Automobile ads were once brilliant and habit-forming. Volkswagen had NBA star Wilt Chamberlin unfolding his 7′1″ frame from a Beetle car in 1966 and had created the trendsetting "Think Small" campaign in 1959. These for a post–World War II German-made car at a time when Cadillacs had tailfins. How times have changed.
By 2008, when the UN's 14th Conference of the Parties on climate change was taking place in Poland, California was forcing automakers to reduce emissions from passenger cars or be banned from the nation's largest car-buying state. The ads that year from Volkswagen, Audi, and other automakers began to tout a breakthrough "clean diesel" engine, low on emissions and high in gas mileage. But it was a fake.
On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office announced a $25 million settlement with Bosch, describing in detail how the company helped Volkswagen and Fiat Chrysler defeat smog tests in order to game the state's low-emissions requirement. The AG's office, under Xavier Becerra, had already sued the automakers for their part in the deception, settling with VW for $1.5 billion and Fiat Chrysler for $78 million.