I recently started a petition calling for government action on the Dieselgate scandal. The petition originally called for 5 specific actions, which were:
- Keir Starmer to order more rapid court dates for the group legal claims that are in play
- Keir Starmer to ensure appropriate reparations are paid by the manufacturers that used cheat devices, to fix the environmental damage they’ve caused.
- The High Court to sentence these same manufacturers to the maximum compensation possible for consumers that have been tricked into buying one of these dirty diesel cars
- Keir Starmer to put in place far stricter regulatory monitoring processes to ensure this doesn’t happen again
- and, finally, for Keir Starmer to launch an investigation into the levels of fraud from senior executives of the manufacturers using the cheat devices and to hold them to account!
Since starting the petition, I’ve removed the third point because I received notification from a reader that they couldn’t support the petition if it was looking to interfere with the impartiality and independence of the judiciary system, which I actually agree with so I thought it prudent to remove this point.
One of the key things that struck me when doing research into this issue is the level of damage Dieselgate has caused and the level of profits manufacturers that cheated the system earned, both far beyond what I was expecting.
Environmental and Health Damage
I’m not an ‘eco-warrior’ or anything like that. I believe we should be aiming for more green solutions and looking after the environment, but there are others fighting that fight and I don’t have the passion for it. My core belief, and what I work towards, is that environmental efficiency should come at the detriment of household budgets, especially when the massive corporations are excessively profiteering at the same time.
That being said, even I’m fuming at how damaging Dieselgate has been to the environment. Let’s talk about the research conducted by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), which found that 124,000 excess deaths have been caused by Dieselgate across the UK and EU from 2009 to 2024.
DO THE MATHS ON THAT! Almost 1 extra person every bloody hour for 15 years has died because of this scandal! Aren’t we currently talking about shutting down Notting Hill Carnival because 2 people died last year? But the UK Government hasn’t ordered a recall and retroactive fix for all of these engines that used ‘cheat devices’ to pass emissions tests? It’s not like it’s impossible to impose these retrospective fixes, the US, Australia, Canada, Germany and South Korea have already imposed a mixture of recalls, retrospective fixes and compensation for affected customers, so why is the UK being so slow?
And obviously, it’s not just the excess deaths, there are other effects. The same report estimates 98,000 additional cases of asthma in children, 25,000 years lived with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and 15,000,000 days of sick leave, all caused directly by manufacturers cheating emissions tests.
Want to know exactly how much extra cars are causing extra emissions? As of June 2024, roughly 9.8 million cars on the road in the UK are giving out excess emissions due to the dieselgate scandal. These 9.8 million cars are emitting 70,300 tonnes of excess NOx annually above legal limits, representing almost 40% of UK NOx emissions from road transport.
What’s really got on my nerves is that we spend billions of pounds every year on trying to make our country greener, whether we like it or not. We’re paying green levies for energy suppliers are generators, paying to have wind-turbines build and paying to have the switched, paying gas-fired power station prices for solar-generated electricity, we spend a ludicrous amount of money on green energy, and all of that effort is just being trashed by car manufacturers deliberately putting cars on the road with excessive
Financial Impact
The estimated financial impact of just the health impacts of Dieselgate is around €760 billion up to June 2024, and it’s anticipated that it could cost another €430 billion between 2025 and 2040.
There has been one case against Volkeswagen, where they decided to settle out of court without admitting any blame, they ended up paying an average of £2,100 to over 90,000 UK drivers in compensation, coming to £193million. They got away lightly, VW actually had over 11 million cars worldwide that were fitted with cheat devices, 1.2 million (~10%) of those are in the UK, however VW have had to pay £26bn worldwide! If the UK had held VW to account in the same way other countries have, we’d have expected to see around £2.6bn being paid in compensation to consumers, as opposed to the measly £193m we did see.
The hope at the moment is that consumers that are apart of the class action law suits with other manufacturers are going to see payments of around £10,000 in compensation. As long as the manufacturer also has to pay to get the cars retrofitted with the correct equipment to bring emission levels down to legal requirements, I think this would be a reasonable action.
What action is being taken in the UK?
The UK Government have apparently launched an investigation, but there is no update nor timeline on when we can expect any outcome from any investigation.
The High Court have decided that the first class action lawsuit will be seen in October 2025, which will be the largest lawsuit in UK history.
This lawsuit will cover the following manufacturers:
- Ford
- Mercedes
- Nissan
- Renault
- Stallantis (which is the owner of Citreon, DS, Chrysler, Fiat, Peugeot and Vauxhall)
However, these aren’t the only manufacturers being sued, the full list is composed of:
- BWM
- Ford
- Hyundai & Kia
- Jaguar Land Rover
- Mercedes
- Nissan
- Renault
- Stallantis (which is the owner of Citreon, DS, Chrysler, Fiat, Peugeot and Vauxhall)
- Volvo
- VW
You can join these class action legal suits by clicking the button below and entering your reg to see if your current or old diesel car was impacted by the scandal.
