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“I was sitting on a plane on a Friday night, waiting to take off at Heathrow ahead of a weekend away, and my mum texted me: ‘Does this thing happening in America affect you?’ To be honest, I was in the dark like everyone else. I didn’t really think about it on the flight. Then over the weekend, things developed quite quickly.”

Ex-Volkswagen UK boss Alex Smith, now chairman of dealer group Lookers, is recalling the very start of a scandal that began to break a decade ago next month: Dieselgate. The fines, firings and fixes are well documented, but what impact has it left on VW, the wider car industry and the black pump?

To deal with the last point first, the scandal hasn’t quite killed off diesel in the UK but it’s close enough. In 2015, some 1.2 million new diesel cars were sold here; in 2024, it was just 123,000.

Philip Nothard, insight director at Cox Automotive, expects that decline will continue and diesel will account for just one in 50 new car sales in 2028. “In 2015, there were around 3220 diesel models [on sale in the UK]. By 2024, that number had fallen to just 220,” he adds.

Perhaps the decline of diesel was inevitable anyway, with the imminent rise of EVs. But the scandal did hasten investments in EVs, which in hindsight were far away from marketreadiness, VW’s included.

With Dieselgate still front of mind, many car makers spent the latter part of the 2010s pledging to be selling only EVs by as early as the late 2020s, yet now the mood is such that not only are end dates no longer being pledged but investment in ICE tech is continuing. Pragmatism has emerged.

However, VW’s actions meant car makers lost clout with legislators in having a say in what they are allowed to sell and for how long. Trust had been eroded.

As for the effect of Dieselgate on the wider industry, SMMT chief Mike Hawes recalls how even by the middle of the first full week, phase two had begun: “I jumped on the tube at 7am to get to St Pancras, and by the time I popped up, I had missed calls from the BBC, Sky, the Financial Times. I thought: ‘It’s not going to be a good day, is it?’ It [the narrative] morphed into ‘if one of them [car makers] was cheating, they were all cheating’. It absolutely kicked off.”

Other car makers were dragged into the scandal and some were indeed caught fitting test defeat devices. Mercedes-Benz was the next most high profile after VW, settling in 2020 with the same California Air Resources Board that kick-started the events in 2015. Others were investigated without claims being proven. This was not a scandal isolated to VW, even if it bore the brunt.

VW is now a very different company in how it looks and presents itself, yet it can’t fully escape Dieselgate. In its financial results reports always sits this footnote: ‘Before diesel expenses.

A government grant of £25 million to support new cross-pavement EV charging schemes has been hailed as a major boost to the take-up of electric cars by enabling households without a driveway to charge an EV cheaply on the road.

The cash will be spent on installing covered gullies that can carry a charge cable across a pavement to an EV parked on the road. It is hoped the solution will tackle a problem faced by around nine million UK homes and in turn drive up the uptake of EVs.

However, critics are worried the solution still has significant challenges to overcome, especially around running costs and usability, before it becomes a fully viable solution.

Many councils are already using the cash to roll out pilot schemes. Oxfordshire County Council, for example, has made £700,000 available for 500 gullies and money towards home chargers.

“A third of Oxfordshire households don’t have off-street parking, so we believe this could give residents the confidence to switch to an EV,” said the council’s environment chief councillor, Judy Roberts. “Being able to access home electricity rates and park in your usual spot are the sorts of things that are likely to make EV ownership a reality for many people.”

Dorset’s Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council has approved a similar scheme, with almost 30% of households in the district lacking off-street parking.

However, councillors noted the limitations of the gullies, which will require owners to be able to secure a parking space within reach of their charge cable.

Instead, “households will have to negotiate with their neighbours over use of the parking space”, said councillor Andy Hadley.

Gully suppliers such as Kerbo Charge say that most cables can reach an adjoining space.

There are also financial issues. For example, despite the government’s support, households must still contribute to the cost of applying for, installing and maintaining the gully. In the case of Oxfordshire’s scheme, residents must pay £300 for a two-year licence.

After that, households need to pay an annual fee of £100 to cover ‘operating costs’. The householder is also responsible for the pavement’s reinstatement should they move or no longer require the gully.

These costs are unavoidable: Oxfordshire County Council and others say that, for safety reasons, people can’t install a gully themselves or have it privately arranged.

Defending the costs, a council spokesperson said it is roughly equal to what, in 12 months, a household would save charging at home compared with using a public charger.