The biggest carmaker is imploding. Itschief executive has gone. The lawyers are gathering, the share price has plunged and today ministers announcedtheir own inquiry into car emissions and testing. The scale of Volkswagen’s deception of the public is huge.

But it would be a grave mistake to focus on Volkswagen in isolation. The reality is that European carmakers deliberately exploit lax emissions tests. It’s good business, but bad ethics. VW’s so-calleddefeat devicein the car’s computer to identify when a diesel vehicle is being tested is just the most hi-tech and surprising way yet uncovered to allow governments to not take air pollution seriously.

Carmakers could make amends only by focusing on electric or hydrogen vehicles which emit little more harmful than water and might thus prevent millions of illnesses. Informed about the scale of their cheating, we must force them to act.

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