Volkswagen

How’s your New Year’s resolutions list going? We’re waiting to hear how Volkswagen has begun 2013.

This morning more than 25 Greenpeace activists protested against the carmaker’s stance on the climate outside the Vienna car show. Handing out leaflets and making the point that VW can do better, we were hoping that the company makes some strong commitments.

"Environmental protection is the top priority for Volkswagen". So says the blurb for VW’s latest PR initiative. But according to a story in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper it seems no one told their lobbyists…

The story reveals that the VDA, the lobby group that represents VW along with fellow German carmakers BMW and Daimler, wants to make a big hole in a proposed EU law to control CO2 emissions from even bigger cars.

Are we nearly there yet? When it comes to cleaning up car emissions, VW’s answer always seems to be no.

Don’t you just hate it when someone has the power to make a real difference, but won’t use it? Take Volkswagen for instance. It’s Europe’s biggest car maker, eager to display itself as a friend of the environment and known worldwide for its high standards of engineering.

Yet for years VW has failed to put its money where its mouth is and commercially produce cars that are both cheap to run and emit far less CO2 than the rest of the market.