Emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOX) and other nasties from cars' and lorries' exhausts cause large numbers of early deaths-perhaps 58,000 a year in America alone, one study suggests. So the scandal that has engulfed Volkswagen (VW) this week is no minor misdemeanour or victimless crime (see pages 23-25). The German carmaker has admitted that it installed software on 11m of its diesel cars worldwide, which allowed them to pass America's stringent NOX-emissions tests. But once the cars were out of the laboratory the software deactivated their emission controls, and they began to spew out fumes at up to 40 times the permitted level. The damage to vw itself is immense. But the events of this week will affect other carmakers, other countries and the future of diesel itself.
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