Ten years ago, on September 18, 2015, the automotive industry changed forever with one 'Notice of Violation’ issued by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). That might sound dry, but it was a bombshell that rapidly shook the entire automotive world.

The EPA notice revealed "irregularities" in the nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions in the emissions tests results of vehicles fitted with certain Volkswagen Group diesel engines – and alleged that undisclosed engine management software had been used since 2009 to essentially cheat the tests.

The initial recall was for 482,000 cars, but the Dieselgate scandal unravelled quickly from there. The Volkswagen Group soon admitted that the ‘defeat device’ had been fitted to around 11 million cars sold worldwide; within days, billions were wiped off the German giant's share price, while chief executive Martin Winterkorn quickly progressed from showing contrition to resigning.

In the following years, the Volkswagen Group spent billions on compensation and fines and numerous members of its staff faced civil and criminal prosecution. But the impact of Dieselgate wasn’t just limited to Volkswagen: it had a profound impact on the whole industry, not least because several other firms have since admitted using cheat devices of their own. And the effects of it are still being felt a decade later.

In the wake of the scandal, car makers – led by Volkswagen – began a pivot towards EVs in an attempt to literally clean up their act. But they soon had cause to: governments and lawmakers, particularly in Europe, decided that the car industry could no longer be trusted. After all, they were the bad guys who couldn’t be trusted to do the right thing. 

That led to the increasingly tight CO2 emissions standards and ultimately the measures to phase out the sales of petrol and diesel cars. And while environmental concerns among the public would probably have pushed governments into introducing some requirements on the car industry, measures such as the EU’s current 2035 cut-off for ICE car sales and the UK’s zero-emission vehicle mandate, which also has a 2035 goal, were developed without significant input from manufacturers.

The challenges of such mandates for the industry have been clear: car makers are essentially being asked to sell EVs at a volume for which there currently isn’t the public demand, while also having to nearly double their line-ups and development costs to continue a parallel line of ICE cars for markets that don’t have such mandates in place.

But in recent months, it feels like something has changed, and it was in evidence talking to a number of industry CEOs at the Munich motor show recently. The European car firms seemed to have their swagger back – and were out to take on the law makers.

The BMW Group's Oliver Zipse, Stellantis's Jean-Philippe Imparato, the Renault Group's François Provost and the Volkswagen Group's Oliver Blume were among the bosses who spoke out forcefully and eloquently against the EU’s 2035 ban. They argued for broader ways of promoting CO2 reduction, systems less focused on what a car produces at the tailpipe and more on lifetime emissions. They pushed for the freedom to develop technologies that could prove an alternative for EVs, such as e-fuels. And they did it all while insisting that they just wanted to give car buyers what they wanted.

It seemed to be an organised, concerted pushback from an industry that sensed an opportunity. The public villains of Dieselgate, the ‘evil’ companies that needed to be controlled, were trying to seize the moment to position themselves as a force for good in the face of rising public resistance to EVs. A significant chunk of the public just want simple, affordable cars; the car industry wants to offer them. And, their argument goes, they could – if legislators would let them.

The early signs have been positive for the industry. Following various talks, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has indicated support for a new ‘E-car’ class for small, European city cars enabled by less onerous legislations – even if she did say that EVs remain the ultimate goal.

Of course, there is some irony that this industry pushback comes as European firms are finally beginning to launch desirable and relatively affordable EVs, which arguably wouldn’t have arrived so quickly without the strong regulatory push set by those 2035 targets. 

Ultimately, few will question the need to reduce emissions, and it’s clear that, longer-term, the future is electric: this is a fight over the timeline of that transition.

A balance is clearly needed: Dieselgate showed that no industry should be left essentially unchecked and that profit-chasing major corporations can’t necessarily be trusted to do the right thing. But there’s also no doubt that car firms are at their best when given a problem to solve and then given relative freedom to find solutions.

This industry is full of amazing engineers, technicians and problem solvers who can help shape a brighter future. It’s time to demonstrate that they can be trusted to do so again.