I nearly choked on my morning bowl of Sugar Puffs when I read that Carwow had handed the VW ID3 Apology Tour an award. According to Carwow the VW ID3 Apology Tour is the most wanted car and it hasn’t even been released. But VW has received 30,000 registered pre-orders. It’s a rather unfortunate accolade to receive because it appears that a few VW executives are the most wanted and not for the right reasons. What this Carwow award does is unintentionally cover up why the VW ID3 Apology Tour exists at all.

Now let me go back, to an unrelated moment in time. We don’t have many friends in the auto industry, other than our 4 regular readers, the dog, next-door neighbor’s cat, Jeff Bezos and yes… Carwow.  But as Ben Foulds once taught us critical analysis is the bedrock of motoring journalism. Ben’s wisdom lives on in us as we attempt to become more respectable motoring journalists who no one has ever heard of.

Anyway, back to the Carwow ID3 Apology Tour award. You have got to understand why the ID3 Apology Tour exists. And you don’t have to go that far back to understand why. The year was 2015, during a routine emissions test in America it was discovered a VW Diesel car was emitting way more emissions than otherwise stated.

You see, VW wanted to sell more cars into the biggest car market in the world. They had invested heavily in making diesel engines, but Americans love good ol’ petroleum cars, V8’s, etc. So VW devised a marketing strategy to make diesel cars more sellable to Americans. By simply saying diesel-powered cars are more efficient and environmentally friendly than “gas-powered” cars.

Only one of the statements was true. The so-called environmentally friendly diesel didn’t exist. It never has. And 2015 was a historic moment for VW, they got caught out and cornered by US federal prosecutors and had nowhere to hide. Not long after governments around the world decided to ban diesel-powered cars for good, the ban will come into effect in 2040.

So VW’s strategy of selling un-environmentally not-friendly diesel cars was left in tatters. Effectively billions spent on R&D and potentially billions more spent on fines and settling class-action lawsuits. You have to give VW some credit because they saw the writing on the wall and decided to embrace an electric car future.

To that end, VW had no choice in the matter because their hands had been prosecutorially forced. The all-electric VW ID3 soon emerged and now it will become a production reality. So to us here at DCB HQ, the VW ID3 is an apology of sorts without having to apologize. And the Carwow most wanted award is a plaster covering up VW’s blatant profiteering over public health.

So the next time the VW ID3 is wheeled out as a pulpit to espouse Volkswagens green credentials, concerns about global warming and the environment remember why the award-winning ID3 Apology Tour came kicking and screaming into existence.