It's unclear what the fallout for Volkswagen will be over the dieselgate scandal, or how regulators will punish the carmaker for its emissions cheating. Rather than forcing Volkswagen to fix all the affected diesel models in California, a group of green energy enthusiasts and investors, including Elon Musk, have their own idea.

In an open letter to California Air Resources Board (CARB) Chairman Mary Nichols, Musk, along with 44 others, encourage the state forgive Volkswagen of its emissions wrongdoings and force it to transition to zero emissions vehicles. By doing this, California would be able to “cure the air, not the cars.”

"A giant sum of money thus will be wasted in attempting to fix cars that cannot all be fixed," reads the letter penned by Ion Yadigaroglu, partner at Capricorn Investment Group. "Retrofitting urea tank systems to small cars is costly and impractical."

The letter proposes a five-point plan for CARB to follow. These include absolving VW of its diesel repair liability and pushing the carmaker toward an accelerated rollout of zero emissions vehicles in the next five years, resulting "in a 10 for 1 or greater reduction in pollutant emissions as compared to the pollution associated with the diesel fleet cheating."

Since vehicle development takes around five years, and VW couldn't replace a great deal of its fleet in that time with EVs, the letter suggests that VW be allowed to supplant missed emissions reductions by purchasing zero emissions vehicle credits.

Here's where the motivation of letter seems gets a bit sticky. At the outset, it seems altruistic, as they appear to be interested in saving VW and the planet. Think about it for a moment, though, and it seems the proposal might be profit driven.

A lot of the signatories have investments in green technology companies. If forced to make a huge green push, VW would first need to buy zero emissions credits and then buy tons of EV batteries. These men, especially Elon Musk's Tesla, stand to reap the benefit of that requirement. So, right away, it seems a bit shady.

That said, their motivations don't seem nefarious. It's easy to fully support saving both VW and the polar bears. If these guys make a profit in the interim, so be it.

The letter does make some dubious claims in its reasoning for the proposal. For one, it says "VW had to cheat to meet current European and U.S. standards." And that's not totally true. Several other global carmakers can and meet both Euro and U.S. emissions standards without cheating. VW just didn't want to spend the money on exhaust treatment systems that would bring their cars into compliance.

Secondly, the letter suggests, "Drivers won’t come in for a fix that compromises performance," which may be true at the outset. But it would be easy for California to make it impossible for owners to reregister their cars without being fixed. Sure, it might take a while, but the vast majority would return for repair.

When it's all said and done, the letter is a pretty great idea. It'd allow owners to keep their peppy, fun-to-drive cars as-is, which, as the letter points out, "do not, individually, present any emissions-related risk to their owners or occupants." Plus, it'd give green companies an infusion of cash first from purchased credits and then from batteries.

Granted, it's not a perfect solution, but there simply isn't one. This is the best I've heard of yet. Plus, fining VW will do little but damage the company and not fix the planet.