![\"VW](\"https:\/\/www.globalvillagespace.com\/tech\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/emissions-scandal-ten-years-on-how-europes-car-industry-is-fighting-back-and-shaping-the-future.jpg\" "\\"VW")
<\/a><\/p>\nEmissions scandal changed the industry for good, forcing Europe’s biggest firms to completely change tack<\/p>\n
Ten years ago, on September 18, 2015, the automotive industry changed forever with one ‘Notice of Violation\u2019 issued by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That might sound dry, but it was a bombshell that rapidly shook the entire automotive world.<\/p>\n
The EPA notice revealed “irregularities” in the nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions in the emissions tests results of vehicles fitted with certain Volkswagen Group diesel engines \u2013 and alleged that undisclosed engine management software had been used since 2009 to essentially cheat the tests.<\/p>\n
The initial recall was for 482,000 cars, but the Dieselgate scandal unravelled quickly from there. The Volkswagen<\/span> Group soon admitted that the \u2018defeat device\u2019 had been fitted to around 11 million cars sold worldwide; within days, billions were wiped off the German giant’s\u00a0share price, while chief executive Martin Winterkorn quickly progressed from showing contrition to resigning.<\/p>\n In the following years, the Volkswagen<\/span> Group spent billions on compensation and fines\u00a0and numerous members of its staff faced civil and criminal prosecution. But the impact of Dieselgate wasn\u2019t just limited to Volkswagen: it had a profound impact on the whole industry, not least because several other firms have since admitted using cheat devices of their own. And the effects\u00a0of it are still being felt a decade later.<\/p>\n In the wake of the scandal, car makers \u2013\u00a0led by Volkswagen<\/span> \u2013 began a pivot towards EVs in an attempt to literally clean up their act. But they soon had cause to: governments and lawmakers, particularly in Europe, decided that the car industry could no longer be trusted.\u00a0After all, they were the bad guys who couldn\u2019t be trusted to do the right thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n That led to the increasingly tight CO2 emissions standards\u00a0and ultimately the measures to phase out the sales of petrol and diesel cars. And while environmental concerns among the public would probably have pushed governments into introducing some requirements on the car industry, measures such as the EU\u2019s current 2035 cut-off for ICE car sales and the UK\u2019s zero-emission vehicle mandate, which also has a 2035 goal, were developed without significant input from manufacturers.<\/p>\n The challenges of such mandates for the industry have been clear: car makers are essentially being asked to sell EVs at a volume for which there currently isn\u2019t the public demand, while also having to nearly double their line-ups and development costs to continue a parallel line of ICE cars for markets that don\u2019t have such mandates in place.<\/p>\n But in recent months, it feels like something has changed, and it was in evidence talking to a number of industry CEOs at the Munich motor show<\/a> recently. The European car firms seemed to have their swagger back \u2013 and were out to take on the law makers.<\/p>\n The BMW Group’s Oliver Zipse<\/a>, Stellantis’s\u00a0Jean-Philippe Imparato<\/a>, the Renault Group’s\u00a0Fran\u00e7ois Provost<\/a> and the Volkswagen Group’s\u00a0Oliver Blume were among the bosses who spoke out forcefully and eloquently against the EU\u2019s 2035 ban. They argued for broader ways of promoting CO2 reduction, systems less focused on what a car produces at the tailpipe and more on lifetime emissions. They pushed for the freedom to develop technologies that could prove an alternative for EVs,\u00a0such as e-fuels<\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0And they did it all while insisting that they just wanted to give car buyers what they wanted.<\/p>\n It seemed to be\u00a0an organised, concerted pushback from an industry that sensed an opportunity. The public villains of Dieselgate, the \u2018evil\u2019 companies that needed to be controlled, were trying to seize the moment to position themselves as a force for good in the face of rising public resistance to EVs. A significant chunk of the public just want simple, affordable cars;\u00a0the car industry wants to offer them. And, their argument goes, they could \u2013 if legislators would let them.<\/p>\n