LONDON — A loyal Volkswagen owner for years, Jane Kelley was “shocked,” she says, by recent revelations that the German company had cheated on emissions tests in the United States.

伦敦——作为大众(Volkswagen)多年的忠实车主，简·凯利(Jane Kelley)说，最近得知这家德国公司被曝曾在美国的排放检测中作弊，令她感到“震惊”。

Snug in Ms. Kelley’s garage in North London recently was a white 2013 Passat powered by a 2-liter diesel engine. The company says that as many as 11 million of its cars — Volkswagens, Audis, Skodas and SEATs with diesel engines — were equipped with software designed to fool emissions testers.

在凯利位于伦敦北部的家中，车库里最近停放的是一辆配有2升柴油发动机的2013年款帕萨特。大众表示，该公司有多达1100万辆车——包括配有柴油发动机的大众、奥迪(Audi)、斯柯达(Skoda)和西雅特(SEAT)品牌车型——装载有可以误导排放检测员的软件。

But as disturbed as she was to learn that Volkswagen had cheated, Ms. Kelley does not necessarily want anything done about it. “Are they going to take my car away and fiddle with the engine?” she said with a worried tone, as she served tea in her sunlit dining room.

尽管在得知大众曾经作弊之后感到不安，但凯利却不见得希望有人为此做些什么。“他们会把我的车开走，摆弄它的引擎吗？”她一边担忧地说着，一边在自己阳光普照的餐厅给来客端上茶水。

As with at least some European diesel drivers, Ms. Kelley is in no hurry to abandon the car just because it may spew more noxious fumes than she originally thought. “I do feel that it is a very safe car,” she said. She also admires the acceleration of the turbocharged diesel, which she credits with helping her recently escape a potential hazard. “There was a guy weaving, maybe drunk, so I just shot by,” she recalled.

和至少一部分欧洲柴油车车主一样，凯利并不想仅仅因为它排放的有毒气体可能比自己原先想象的多，就急着抛弃它。“我真的感觉它是一辆非常安全的车，”她说。她也很中意这辆车的涡轮增压柴油发动机所具备的加速能力，还把它归为自己最近能逃脱一次潜在危险的原因。“当时有辆车左摇右摆的，大概司机是喝醉了，所以我就飞速开了过去，”她回忆道。

Ms. Kelley is one of millions of fans of diesel cars across Europe, where fuel prices and taxes make the cost of filling an automobile’s tank much higher than in the United States. Drawn by diesels’ superior fuel economy over gasoline engines and the lower price of diesel fuel, European consumers have long leaned toward diesel cars — a collective habit that might be difficult to break, despite the new scrutiny the Volkswagen scandal has given to diesel’s dark side.

在整个欧洲，像凯利这样的柴油车爱好者有数百万，那里燃油价格和税费高，使得加满一箱油的费用比在美国高出很多。而柴油机节油性能比汽油发动机强，而且柴油价格比汽油低，所以欧洲消费者长期以来一直倾向于购买柴油车——这一共同习惯可能不容易打破，虽然大众丑闻让人们开始重新审视柴油机不好的一面。

While diesels have struggled in the United States to overcome a reputation as smoke-belching clunkers — they represent about 3 percent of the American car market — they have rolled to dominance across the Atlantic. Diesels accounted for more than half the new cars sold in Western Europe last year, compared with 14 percent in 1990.

柴油发动机在美国一直难以摆脱“喷烟老机器”的名声——柴油车在美国汽车市场的份额只有大约3%，但在大西洋的对岸却占据主导地位。去年西欧销售的新车有一多半都是柴油车，而这一比例在1990年时还只有14%。

Europeans’ embrace of diesels has encouraged manufacturers to improve the engines’ performance, and it has motivated governments, especially those of Germany and France, to support their auto industries’ diesel efforts. Although environmentalists have been sounding alarms for years, the forces propelling diesel were so strong that it might explain why drivers, carmakers and regulators have been willing at times to overlook diesels’ tendency to be bigger polluters than gasoline cars.

欧洲人对柴油车的偏好促使汽车厂商进一步提高柴高发动机的性能，也刺激政府，尤其是德国和法国政府，支持本国汽车业推广柴油车。尽管环保人士多年来一直在敲警钟，但推动使用柴油机的力量太过强大，它或许可以解释为什么柴油车往往比汽油车的污染大这一点，时常会被驾车人士、汽车厂商和监管机构无视。

“Ban diesels? You can’t be serious,” Ségolène Royal, the French environment and energy minister, said recently, responding to a suggestion by a member of the Green Party. “We can’t treat problems of this gravity with ideological slogans at the expense of French interests,” Ms. Royal said, noting that more than half the cars on French roads were diesels.

“禁用柴油机？少开玩笑了，”法国环境和能源部长塞戈莱纳·罗亚尔(Ségolène Royal)最近回应一位绿党(Green Party)成员的一项建议时说道。“我们不能以牺牲法国利益为代价，用意识形态口号解决如此重大的问题，”罗亚尔说，她还指出，行驶在法国街道上的车辆有超过一半都是柴油车。

In fact, the percentage in France is around 64 percent, even higher than in Germany, with French-made Renault, Peugeot and Citro渀 diesels joining Volkswagens on the road. There has been no indication that the French automakers cheated on emissions tests.

事实上，柴油车在法国车辆中的比例大约为64%，甚至比德国还高。除了大众车以外，法国的道路上行驶的还有本国制造的雷诺(Renault)、标致(Peugeot)和雪铁龙(Citro渀)柴油车。没有信息显示，这些法国汽车厂商曾在排放检测中作弊。

So far, Volkswagen has not said how it plans to deal with the deceptive software problem, although the German government has set an Oct. 7 deadline for the company to propose a solution. Unlike in the United States, where lawyers are already recruiting car owners in hopes of filing class-action lawsuits, there is no similar tradition in Europe that would encourage consumers to collectively demand financial redress.

目前，大众还没有对外宣布它计划如何解决这一欺诈软件问题，尽管德国政府已经给出了最后期限，要求它最晚在10月7日拿出解决方案。美国已经有律师在征集车主，以期对大众提起集体诉讼，而欧洲与美国不同，这里没有这类鼓励消费者集体寻求经济赔偿的传统。

Volkswagen said on Tuesday that it would prepare a plan by early October to improve the emissions of affected vehicles. Owners will be notified in the weeks and months after the plan has been approved by authorities, the company said.

周二，大众表示，它将在十月初准备一项计划，用以改善涉事车辆的排放问题。该公司还表示，它会在这项计划得到当局批准后的几周和几月内，向车主们发出通知。

“If there is a recall, I would be happy if my car is not included in it,” said Tony Novak, a retired editor for the BBC who lives in Reading, England. In Britain, just over half of new cars sold are diesels.

“如果他们要召回车辆，我希望自己的车不在此列，”现在居住在苏格兰雷丁市的BBC退休编辑托尼·诺瓦克(Tony Novak)说。在英国，新销售车辆中柴油车的比例刚刚过半。

“Diesels used to be terrible — they used to be dirty and slow,” he said. “Now they are brilliant.” Mr. Novak had owned diesel cars previously, but when he bought his 2014 Volkswagen Golf diesel, “I was really surprised by how good it was — you really notice the difference in acceleration.”

“柴油车过去很糟糕——又脏又慢，”他说。“现在棒极了。”诺瓦克以前有好几辆柴油车，但在2014年买了2014年款大众高尔夫柴油车之后，“我特别惊讶于它的优越——加速的时候真的能感觉到区别。”

That Volkswagen might have achieved that performance by cheating — it is still not clear whether the company needed the deceptive software to pass Europe’s emissions tests, which are much less strict than the United States’ — is not what matters most to Mr. Novak. “I worry that if they tweak the computer, the performance will deteriorate,” he said.

但大众有可能是通过欺诈而实现较高加速性能这一点，并不是诺瓦克最在乎的。目前还不清楚，大众是否需要在车上安装欺诈软件以通过欧洲的排放检测，后者的标准比美国宽松得多。“我担心他们在计算机上进行调整之后，车辆的性能会下降，”他说。

About five million of the affected cars are Golfs, Passats and other Volkswagen-brand cars. An additional two million are Audi brand cars, and the rest or Skoda and SEAT brand cars, or light commercial vehicles.

有大约500万涉事车辆是高尔夫、帕萨特和其他大众品牌车型。另有200万辆是奥迪品牌车型，剩下的是斯柯达和西雅特，或轻型商务车。

Matthias Müller, a company insider who was appointed chief executive of Volkswagen last week, told top managers late Monday that the deceptive software was activated in only a portion of the 11 million vehicles that have the so-called EA 189 diesel motors. But Volkswagen did not specify how many cars were designed to cheat on emissions tests.

上周，大众内部人士马蒂亚斯·穆勒(Matthias Müller)被任命为首席执行官，他在周一晚间告诉公司高层管理人员，在配备所谓EA 189柴油发动机的1100万辆车中，只有一部分车上安装的欺诈软件被激活。但大众没有明确指出，它对多少辆车进行了此类设计，可以在排放检测中作弊。

Some industry experts say that the Volkswagen scandal could prove a turning point in the diesel love affair, if the new scrutiny of European emissions standards and testing makes it easier for the environmentalists to be heard.

一些行业专家表示，如果对欧洲排放标准和检测的新一轮审视让人们更容易听取环保人士的呼吁，大众丑闻就有可能会成为柴油机热的一个转折点。

The premise of the “clean diesel” notion that Volkswagen promoted was partly based on the fact that on a per-mile basis, diesel engines emit less carbon dioxide — a big contributor to climate change — than gasoline engines. But diesel exhausts, unless cleaned in ways that Volkswagen’s software was designed to sidestep, produce larger quantities of other harmful gases — nitrogen oxides — along with fine particles that contribute to stubbornly persistent air quality problems in European cities.

大众宣传“清洁柴油”概念，有一部分是基于这样一个事实，即车辆每行驶一英里，柴油发动机排放的二氧化碳比汽油发动机少，而二氧化碳是气候变化的一大因素。但除非像大众那样以特别设计的软件进行欺诈显示出经过“净化”的结果，否则柴油车排放的尾气中会包含更多氮氧化物等其他有害气体，还有更多细微颗粒物质，后者是一些欧洲城市难以消除的空气质量问题的成因之一。

“There is a recognition that, fundamentally, it is going to be difficult to control all of the problems with diesel — smoke production is not going to go away,” said Peter Wells, co-director of the center for automotive industry research at Cardiff Business School. “In the very long term, diesel has had its day.”

“人们有一种共识，即很难从根本上控制柴油机存在的所有问题——烟气排放不会消失，”卡迪夫大学商学院(Cardiff Business School)汽车工业研究中心联席主任彼得·韦尔斯(Peter Wells)说。“从比较长远来看，柴油机的好日子已经过去。”

According to the European Environment Agency, which monitors air quality, 20 to 30 percent of urban residents in Europe are exposed to particle levels — mainly from diesel exhaust fumes — above those considered safe by the European Union, while about 10 percent are exposed to unsafe levels of nitrogen oxides.

进行空气质量监测的欧洲环境署(European Environment Agency)的数据显示，有20%至30%的欧洲城市居民被暴露在高于欧盟安全标准的颗粒物质污染中——主要源自柴油机排放的废气，而被暴露于达到不安全标准的氮氧化物中的人群比例约为10%。

London and Paris have among the highest pollution levels in terms of nitrogen oxides. In March of this year and last, the smog in Paris reached such levels that the authorities were forced to temporarily limit the number of cars on the road each day.

伦敦和巴黎是氮氧化物污染最严重的地区之一。去年和今年的3月，巴黎的烟雾严重到当局被迫暂时对每日上路的车辆数量进行了限制。

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, which is playing host to the United Nations climate conference in November, is among those who have suggested an eventual ban on diesels in the city.

巴黎是即将于11月份举行的联合国气候会议的主办地，该市市长安妮·伊达尔戈(Anne Hidalgo)是建议巴黎最终禁用柴油机的人士之一。

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, plans to establish an ultralow emissions zone in London by 2020 where older diesels will be penalized. A recent report by the environmental committee of the London Assembly, the city’s legislature, said the mayor should consider banning all diesels from the zone.

伦敦市长鲍里斯·约翰逊(Boris Johnson)计划在2020年结束之前在伦敦建立一个超低排放区，在那里驾驶老一代柴油机车辆上路将被予以处罚。该市立法机构伦敦议会(London Assembly)下设的环境委员会发布的最新报告写道，市长应该考虑在该区域禁行所有柴油车。

But environmental efforts must contend with deeply rooted diesel economics. Automotive fuel in Europe costs several times as much as in the United States, mainly because of higher taxes. The average price of gasoline in London in August, for example, was 521 pence, or about $7.92, per gallon. In most of Continental Europe, diesel sells for about 15 percent less than gasoline.

但环境保护方面的努力必须和根深蒂固的柴油经济相抗争。在欧洲，汽车燃油费用比美国高好几倍，主要是因为税费更高。比如，8月份伦敦汽油平均价格是每升521便士（约合50人民币）。在欧洲大陆大多数国家，柴油的价格大约比汽油低15%。

Part of that difference is because the taxes that help keep fuel prices high are typically lower on diesel fuel.

之所以有这种差别，部分原因在于导致欧洲燃油价格高的税费，在柴油类别中通常相对更低。

In Germany, the lower taxes on diesel fuel amount to an annual subsidy of 7 billion euros, or about $7.8 billion, for diesel owners, said Daniel Moser, a transportation analyst for the environmental group Greenpeace.

环境保护组织绿色和平(Greenpeace)的交通运输分析师丹尼尔·莫泽(Daniel Moser)表示，在德国，柴油税费更低，其差额总计相当于给所有柴油车车主提供了每年高达70亿欧元的补贴。

“These policies are not in accordance with what we would have to do to protect the environment and people’s health,” he said.

“这些政策与我们为保护环境和人们的健康所该做的事，是不一致的，”他说。

And then there are vehicle tax breaks that various governments offer to diesel owners, because of the cars’ lower emissions of carbon dioxide.

而且，欧洲各国政府还制定了给柴油车车主减免车辆税的政策，因为这些车辆排放的二氧化碳更少。

Also, new diesels are often only slightly more expensive than their gasoline counterparts. In Britain, a Volkswagen Golf Match with a 1.4-liter, turbocharged gasoline engine sells for 20,955, or about $31,800, while a similar model with a 1.6-liter diesel engine sells for 21,960, according to Carbuyer, a British website.

而且，新柴油车的价格往往只比同等汽油发动机车辆略微高一些。英国汽车网站Carbuyer的数据显示，在英国，一辆配备1.4升涡轮增压汽油发动机的大众高尔夫Match售价为20955英镑（约合20.2万元人民币），而类似车型的1.6升柴油发动机车售价为21960英镑（约合21.2万人民币）。

With all those factors taken into account, owning and operating a diesel car in Europe is the more affordable way to go.

考虑到所有这些因素，在欧洲购买和驾驶一辆柴油车要更划算。

In the United States, with much lower gasoline prices, “there is no point at the margin, buying a diesel,” said Garel Rhys, a professor emeritus at Cardiff University. He said Europeans’ embrace of diesels made perfect sense. “Essentially, growth came because consumers are economically rational individuals,” Professor Rhys said.

在美国，因为汽油价格低得多，“没必要购买柴油车，”卡迪夫大学荣休教授加勒尔·里斯(Garel Rhys)说。他还表示，欧洲人更接受柴油车是完全说得通的。“从本质上讲，购买柴油车的人数会增加，是因为消费者在经济考量上都是比较理性的个体，”里斯说。

But a continued yen for diesels may not necessarily translate into an abiding love of Volkswagen, for some Europeans at least.

但是人们对柴油机有持续购买欲望，不一定就意味着他们会永远喜爱大众，至少对一些欧洲人来说是这样。

Jon Devereux, who drives a diesel-engine Volkswagen Touareg, manages a hotel in Milford on Sea, in southern England. Each winter, he takes the four-wheel-drive vehicle to his winter home in the French Alps. The Touareg, he said, has “been brilliant for 10 years.”

在南英格兰米尔福德港(Milford)经营酒店的乔恩·德弗罗(Jon Devereux)拥有一辆配备柴油发动机的大众途锐(Touareg)。每年冬天，他都会驾驶这辆四驱车去他在法国阿尔卑斯山的冬季别墅。他说，这辆途锐“在过去十年表现得一直很不错。”

But when it comes time to replace it, his next diesel will not be a Volkswagen. The emissions scandal has soured Mr. Devereux on the carmaker. “Would you buy a VW car or any car in the VW group?’’ he asked.

但说到替换这辆车，他要买的下一辆柴油车不会是大众。这起排放丑闻让德弗罗对这家汽车厂商感到失望。“你会买一辆大众车或大众集团旗下的任何品牌吗？”他问。