Get Rid of Dieselgate Cars, Organizations Say – CleanTechnica

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Remember the days when the most shocking and corrupt thing around was large automakers cheating on vehicle emissions tests? Those were the days…. That said, the “Dieselgate” scandal was, of course, a huge deal. Millions of cars were put on the road with false claims about how much pollution they emitted. We’re now at the 10 year anniversary of that scandal being broken out. Unfortunately, we’re still paying the consequence, and not just with lingering CO2 emissions and global heating.

Many of these cars are still on the road. Several organizations are now pushing for government leaders in Europe to do something to get rid of these Dieselgate cars.

“T&E and a coalition of organisations are urging European lawmakers to use the revision of the ‘roadworthiness package’ to address the legacy of Dieselgate and remove millions of suspiciously high-emitting cars from Europe’s roads. T&E, alongside UNEP, ETSC, CMC and OPUS RSE call for systematic fleet screenings and roadside inspections based on real-world emissions, yearly technical inspections for vehicles over 10 years old, and mandatory fixes or scrappage of high-emitting cars at the expense of manufacturers. It also calls on the EU to strengthen safety checks and to stop the export of high-polluting and unsafe used vehicles to other regions,” T&E writes. You can read the full letter from those organizations here.

Frankly, it’s a little wild more wasn’t done to scrap these cars back a decade ago. “These cars polluted up to 10 times above legal limits, poisoning the air we breathe and damaging citizens’ health,” the letter states. “A decade later, justice is still missing. While the US forced VW to buy-back vehicles or fix them in addition to imposing fines, up to 19.1 million vehicles on European roads are likely to still have defeat devices.”

It gets worse. “The toll is ongoing: 40% of Dieselgate-related premature deaths are yet to come (124,000 already lost, 81,000 still projected), which contribute to the 70,000 premature deaths caused by road transport air pollution every year.” Seriously, just get these extra-polluting cars off the road.

Lastly, it’s critical and great to see that these organizations don’t want European lawmakers to just clean up European streets and skies, while dumping their polluting garbage onto others. Many old vehicles are shipped from Europe to less wealthy areas of the world, letting poor people in other countries pollute themselves with these vehicles. The organizations are requesting that Europe not go this route with these Dieselgate cars.

“Finally, Europe must stop exporting high-polluting and unsafe used vehicles. Between 2015 and 2022, over 6 million used vehicles were shipped outside the EU, predominantly to African countries, adding old, dirty and unroadworthy cars to their fleets,” the letter states. “Ensuring that only vehicles meeting minimum emission and safety standards are exported is essential to curb the growth of both climate and air pollution emissions and to reduce road deaths and serious injuries.”

Indeed. The good news is that countries in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere have growing access to cheap electric cars from China, and some of these countries are making the decision to accelerate the transition away from polluting fossil-fuel vehicles and instead leapfrog into an electric transport future. (I’m looking at you, Ethiopia — but hopefully more countries soon.)

Will European lawmakers take the advice of T&E, UNEP, ETSC, CMC, and OPUS RSE? Well, one can dream.