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No, seriously, I can pass the emissions test, just put me on the machine. I’m a Volkswagen clean diesel, for crying out loud.
Volkswagen has just perpetrated on the United States and possibly the world an act of criminality that is stunning for its scale, depravity, and lack of a payoff. The company — the whole company, not just a few proverbial bad apples — has been caught designing its diesel cars (The Jetta, Passat and the BMW X5) to control their emissions when being tested, but to remove those controls when being driven normally. As a result, for six years about half a million diesel autos have been emitting 40 times the nitrous oxide, a smog precursor, allowed by law. The cars that did this were marketed as “clean diesels.”
In an article headlined “Pure Evil, VW Edition,” a website called Reality Based Community explained what the company did: Continue reading
