> their ICE cars are notorious for being unreliable compared to the Japanese car-makers.

I always read this online, but my personal experience in EU doesn't match that at all in quite a sample of people and cars over the last ~15 years. At least not for older cards. The reliability after 100k km seems to be somewhat similar.

The repairability of VW-group stuff in 3rd party services is soo much better and cheaper. The WV-group is huge and many models across the brands share same parts and full engines. There exist non-OEM alternatives and people know how to fix those cars.

I have never bought new car. But driving anything but VW got expensive fast.

Toyota cars can have bespoke parts even between different months of the same year for the same model. Continuous improvement isn't really that cool for cars.

The keyword here is "in the EU".

Outside Western Europe, VW is priced like a premium upmarket brand (not quite luxury). Maintenance and general upkeep for a VW are easily two to three times the cost of an equivalent Japanese car.

Which wouldn't be an issue if the cars were actually built to their price point. But the VW cars we get here are shittier versions built in nasty factories. They break down if you look at them wrong. The build quality is nonexistent. They are absolutely an awful deal, no matter how you look at them. You also have to personally import parts from wherever they're available, because otherwise only the dealerships have parts and they are absurdly overpriced.

Also, European brands are afraid of exporting EVs. If you want an EV, you buy a Chinese car. There is no other option. It is as simple as that.

It depends which market you're in.

I currently own a 10 year old Seat Leon with not a single out of maintenance repair (if we ignore the cosmetic repair due to a wildlife encounter). My parents have owned multiple VW vehicles, with each of these lasting >15 years without major issues. I know they have a reputation of being unreliable compared to Toyota, but that hasn't been my personal experience and equally important: they do not look like a Toyota. And Mazda has awful EVs

Putting these factors aside: they are usually cheaper than their peers in insurance and they have dealerships absolutely everywhere. I've had multiple Skoda and VW EV rentals and the experience has been nothing but pleasant. Hence my priorities.

Seat has been a refreshing alternative since the Arona came out, specifically the one with the amazing sound system. They’ve come a long way and are making some no-nonsense cars.

The emissions scandal is completely different, because in that case they were illicitly making the car work better for its owner.

Unless, of course, said owner cared for the environment

Said owner cares about their experience above the environment. Sure people care about the environment, but it is always lower than all the other factors in their personal list of things they worry about.

That is why so many rich fly private jets to environment conferences. People put Greenpeace and similar bumper stickers on their SUVs that never go off road and rarely have more than one person inside. They care about the environment, but only when it doesn't impact anything else in their life.

> Sure people care about the environment, but it is always lower than all the other factors in their personal list of things they worry about.

Emissions scale with performance, and inversely of fuel efficiency. So the environment may not be the most important point, but I'm pretty sure fuel efficiency is high on the list when you're picking a compact or long-range car that is supposed to be fuel efficient.

Also, by advertising as compliant to green specs something that wasn't, means people may have been swayed to purchase irregular cars despite them not being really green, only due to the fact that they may have received rebates and contributions for the purchase, regardless of whether "being greener" ranked high on their decision metrics.

Data point: I bought a Skoda because of its claimed efficiency. It wasn’t the only factor, but in the balance of weighing things up, I cared that the stated emissions and fuel efficiency were better than some of the competitors.

I was lied to. Had I known that was the case there is a good chance I would have gone with a different car.

My car was recalled and reprogrammed and it no longer had the torque it had at first.

Of course now it’s clear that most if not all manufacturers were doing the same trick, they just weren’t caught at it.

They can always drive less frequently or more slowly, that's within their power.

Cute. If I buy an A+ washing machine, but it turns out to use tons of electricity to wash the clothes better than expected, the solution isn’t to wash less clothes or do so less often — it’s calling the shop and returning it because its rating is fraud.

> cared for the environment

It wasn't "more CO2" grade, it was "more NOx" grade. This in urban settings will actually kill more people with respiratory problems.

VW's "clever hack" probably, statistically, killed people.

As opposed to the rest of the auto industry which has a stellar track record of adhering to emissions and fuel economy regulations /s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeat_device

And they lobbied governments to keep the tests a joke (e.g. test emissions on downwhill roads):

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/24/uk-franc...

Of course the governments probably lobbied for this stuff because it improves their car industry tax profits/employment numbers.

They all cheated and everyone knew it. It was the only way diesels could be so economical yet so powerful.