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Or – possibly more alarming – VW’s diesels were targeted for termination because of the threat they posed to the Electric Car Agenda. They were too efficient and practical and inexpensive.

Sniffing a Scandal

Here’s where things get . . . interesting.

The tests VW “cheated” on are not the sametests as the tailpipe exhaust emissions tests most of us have to subject our cars to, in order to register them and renew registration. All of the “cheating” VWs passed – and continue to pass – these “tailpipe sniffer” tests, which ought to give you some idea about the amount of “cheating” VW was up to on the other tests.

Think about it.

The smog check joints – thousands of them, across the land – detected no smog (technically, no noxious compounds such as oxides of nitrogen) in excess of the allowable thresholds. The cars passed those tests. If their emissions were not within allowable limits, they wouldn’t have.

Or – possibly more alarming – VW’s diesels were targeted for termination because of the threat they posed to the Electric Car Agenda. They were too efficient and practical and inexpensive.

Given the choice between a $21,000 Jetta TDI that goes 700 miles on a tank and refuels in five minutes vs. a $35,000 Tesla that goes 150 miles (maybe) and needs hours to recharge, most buyers will make the obvious choice.

If they are allowed the choice.

They no longer have that choice. The VW (and Audi and Porsche) diesels are gone, replaced by less efficient, more expensive gas engines – and VW is being bled to the tune of billions to finance the propagation of even less efficient and more expensive electric cars, which can’t compete with diesel-powered cars on the merits.

They also passed by the automated roadside emissions detectors in ultra-strict California. These snuff the air as cars pass by and if the air is not up to snuff, they snap a photo of the offending car’s plates and send its owner a nasty note informing him that he must bring the car in for examination, pronto – or else.

But not one VW diesel – as far as I have been able to determine – was identified as a “polluter” by these tests. Or the tests you stand in line to go through to get your tags renewed. The absence of any California drive-by smog alarums is particularly noteworthy because the cars being snuffed were being driven. Not idling while hooked to a test rig. But the “cheating” asserted by Uncle asserts that once out in the world, actually driving, the “cheating” cars became churning cauldrons of toxic effluvia-spewing foulness…