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The brand new, silver 2011 Volkswagen Golf was the perfect vehicle for David Kahane, who didn’t really want to own or drive one at all.

As the Edmonton-based project director for Alberta Climate Dialogue, he sought out a vehicle that he could defend.

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“I wanted to be as environmentally responsible as I could be while still driving a car,” said Kahane, 53. “Volkswagen seemed to have cracked the problem of diesel being a high-emitting fuel. But it turns out that for several years I had in fact been emitting 40 times the amount of diesel-related pollutants allowed.

“I had been made an idiot.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday alleged Volkswagen sold 11 million diesel vehicles that were equipped with so-called “defeat devices” to evade emissions control standards the world over. Kahane’s 2011 Golf was among them; so, too, the 2009-2015 Jetta, 2009-2015 Beetle, the 2014-2015 Passat and the 2009-2015 Audi A3.