U.S. Taxpayers Duped Into Shelling Out $51 Million in Green Subsidies for ‘Clean’ VW Vehicles
Not only was there a defeat device in the cars, but selling the cars as “green clean diesel” was false advertising. Next up, will owners of the cars in question, some years old be allowed to register them or will they all become expensive junk, illegal on US roads? Imagine being turned away at the DMV flat out. Nope, no tags.
Okay to be fair to the drivers maybe the states make an exception. But forty times more pollutants than whats legal will still be spewing out of about a half million cars.
What will the fix be?
The federal government paid out as much as $51 million in green car subsidies for Volkswagen diesel vehicles based on falsified pollution test results, according to a Times analysis of the federal incentives.
On Friday, federal and state regulators said the German automaker used software in 482,000 of its diesel vehicles since the 2009 model year to cheat on U.S. emissions tests. Environmental Protection Agency officials said Monday that the U.S. Department of Justice is also investigating.
The Times analysis matched Internal Revenue Service data with Volkswagen sales figures to determine the value of subsidies VW diesel buyers were eligible to collect in 2009, the first and only year the vehicles qualified. The $1,300 tax credit would have been available to buyers of about 39,500 Jetta and Jetta Sportwagen models that sold that year, according to Motor Intelligence, an industry research firm.
Volkswagen says 11 million vehicles worldwide are affected in U.S. emissions scandal
“It is really unfortunate,” said Luke Tonachel, director of clean vehicles and fuels project at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The government has been effective to help advance clean technologies, but it is a waste of taxpayer dollars when they aren’t actually helping to clean the environment.”
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