“At these levels, these cars aren’t just dirty -- they don’t meet standards to be legally driven on U.S. streets and no one would have bought these cars if BMW had told the truth,” said Steve Berman, the plaintiffs’ attorney who has filed similar claims against Ford Motor Co., Mercedes-Benz, Fiat Chrysler Automobile NV, General Motors Co. and Volkswagen.
So this guy has convinced some diesel car owners they could milk out some money from carmakers, and now he's leading a legal crusade against those carmakers.
I see no case here since there's no action by EPA against those carmakers & their diesel models - eg. banning them from roads due to not meeting emission standards etc. There would be a case though if that actually happened.
If EPA is fine with those diesel vehicles emission & mileage testing results I don't see the problem here.
There's a possible case of carmakers misleading the customers by claiming certain mileage / emission output - proving not to be the case in real-life driving situation. But that's hardly carmakers' fault since those testing standards are set by authorities. Just like eg. safety test standards - where certain results are guaranteed only at certain situations (certain speed, optional safety features present on-board, certain crash overlapping area etc). It's obvious ICEVs polute more & consume more fuel when driven hard etc. And it's obvious the car & driver+passenger damage / injuries are different / bigger when crashing @ eg. 90kmh instead @ 64kmh.
And again ... I detect a lot of hypocrisy in those legal actions (mostly eg. by some eco organizations etc) against diesel passenger vehicles only - while completely ignoring other big diesel pollutants: trucks, vans, buses, locomotives, ships & boats, diesel-fuelled furnaces for home heating, diesel-fuelled electricity generators etc etc.
Also: the target should be the authorities - the regulators, not the producers. Producers produce what is legal. And the regulators / authorities are the ones setting the legal rules.
Sure it's morally wrong producers can sell you harming products (tobacco, alcohol, drugs, sugary drinks, too fatty & too salty food etc - but unfortunately it's legally ok when the legislation allows it. Same case applies to cars & air pollution.