It’s all over the news, Volkswagen has well and truly “screwed up” being found guilty by the Environmental Protection Agency of rigging emissions testing.

The world’s second largest car maker has admitted that 11 million vehicles have been fitted with software designed to cheat emissions tests.

Max Warburton at Bernstein said: “The move against VW is going to act as a catalyst to speed up the fall in diesel market share in Europe and halt it in the US.”

However, what is bad news for VW, its customers and the diesel market may, in the longer term, be good news for electric vehicles. To state the obvious, battery-electric vehicles do not have a tailpipe and therefore there are zero emissions.

Dr Ben Lane, director at Next Green Car has commented: “What then for the future of the motor car and automakers world-wide? Well the future is already being mapped by relative newcomers Tesla and BYD and the most forward-looking incumbents such as BMW and Nissan.

“The future vehicle will have to be zero-emissions at point of use which in the short-term means the electric vehicle (EV). Shareholders leaving VW in the weeks to come should look again at companies that are helping to shape the EV future.”

As reported by Zap-Map over the past year, the EV market has been growing from strength to strength with manufacturers, including ironically VW, investing heavily in their electric ranges.