The High Court just handed a massive win to the car industry. One and a half million motorists are out of pocket. They’ll get no share of the £6 billion they thought they were owed.
This is Dieselgate 2.0. It’s over.
The plaintiffs sued. They argued they were lied to. They bought cars promised to be clean, only to find their tailpipes spewing nitrogen oxides during actual driving. They claimed thermal windows—software designed to keep condensation off engines—were actually cheat devices. Software tricks to pass emissions tests.
The court disagreed.
Judge Cockerill looked at 20 vehicles built between 2012 and 2017. She rejected most of the allegations. She made a clear point.
not every calibration or emissions-control strategy amounts a defeat device.
There’s a difference between protecting an engine from damage and breaking the law. The ruling says adjusting performance to avoid overheating isn’t illegal. Even if it lowers emissions control in the process.
But wait.
The court did find some guilty parties. Specifically, the coolant temperature setpoints in some older Mercedes models. And the split-injection software in certain Peugeot-Citroën cars. Those looked like cheats. The judge admitted that if the legal definition of “defeat device” was stricter, far more software would have been struck down.
So who is mad?
Mercedes is splitting its verdict. On one hand, they welcomed the general outcome. They agree most of their software was justified on technical grounds. But they aren’t happy about the coolant temperature ruling. They claim that issue was fixed by a 2015 software update anyway. They are considering an appeal.
Peugeot-Citroën, now part of Stellantis, faces a similar split verdict along with Nissan and Ford, who escaped the main findings but remain entangled in the broader case history.
The money question isn’t dead yet.
A new trial starts in October. This one determines the consequences of those specific breaches. Was there real damage? Is compensation actually due for that limited slice of affected owners?
No one knows yet.
The big payout is gone. The precedent is set. You have to prove intent. You have to prove malice. Not just optimization.
Is it surprising they lost? Probably not.
Car manufacturers spend millions on lawyers. They have decades of engineering data to justify why the engine needed protection from itself. Consumers just had a bill and a suspicion.
The remaining trial is a technical footnote to the main story. It will likely take a year or two to sort out. Meanwhile, the 1.5 million claimants drive on. The air they breathe is arguably cleaner now anyway. Electric cars are taking over. The diesel debate is dying out, choked by its own complexity and legal fees.
So where does that leave the drivers who bought into the green promise of cleaner diesels?
They have a ruling that says they were never truly cheated. Just sold a product that does exactly what its complex, defensive software was programmed to do.
