Volkswagen's Electric Act II: No New Gas-Powered Cars Post-2026

Alex Gibney, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, best known for his films like Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and Taxi to the Dark Side, recently made a documentary series for Netflix called 'Dirty Money.' The very first episode dealt with what has come to be called 'Dieselgate' or 'Diesel Dupe.' About three years ago, in September 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that many Volkswagen cars being sold in America had a "defeat device" - or software - in diesel engines that could detect when they were being tested, changing the performance accordingly to improve results. The German car giant, the largest car manufacturer in the world, then admitted cheating emissions tests in the US - rigging software to make its vehicles appear to comply with clean air regulations, when in fact they did not. The company was forced to pay more than 27 billion euros in fines for hiding excessive pollution.