Volkswagen's Checks Aren't the End of Dieselgate

Checks for $5,100 to $10,000 written to Americans who bought Volkswagen diesel cars equipped to fool emissions tests may appease those owners, but they hardly constitute a victory for clean air. Rather than declare the matter closed, regulators in the U.S. and Europe need to redouble efforts to end all varieties of test-gaming in the auto industry.

Since VW’s “dieselgate” broke last September, Mitsubishi has admitted it cheated on fuel-efficiency tests, and Renault recalled 15,000 vehicles with faulty pollution-filtering systems. Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Opel and Porsche have recalled hundreds of thousands of cars over other discrepancies. And independent studies of real-world driving, as opposed to laboratory testing, have found that brands including Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, Nissan and Volvo emit more greenhouse gases than advertised.