VW May Be Forced To Build EV Cars In US As Part Of Dieselgate Penalty

an Insane amount? Toyota sells nearly as many Camrys in the US in a single year compared to the tiny amount of TDI models sold over 6 years...

Sounds like a "win-win" for everyone. The US government saddles a foreign company with the burden of setting up a non-economic Electric Vehicle plant (that will make vehicles that no one will buy). The US government (i.e. the Kingdom of Obama) will probably require that the plant is a union plant.

VW's Tennessee plant has always kind of been problematic for VW and the US was probably worried that they would shut it down entirely. Tesla is obviously not long for this world, so the US government gets another poster-child for EV stuff that nobody wants.

VW gets to keep selling Americans Audi's, Bentleys, Lambos, and GTI's in exchange for a turdy-electic model line. VW maybe rolls out some fixes for their future diesels and re-introduce their diesel line-up that was pretty popular (and where most diesel people weren't really bothered by the emissions stuff because DIESELS ARE SO GREAT!). Ask anyone who owns a VW diesel - they ALL LOVE THEM!!

I have a Mercedes diesel SUV and its the most fantastic vehicle ever. A 6,000 pound 7 seater SUV that goes 600-700 highway miles on a tank and gets up to 28-MPG - its an engineering marvel. Its fast to boot!

Sounds like an excellent solution. Then VW cuts some cash to the people who own the existing diesels and the whole thing goes away - and we've added some American jobs! Great!

This issue will continue long after the Obama presidency - and the idea that the government would REQUIRE VW to build a production plant is simply beyond their ability. THere are enough manufacturers of diesel engines that are able to meet current emissions targets (Including VW) - that VW simply doesn't have a way of modifying those cars economically.

Of course - the people with the cars that don't meet emissions standards love them - they have both performance and fuel efficiency that they would not approach when meeting emissions standards. If the cars did meet the standards - they would have been LESS desirable because of LOWER fuel economy and poorer performance. However - the longer this goes on - the more these cars spew their emissions into the air - and the hotter the fire gets under the regulators. Somewhere along the line - VW is going to have to come up with a way of getting those cars off the road. And I suspect it would be cheaper to buy them back than it would be to have to produce unwanted EVs.

The solution is to let the diesels be as they are and for VW to pay owners for loss of value plus punitive damages, and then a one-time pain fine.

VW should go hybrid, PHEV, and EV and build those models in the USA.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Look at EV sales across all brands and you'll see that various manufacturers are already building them, but exceptionally few people want them! So who thinks it's a good idea to force VW to build yet more vehicles for buyers that don't exist? If you want to punish VW financially, make them pay fines. At least that way, the fines' recipients can put the money to good use.

I like it because VW would have to literally give the cars away and who doesn't like a free car?

MDarringer: I'd rather just have the cash... to buy something other than a VW.

Me too Steve.