW cars) been affected?