Well, Now We Know

Well, now we know… how much Uncle’s persecution of VW is costing us – on top of the billions it has already cost Volkswagen.

Are you ready, Freddie?

About seven miles per gallon.

That’s how much the mileage of a 2015 Jetta TDI droops after it gets “fixed” – a term also used by farmers and used in the same manner here as well.

The VWs in question – like young male calves – were not broken. “Fixing” is a euphemism for taking something away . . . .

In the case of the VWs, what’s being taken away – by those who brought their cars in for “fixing”- is their formerly exceptional fuel efficiency.

And now we know exactly how much of that has been lost.

Originally, a 2015 Jetta TDI carried a window sticker that read 30 city and 44 highway. Behold the new window sticker, affixed to literally legions of “fixed” and still brand-new 2015 and 2016 Jettas which never got sold :

29 city, 37 highway.

These Jettas (and Passats and other TDI-powered VWs) have been sitting idle since the “scandal” broke back in 2015 and are now being re-certified for sale. Part of that process includes updating the window stickers, on which is displayed the EPA’s city/highway mileage estimates.

Like the poor steer, post-“fixing,” these TDI VWs have lost something.

And it’s not a little something, either.

Individual owners of cars that escaped being corralled – and who brought their cars in for the same “fix” – no doubt noticed their cars no longer went as far on a gallon as they once did.

But it was all anecdotal.

Now, it’s official – in Uncle’s own hand, so to speak.

And it makes these cars a lot less appealing, since their “fixed” mileage is hardly much better than the mileage delivered by many gas-powered cars and a lot less than most current hybrid cars.

Which I’ve come to believe is exactly the point of all this.

It’s not the “cheating.”

That’s just the hysterical, deliberately exaggerated window dressing.

Before the “fix” – before the “cheating” scandal erupted like a triple Vesuvius, spraying lava not just all over VW but also over diesels in general – diesels had been making a comeback.

And that was a problem.

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