For me, a car is a commodity, a means of transportation and transport. Accordingly, I have not been able to muster much emotion for my car so far. Thanks to volkswagen this has now changed. Because i am the owner of a cheat diesel and as such i have been exposed to a constant rollercoaster of emotions for quite some time now. With the common sense that would say, the car manufacturers – and many others – have cheated, so they have to compensate their customers accordingly, you won't get far in the diesel scandal.
The best example is the latest offer from VW. Scrappage premiums are available for diesel cars with emission standards 1 to 4; my golf has emission standard 5. Change premiums for cars with euro 4 and 5 are given to diesel drivers in the 14 stinkiest german cities; i live in the country (luckily). So I have the A…-map, ah, i mean the rough drawn out. I own a five year old golf, which has practically zero resale value.
Who will be held accountable for this now, I ask myself?. But also: why is my efficient 5-liter-diesel suddenly a super-GAU for the environment and health of my fellow men, while a 15-liter-gulping petrol-bolide may continue to wash its gearbox in innocence and blow its exhaust gases unhindered into the environmental zones?? Are there no pollutants coming out of the chrome-plated double end pipes?? Someone has to explain this to me. I don't get it!
Just as little as the public ignorance of other dirty vehicles. For example, what about all the cruise ships or airplanes?? They are lucky that there are not as many measuring stations in the baltic sea and in the sky as there are on the central ring road in munich. Or the coal-fired power plants? Interesting, especially when the electricity from this is then used to power the "clean E-cars supplied.
There is something that stinks to high heaven – and not only from my diesel exhaust!