i’ve been happily driving jetta diesels for 15 years. i have a lot of words i could say after dieselgate but maybe the most pertinent are “never buying another volkswagen” ( insert epic rant here that i don’t have time to write ).

perhaps the only solace i can personally take is that we’ve only been driving a polluter for about a year and the diesels we drove previously appears to have not skirted the emissions laws.

i hope the EPA fines them the reported maximum, $18 billion and we use the money to invest in pedestrian infrastructure ( probably not going to happen, but hey we can dream a little dream, right? ).

So, VW owes the U.S. $18B+. I say we invest the money in bicycle+ pedestrian infrastructure for our cities. Make polluters pay for change.

— AlexSteffen (@AlexSteffen) September 23, 2015

i was leaving work and found this tucked under the windshield. i’m pretty sure it was meant as a lighthearted joke but the reality of the environmental impact of dieselgate is no laughing matter.

as i hopped into the car, i got a text message from a friend in michigan. sigh. i had conversations with several current owners of TDIs that aren’t buying another one no matter what the company does and several people who didn’t own one but were considering buying and are now not going to. i think the long term implications for diesels in the US in general and vw in particular will be devastating. apple couldn’t have asked for better timing of a scandal as they accelerate their efforts to build an electric car as current TDI owners like myself, er, ride out their payment plans.