The question instead should be, do I even believe current EPA standards are necessary?
The answer is no. Yep, VW lied straight up and down... to get around EPA regs.
I’ll get on board with taking VW down as long as we take the EPA down with them.
Let’s put this argument in another perspective:
Car engines have been burning substantially clean and efficient in this country for decades now. We’re as clean as we need to be. We need cheaper cars and cheaper gas. Not more environmental regs.
So this is a case of law vs ethics vs morality.
Law broken?
Yes.
Ethics broken?
Only so far as the direct advertising to consumers. The cars themselves are very desirable and have good specs.
Morality violated?
Christ would never approve of lying, even to a corrupt government, even for a good cause.
So... who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?
If we want JUSTICE out of all this, then we need to equally address the EPA regs that don’t allow us to have efficient diesel vehicles at the same time we slap VW down for deception.
Otherwise, it’s the greater evil shaking down the lesser evil for money and political power. There’s no long term gain for any normal person from that.
Thing is, every other diesel car maker in the US market successfully managed to comply with the standard. Mercedes, GM, Chrysler, Fiat, Nissan, Toyota - all of them. Every diesel truck maker successfully managed to comply (though, in the case of Navistar, it did take a while - it would have been much worse if the EPA hadn’t given them extra time to comply and the multimillion dollar fine would have been billions.) VW did not comply and in fact is documented as having been contemplating cheating as early as 2006.
There is an argument to be made for some pollutants in auto exhaust that we don’t need to regulate it further. CO2, for example. Oxides of nitrogen isn’t one of them.
Again, EVERYONE ELSE met the specs. VW didn’t. We *do* have efficient diesel vehicles that comply with the law. They’re just not Volkswagens.
It was far worse than lying. VW intentionally cheated on the test, allowing vehicles to be sold with much better fuel economy than what would be possible with the low-cost emission system used on the cars. This is a felony which could jail dozens of the knowledgeable cheaters, cost fines of billions of dollars, and still require the cars to be fixed.
Do you (Advil1000) rally want VW to be allowed to sell cars that fail emission and fuel economy regulations while everyone else must meet the law, under penalty of fines and jail?