Europe's lack of effective emissions regulation (and enforcement) allowed VW and others to get away with selling polluting toxic vehicles for years.
In fact, despite all that's happened in the US, in Europe they're still getting away with it today.
For how much longer?
These paint a different picture than "getting away with it".
[1]: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/237320-germany-votes-to-...
and http://www.popsci.com/germany-signals-intent-to-ban-internal...
[2]: http://www.autoblog.com/2011/03/28/report-eu-working-to-ban-...
[3]: http://auto.ndtv.com/news/france-to-ban-diesel-cars-from-nex...
[4]: http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/92203288/German-diesel-...
The difference is that NOx emission levels are stricter in the US while the CO emission levels are stricter in the EU, effectively making the US market favorable to petrol cars while the EU is more favorable to diesel.
The VW defeat device scandal in the US started what's been known as dieselgate in Europe, the investigation that first targeted VW was then applied to all car makers and they pretty much all been found guilty of cheating to pass test while actually polluting way more.
As there are different tax rates for different emission levels this sent the car makers into the realm of tax fraud and tax evasion.
The EU has launched legal proceedings against 7 countries (Germany, UK, Spain, Luxembourg, Lituania, Czech Republic and Greece) and more may follow for not respecting the 2007 law for approval of new vehicles and for the lack of sanctions delivered or deliverable.
EU initiated an investigation which preliminary proceedings unveiled that the cheating was known to a few countries since at least 2010 and that they engaged in attempt to delay adoption of better and stricter tests.
Large cities around Europe have enacted bans on diesel cars, second hand sales of diesel cars have fallen by 10% compared to the previous year which is unprecedented.
Some diesel models were cancelled and a few carmakers even started pivoting from diesel to hybrid cars.
This quick summary is the tip of the iceberg and contrasts deeply with your claim of "despite all that's happened in the US, in Europe they're still getting away with it today."
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards
Is that a result of weak regulators, or weak regulation? Or both? (Genuine question, I know diesel is much more popular in Europe than in the US)
NOx wasn't taken too seriously in the EU by member states until recently and many countries were not fining or prosecuting carmakers [1]. This is probably a result of hard-fought car plant concessions each member state has to make to get these valuable blue-collar jobs from going somewhere else. The mindset is changing now due to raised awareness by VW-gate but also the continuous struggle some large cities such as Paris, Madrid, London, Athens and Rome are having to keep smog levels under control [2]. So, in general, we can say the EU, public and cities are putting pressure, but states are still very lenient and reluctant and are seeking long-term exemptions [3].
I believe the EU is too dependent on heavy NOx-emitting diesel cars to take drastic regulatory measures, so diesel is being pushed out by the cities with upcoming taxation and city-limits restrictions. If the trend follows, taxation, and not regulation, will be the NOx deterrent in the coming years [4].
[1] http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-238_en.htm
[2] http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/paris-cuts-harmful-...
[3] http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21714991-europe-should...
[4] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/11018725/This-diese...
When will CO2 obsessed bureaucrats begin to care about fine particles emitted by gasoline direct injection engines?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_emission_standards#Em...
There are other ways to reduce NOx emissions, such as selective catalytic reduction (SCR) with urea ("AdBlue") injection. This technology is pretty standard on modern HGVs, but rare on light diesels.
Unfortunately many (most?) diesel cars being sold today still emit far in excess of the Euro 6 specification in real-world conditions.
The EQUA air quality index assigns ratings (A to H) to vehicles based on how they perform in real world conditions. The number of diesel models that are getting G or H grades (indicating they emit at least 12X more NOx than the Euro 6 specification allows) is quite alarming:
However, cities may well reverse the government's efforts, because they have a duty to limit the (real, measured) inner city pollution. So cheating on the dyno won't help car makers.
The downside is that the cities' only regulatory approach is more heavy-handed: things like banning all diesel vehicles on particularly bad days, etc.
But it might sour diesels for citizens, so all the lobbying efforts may well have been for naught.
The EPA isn't exactly an example of efficient bureaucracy but putting CARB on the same level is an insult to the EPA