The question is, whether VW as a German company is now going to end up being beaten by US competitors which could do even more nasty stuff unpunished.
What US competitors? Tesla is the only single American company that has had any success besides maybe Ford (but Ford Europe has a similar relationship to it's American parent company that Opel and GM used to have i.e. in a large part it's an European company)
I'm not sure only the German market was meant by OP.
VW has international sales, and OP's implication might've been that Germany has a national interest in VW being competitive.
> only the German market
Well yes, I of course meant the entire EU+UK market. Regardless besides US and a handful of other countries VW is hardly competing that much with any American car companies anywhere (besides Tesla).
American car makers are still struggling a lot more in relative market share terms (GM+Ford+Tesla barely had over 33% in 2024 in the US). While VW alone had 26% in EU/UK/EFTA (just German companies have 39% of the entire market there)
It has been some years since VW had to give up cheating on emission tests. Were they beaten by US competitors during this time? I have not read any news about it.
Indeed, Dieselgate is 10 years ago. If they would've suffered badly from it, we would've seen that by now. Sure, they've had to pay fines and compensations, but that seems to have been dealt with. In fact, you could argue the opposite: Dieselgate forced VW to drop diesel and switch focus to EVs [1, 2], earlier than they would've done otherwise, giving them an advantage over other European and American competitors (except Tesla). Of course, there are plenty of other issues they've faced since them (inflation, Chinese competition, tariffs, etc).
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgkell/2022/12/05/from-emiss...
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/a2c7ca01-461c-4dc2-8006-ec1d6b61a...
> Of course, there are plenty of other issues they've faced since them (inflation, Chinese competition, tariffs, etc).
Yeah, they're actually not doing well at all right now.
VW? Everyone who used the Bosch ECU cheated. VW was just the biggest who got caught and had to go to jail therefore. All the others, which were more guilty than the VW execs are still free.
And the politicians which sanctioned these special diesel tests were not even named. Nor all the other countries who also choose the European Standard (not testing diesel engines) over the US Standard.
Not just Bosch ECUs, not just European car companies, and this shit has been going on for decades. All the car companies do it and have since at least the 90's. The proof is in the ROM dumps of all the various cars - the tuners can point to two sets of tables of fuel mixture/timing maps, one for when the ECU thinks it's being emissions tested and one for regular use.
As early as the late 90's tuners offered features where doing something with the cruise control buttonss which would switch the engine computer back to stock programming to pass emissions, run on cheaper gas, or fool the dealer if it went in for service. How does everyone think they were able to do stuff like that without any hardware mods?
Oh, and all the car companies were self-reporting their CO2 emissions in the EU for decades. When EU regulators actually got around to testing cars, shockigly, the companies were lying.
It's basically accepted at this point that Telsa lies about their range and efficiency numbers, and recently there's evidence they have been fucking with people's odometers for the purpose of getting them out of warranty quicker.
Ferrari have all sorts of terms and prohibitions on things journalists can't do with their cars - one being track lap time testing. Why? Because they got caught by Top Gear specially modifying their cars for the Top Gear test circuit, as well as using tires that aren't on the production vehicles - and when Top Gear called them out, Ferrari permanently banned them *and have gone so far as to prohibit Ferrari owners from allowing Top Gear staff access to the owner's vehicles for testing, under threat of being blacklisted. Now that they've been caught cheating, they simply won't allow anyone to test their cars versus anyone else's.
The wheel keeps on turning.
They have kind of abandoned diesel engines, which the whole scandal was based around. It became clear that it would be impossible to create diesel engines which would comply with enviromental standards, which is a shame since they are more efficient and it is consumers who are losing out. They are still one of the main automotive conglomerations today. If anything American car companies are losing the market in Europe, Ford for example have abandoned their best selling model - the Focus, and in the UK at least they are the only US brand besides for Tesla.
Consumers still have to breathe though. I'd be totally fine if diesel engines were completely phased out. In the US we somehow can't even get rid of those idiots that retune their engines for "rolling coal".
Everything you purchase over the course of a day was transported by a diesel truck at some point.
Which likely was very polluting, because thanks to bitching by the trucking industry, they get a pass on emissions via "gliders."
They can buy a brand new truck sans engine and drop some terribly polluting piece of crap from several decades ago and bypass all modern emissions regulations.
Tomayto, tohmahto.
The SCR/EGR/DPF regime that's been forced upon truck mfrs is at the ragged edge of reliability and maintainability, not to mention its effects on fuel use. So that regulators who've never heard of Pareto optimization can pursue cutting the final 1% of the emissions that a truck from the 1960s would have.
One badly-tuned mid-80s F700 can produce more particulates in a day than a brand-new diesel truck will in its lifetime, but somehow, the priority is not making it easier for the owners of forty-year-old equipment to update to the standard of...2004, but rather to decrease the number of milligrams per tank (at $infinity cost) of soot that a brand-new engine is producing.
It wasn’t transported with the neighbor’s truck down the street that has a “defeat device”.
Parent was talking about commercial diesel trucks which do not comply with the same regulations as passenger vehicles, and the article talks about stock non-compliance. Why are you changing the subject?
You can’t wage modern war without diesel engines, those trucks won’t drive themselves close to the front-lines (and, no, electric-powered trucks in times of war are a terrible idea, and the ones powered by gasoline are a lot less efficient and don’t provide the same torque numbers).
Valid points you’re making. Let me make a counter point: as a German, I’ve seen tanks on 5/6 occasions in my life, never using their own engines. But at the same time, I’ve seen hundreds of cars every day and breathed their emissions. It’s totally fine if tanks continue using diesel, but cars, trucks etc. not using diesel (or gas) engines anymore will have a measurable effect on my health
I actually would also prefer modern stealth tanks battery or hydrogen/fuel cell powered.
Otherwise good point.
But then you'd also lose the capability of making diesel engines for good, and, again, they're not used only for tanks when it comes to warfare.
Just look at the hole the US has dug for itself when it stopped producing civilian sea-ships, nowadays the cost of producing or even repairing its war-oriented sea-ships is way too high. And not only that, but it doesn't have the people with the knowhow to build those ships anymore, no matter the money thrown at the problem.
That doesn't make much sense as military technology typically comes first before any civilian application. Also, it would imply that we should already have lost the capability of making tank tracks as civilian vehicles don't use them.
> have lost the capability of making tank tracks
Western Europe has certainly lost the capability of making even artillery shells at scale, let alone tank tracks, just look where we're at it now.
> as military technology typically comes first before any civilian application.
Diesel himself wasn't involved in any military thing, as far as I know, so I think you're wrong on that one.
The thing is that without a strong civilian industrial base focused on things adjacent to warfare (like the steel industry when it comes to building ships or artillery shells) any big power is going to come very short-handed in the next big war (assuming the war doesn't get nuclear, which is another discussion). So, if your country can't make diesel engines at scale, for whatever reason, then you can say goodbye to your logistics lines because you need lots and lots of trucks for said logistics as part of a continental war, i.e. forget the tanks.
> Western Europe has certainly lost the capability of making even artillery shells at scale
Must be due to the lack of demand for civilian artillery shells, right?
Why would electric trucks be a terrible idea in war time?
Short version is that you can't rely on the power grid or other centralized generation. Centralized infrastructure may not even be available, but if it is then the enemy can target it.
I'm not a tank expert, but my impression of Wehrmacht tanks vs Soviet tanks is the Wehrmacht tanks used aviation engines. Aviation engines are light and powerful, but don't have much life, were finicky, and require aviation gas. Soviet tanks were simple and used any liquid that would burn.
The US military is starting to use some hybrid vehicles to improve fuel logistics and reduce operating noise. But pure electric ground vehicles are obviously a stupid idea for combat usage due to charging issues.
Because, for the most part, we aren't doing damned thing about it. "Rolling coal" is inherently a very public act of law breaking, but I doubt a single person has ever been pulled over by any American cop for it. The EPA and certain states were trying through other enforcement mechanisms to fight it, but with Trump in office, it's basically encouraged to "delete" your Diesel emissions equipment if you aren't in commercial operation.
…said deletion, which returns your truck to the state of the regulatory art circa 2009, also results in a doubling of fuel economy and about an 80% jump in horsepower.
These percentages seem a bit high compared to what I have seen. I usually see/hear about a 1-3mpg and 10-30% HP. I understand the point you are trying to make but "doubling of fuel economy and about an 80% jump in horsepower" is far from accurate, especially considering the downsides of a delete on every outside of the vehicle
shrug
Speaking from personal experience with a 2023 Chevy Duramax 3500, and a friend with a similar 3/4 ton Powerstroke.
In all fairness, in the general European perception, with the Cougar, the Puma, and the Focus, Ford is not really seen as an "American" brand. Especially the Focus has virtually nothing to do with what Europeans would consider 'an American car'. It is the quintessential low-to-mid-tier Eurocar: small, cheap, does what it is supposed to do.
Compare that to e.g. Chevrolet, which tried - and failed - to get a foothold in Europe. The failure was mostly them not understanding the local market.
> e.g. Chevrolet
Also it overlapped a lot with Opel which a much more successful brand in Europe. Basically it was an off-brand/cheap Opel, which wasn't exactly doing that great itself...
Ford sold the Focus in the USA also, I had one and loved it. It was one of their few "world" cars.
Didn't Chevrolet just bought and rebranded some Korean automaker?
AFAIK they were selling rebadged Daewoo models which were built on platforms developed by Opel. I suppose they wanted a budget brand and manufacturing and importing from Korea was cheaper back in those days than just using Opel's factories..
I could be wrong but I think BMW and Mercedes still make diesel engines. So maybe it's only impossible at a lower price point? Although the difference isn't that large.
Using [1], BMW have 87 models, of which 13 can be electric, 13 plug-in hybrid, 47 petrol and just 6 diesel. The six are all SUVs.
Mercedes don't have an easy filter, but they do have some cars available with diesel engines, e.g. C-Class.
Diesel is now down to 9.5% of new cars sold in Europe (Q1 2025), less than full EVs ([2]).
[1] https://www.bmw.co.uk/en/all-models.html
[2] https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations...
There are several 3 series diesel variants sold right now in my country, so maybe we need a bit more data gathering before drawing conclusions.
It does seem like diesel is trending lower, but it's not gone yet, regardless whether you think that is a good thing or not.
In any case, my point was this:
> it would be impossible to create diesel engines which would comply with enviromental standards
is false. Which it is.
Or multiple car manufacturers are still cheating, I guess we must consider the possibility.
VW still builds and sells Diesel engines in its Cars. For Volkswagen and Skoda the share of diesel cars was about 30% in Germany. Source (only in German and behind paywall, sorry) https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/468422/umfrag...
They do make them, but they don't sell them in the USA any more. Nobody does.
Even VW never stopped selling diesel cars, but they are certainly being phased out everywhere and it's not as popular as it once was.
The funny thing is their emissions weren’t that bad, several other European manufacturers were worse.
>It became clear that it would be impossible to create diesel engines which would comply with enviromental standards
Absolutely not "impossible" FFS, VW was cheating to avoid using a proper adblue system, which would have been perfectly sufficient. They could also have used a particulate filter and burn off scheme like some trucks but that would require significant engineering and probably doesn't work as well with a small diesel engine.
Orrrrrr they could have just done what the "cheat" mapping did: Run less lean. The entire point of cheating was to run very lean to make artificially high fuel efficiency figures. The cheat map for emissions would then run richer to kill off nox emissions.
I genuinely believe they still "cheat" somewhat. My 2018 GTI has a 2L turbo engine. The MK7 GTIs were the first to be EPA emissions rated at 89 octane gas, even though the power figures are still recorded using 91 octane gas. Previous GTI engines were EPA rated with 91 octane gas.
My tinfoil hat theory is that they run EPA tests on 89 octane so that it runs rich and reduces combustion temp, reducing nox emissions. Using higher octane fuel runs much leaner, and demonstrably produces better miles per gallon. They purposely chose to advertise a lower miles per gallon figure because, IMO, they couldn't pass emissions with the leaner burning 91 octane. Notably, low RPM (and emissions testing RPM) performance is utter garbage with 89 octane fuel, and the car becomes very stall happy, when at 91 octane it is very difficult to stall.
EV's and Hybrids get better mileage and pollute less.
It's funny how the Clinton admin forced a golden egg into GM's hands (the EV1) and GM tossed it away in disgust when Bush was elected.
Yes, VW has since then had mass layoffs and closed plants: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volksw...
We should let our executives commit crimes lest they be outcompeted by other executives committing worse crimes is a terrible argument. It's more a argument for not letting the other company compete as easily in your country
Not to mention that it assumes assumes lying, cheating, and corruption is just the price you pay for quality products.
Seriously, if people are framing this in terms of "what's good for industry" vs "what is the right thing to do", the crooks have already won and your national industry has already lost.
If our companies get destroyed, people fired and US/Chinese crooks win while EU spirals into recession, moral high ground is going to be a poor comfort.
Diesel engines in the US have stricter regulations. I doubt folks in the EU will start buying PowerStrokes, Cummins, or Duramaxes anytime soon.
They are not stricter, just different.
US emissions standards don’t allow some things that euro6+ does, and visa versa.
There is an effort to make them overlap to make it easier to meet both standards.
How so? There is no way any of those engines would pass emissions in the EU. How are US regulations even stricter?
Back in 2015 US EPA NOx emission limits were tighter than EU regulations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal#U...
I feel this also has a lot to do with the use of diesel. The number of passenger vehicles and light duty pickups in the US that actually use diesel is a fraction of what it was in Europe.
The emission limits being for ULEV vehicles, I don't think I have seen a ULEV truck - indeed California classifies most under the LEV banner.
None of this is to change the point around nitrous oxide emissions - the environment doesn't care whether it came from a VW TDI or a F350, just the amount.
But it is also far far easier to implement such low emission standards in the US because we just don't really use diesel like that.
And when you get to the heavy duty pickups (F250, F350, etc.), then most of that goes out of the window.
The standard are similar but testing is different. In the US every new engine has to be tested, in the EU only the first R&D engines need to be tested on standard automated test cycles. All subsequent engines not. This makes cheating trivial and manifactoring cheap.