VW has admitted that up to 11 million vehicles it made could be misreporting their true emission levels. The markets crashed on hearing the news, wiping significant value off the company. This morning they crashed again.
However, while the auto industry as a whole is in for a rough ride in the coming months, it’s good news for electric car makers like Tesla, which saw stock prices rise marginally. A small gain is considerably better than wiping out around 20 percent of the company’s value in one day, as happened with Volkswagen.
With the benefits of diesel being overstated, the market is now slowly beginning to turn against diesel cars, even in countries like the UK, where they had overtaken petrol car sales.
Combine this with the improvements in battery technology for electric cars and the slowly increasing trickle of electric car charging points and the odds begin to stack in electric’s favor – for many people at least. It’s a viewpoint that Bernstein Research holds too, according to The Guardian.
The 💜 of EU tech
The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
Of course, for electric – or even hybrid – cars to really go mainstream and outsell petrol or diesel vehicles will require a drop in price; it’s well-known that the cost of hybrid vehicles is up to 20 percent more than a regular model (where offered). The theory is that this up-front cost is recouped over time with fuel savings.
With Tesla’s cheapest car starting from $75,000, there’s still a way to go yet before you see one on every street corner, but the technology will continue to trickle down to vehicles lower down the ranges, provided demand continues to increase.
As the cost of this scandal mounts and the attention focused on car makers increases, the demise of the diesel car likely won’t be far behind.
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.