Daimler says diesel is worth fighting for but there is no comeback for the toxic technology and the fight must now be to save lives
When the story of Volkswagen’s cheating on diesel emissions tests broke nearly two years ago, a number of reporters asked me if this spelled the end for diesel cars. My response was a confident, dismissive “no”. While dieselgate would cast a long shadow, there was no reason to write off diesel cars, at least in the short term. After all, the technology does exist to make clean diesel cars. It’s just a question of improving the existing regulations and enforcing them better.
I was wrong.
Related: 38,000 people a year die early because of diesel emissions testing failures