Just to clarify, I don't see any difference in US and EU regulations relating to diesels. AU's diesel regs are way behind but all vehicles coming out of the EU will meet EU regs, it's only those coming from Japan or the third world that don't.
Your TDI Jetta does put out black smoke. I don't know what year it is, but even a 2014 TDI still smokes a tiny bit if you boot it, it's fuel enrichment and all TD's do it (not all petrols do by comparison). DPF's don't actually help, they really only make matters worse. For one the toxins are now invisible, for two they're now filtered down to a nano-scale ready to go straight into your blood stream.
I'm not saying you're 'rich', but the local price of a basic diesel RR is around US$160,000 - a house costs about double that for referance. You seem to live/ have cars on both sides of the Atlantic though so you're not 'poor'.
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And then it's somehow justified then that "we rich people" need to spend money on something just because we have it?
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Kind of sums up what's wrong with the world, doesn't it? It's not my problem it's not my responsibility, why should I care?
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Australia maybe, but in the U.S. it's the opposite case. It's almost impossible to get most vehicles in diesel form (RRs included) and hence, we're extremely oil hungry and massive consumers of petrol. Even simple things like my Tacoma get 13 mpg in heavy New York traffic (windows up by the way because petrol exhaust is damn toxic too).
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Wrong. The US uses so much oil in it's car fleet because I'd guess 50% of the fleet are 3+ ton pick up/ SUV. You can't smell a healthy petrol car idling a few feet away, you can always smell a diesel. It's no where near as toxic and in fact the air coming out of a petrol is claimed by many manufactures now than the air going in. Petrol cars are just big air filters. Don't plant a tree, let you car idle
As for the odd rod/ muscle car/ old Porsche etc, at least they're an enthusiast who might have spent many years lovingly restoring/building it. I don't begrudge them their enjoyment and there aren't thousands of them about every day. In all honesty, I still prefer a diesel to a petrol car that's been illegally de-CAT'd. My Skyline isn't exactly clean, but it's only driven to the track a few times a year, and I actually feel bad for the people behind me, and I actually want to clean it up a bit.