Re: Bullet. Teeth. Pressure
Maybe Veedub should just take a deep breath and just let it all out and admit everything they have kept people in the dark about.
The problem is - they probably don't know.
Look at it this way: how many times have you written a piece of code, and your boss has completely failed to understand what it does[1]? How many times has he completely misrepresented its operation to his management[2]?
I suspect a lot of this went on at VW. Someone (hopefully) knew, but the guys at the top were undoubtedly just fed lots of reports about how well the engineering team were getting on well. We could argue - probably should argue - that the top brass whould have queried why they were getting numbers that their competition couldn't match - but it's a very long time since I've seen Senior Management think like that. They're concentrating on numbers on spreadsheets, with no real thought as to what those numbers truly represent.
My earnest hope is that this shambles will force Top Manglement to take responsibility for the actions of their companies - it is, after all, what they are paying themselves to do. And while we're at it, let's have World Peace, free trips to the ISS, and time travel :-(
Vic.
[1] Despite your spending many hours with him, explaining it in excruciating detail...
[2] It's amazing how bonuses and other kudos get handed out for "good" results, rather than honesty.