Yeah - I never understood why so many people shrugged off this mass murder and mass pollution. Everybody involved should be still in prison.
this post was submitted on 29 May 2025
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Some were sent to prison. But not for long enough.
“This is what was done in the United States as soon as the scandal broke, to save thousands of lives. We’re talking about thousands of asthma cases, hundreds of thousands of days not worked for the economy. It’s worth it. We must act.”
Finally we did something right.
The scope of the problem was far smaller in the US than in the EU. Diesel automobiles aren't a huge thing in the US, and VW has a smaller market share.
If the EU did the same thing the US did, there wouldn't be a VW.
In the U.S., Volkswagen had to either fix the cars or buy them back, at each customer's choosing, and provide additional compensation in restitution and to make up for the reduced resale value of their vehicles. According to the settlement, VW had to modify or remove from circulation at least 85 percent of the affected vehicles, which it has since done. In fact, VW tells us it ultimately accepted about 97 percent of eligible VW, Audi, and Porsche vehicles into its remediation programs.
Once recalled, these cars sat on massive lots until they received their EPA-approved modification. Then VW put them up for sale and set up VIN lookup sites so prospective shoppers could verify a car's EPA status. It sold quite a few of them. "Since the end of the 2.0-liter and 3.0-liter settlement programs in 2018 and 2020, respectively," said VW spokesman Mark Gillies, "the storage lots have been closed, and the remaining inventory of modified TDI vehicles has been in the used-car market for quite some time."
That was the end of VW's U.S. diesel ambitions. In 2016, the company announced it would no longer sell new diesels in the states and would instead focus on developing electric vehicles.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars-guide-to-the-volkswagen-dieselgate-emissions-recall/
Volkswagen has admitted to circumventing the emissions control system in about 550,000 vehicles sold in the United States since 2008 with the 2.0-liter diesel engine. As many as 11 million vehicles worldwide may be affected.
https://www.beuc.eu/volkswagen-emission-affairs
It soon became clear that the scale of the issue is global, with 11 million cars affected, including 8 million vehicles in Europe.
You're talking about 15 times as many vehicles in the EU, and that's from VW alone
there are a lot of other manufacturers selling diesel vehicles in the EU.
I think that there is a legit question of why Europe uses diesel, which isn't the norm elsewhere. IIRC, that was in part a regulatory decision back when based on the idea that diesel would be advantageous, where regulators intentionally incentivized diesel. Problem is, it also caused a huge amount of diesel infrastructure to be built in Europe, and as emissions standards went up, diesel became increasingly problematic. As Europe's regulators clamped down on local pollution from autos, automakers couldn't keep up, and started cheating on regulations.
Switching away from diesel to gasoline would have been expensive at that point, with a lot of money invested in diesel.
https://www.vox.com/2015/10/15/9541789/volkswagen-europe-diesel-pollution
I recall reading another article talking about how some French government organization thought that diesel would be cheaper, though the above article doesn't mention that in that much detail.
EDIT: It also has a graph showing the relative scale of US diesel vehicles vs EU diesel vehicles:
It's a lot easier to make auto owners whole if you're dealing with the beige line than if you're dealing with the blue line.
i think one of the main reason for diesel being more popular is that europe isn't oil producing and therefore doesn't subsidise its fuel on the same level. the uk and norway produce oil but they also don't subsidize as much as as the us. and diesel is just a lot cheaper to produce. in the 90s there was a lot of research into biodiesels like HVO which basically went nowhere because diesel was so damn cheap. then we got 2008, then dieselgate, then covid and evergreen, meaning it was suddenly extremely expensive, and now we're seeing HVO stations put up everywhere. then again that turned out to be bull anyway; when diesel went up to 27SEK/l in 2021 (that's $12/gal in todays money, compared to $6/gal today because we scrapped a bunch of environmental protections 🎉), HVO went up with the same amount.
the main advantage of diesel engines is of course that you can run them off of most liquids that burn and they are therefore a more resilient infrastructure. the main disadvantage is that we never moved on from diesel oil. i wonder how much cooking oil is wasted that we could recycle into fuel.
Agree: Diesel is cheaper and you get better mileage out of it. What’s not to love? That’s one of the reasons I got one in 2010 (a VW brand, 1.6 litres). Then I realised the problems with the fine particles. Today we have a petrol car and will move to electricity next, hopefully within 12 months.