Did the American public see the Pinto as unsafe? This analysis will illustrate and evaluate the utilitarian process considering the case of the Ford Pinto. As the facts of this case are evaluated, Lee Iacocca was put into a position where the American automobile industry was losing out to the foreign market. It was essential to get a product out in a timely manner to keep the market afloat that would also appeal to the American consumers. Once a flaw was discovered with the placement of the fuel tank and a bumper bolt resulting in a possible fire, a company cost-benefit analysis was conducted.
After all, many believe that the commercial was used as a political statement to thank the Obama administration. Indeed, the argument seems to ignore the fact that if it had not been for Obama’s auto-industry bailout plan, Chrysler would be underwater. Although granted that the Obama administration saved Chrysler from liquidation, it is still maintained that Chrysler used the commercial as a way to show that the Chrysler Company is back from crisis and has beaten the odds. Furthermore, the controversial Chrysler Halftime Commercial represents the struggle faced by the Chrysler Company, and the company’s effort to rebound back to the top of the auto
False advertisement can lead one person to think a cretin make it better than the other. For example, Chevy’s TV ads make their cars and trucks out to be built proof. Were ford does not like about how solid their cars and trucks are, and how long they run for. Have you ever seen the commercial for Chevy that says there trucks are “like a rock”. That not true at all look at the facts ford have more people with over 500 thousand miles on there on the road still.
The vision turned reality with his Model T. Ford wanted to be different. He saw the car industry was completely aimed at the rich and wealthy. Cars were manufactured on order and took months to be built. They were pricey due to the slow manufacturing process as well as the wide variety of parts used in the process. Ford wanted to change this.
“Totally transformed” is the slogan of this advertisement that represents their hard work. Most of the time, a car commercial seems to be not effective at all. Purchasing a car is a huge investment since no consumer is going to buy a car just because of a single advertisement. The purpose of car commercials are there just to further entrench a company’s brand and image into consumers’ minds, and make sure that their name appears in their retrieval set. The retrieval set is really important to car companies because it determines whether their newly produced cars will sell well or not.
When in 1970 Ford Motor Company launched their new line of automobile the Ford Pinto, they used a cost-benefit analysis based strictly on how the consequences will affect themselves as a business and not as an ethical analysis. The Pinto compact car was initially hugely popular in the United States market because of its design and affordability however a controversy regarding the safety of the design of the car gas tank emerged causing deadly fires, explosions and claiming the lives of many people, even though managers and engineers of the company knew about this problem. The argument has been for many years that Ford Motor Company abandoned and abused the utilitarian principles to suit their needs, even though they stayed within the laws of the time, they still behaved unethically by making the decision not to upgrade the fuel system of their product. The model of the Ford Pinto was approved by Lee Iacocca, Executive Vice-president of Northern American Automotive Products for Ford. The car was designed to compete with foreign cars and to keep up
As a member of the Ford Company, should I have to decide on recalling the vehicles or settling the case in which injury occurred I will take the option of recalling the vehicles. Yes, the decision will have an impact on the company financially but ethically it would be the right thing. Human lives are more valuable than money. Placing dollar values on human lives allowing them to die or be seriously injured rather than pay the cost to repair faults in vehicles is unethical. Consumers and society look at organizations to be trustworthy, responsible and held accountable for all their actions.
One very large contribution Ford made to the public was the Model T automobile. This car gave the public an efficient and affordable car which they so very much needed. Another one of his contributions was a new way to assemble cars. The assembly line. This new and improved assembly line required the workers to stay in one spot and put on a part as the vehicle moved past them (Ford Museum).
Ford defended the safety of the Explorer saying its statistics has shown that it is safer than other Sport Utility Vehicles. Ford alleged that it was the defective tires that led to the accidents and recalled 13 million tires for replacement. Firestone insisted that the tires are safe and Ford is replacing them to divert attention away from safety problems with its Explorer. From the case students are expected to understand the ethical dimensions of the controversy. Both Ford and Firestone were aware of the problem in Firestone tires but did not take any action until the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) intervened.
In order to decrease the fuel consumption of cars or increase the torque and acceleration, Volkswagen seems to overlook higher carbon emission levels. Root causes of this scandal should have been analyzed by Volkswagen Group and announced to public. Otherwise as it is the case now, there have been different views (which I mentioned mine above) and ongoing rumors about the topic which create uneasiness in the market. In my opinion Volkswagen Group can take more to do point actions than they do after this scandal. Group seems to focus heavily on United States as EPA started the investigation in US.