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.
Would have anything against these TDI diesel VWs being driven outside cities and the denser suburbs? I would not. And these days this is easily monitored via GPS positions. Recorded GPS or in real time transmitted to a monitor