I disagree. It is true that it is harder for EU consumers to sue a corporation, but in general I feel that consumer rights are generally stronger in the EU than in North America (OP's point about consumer watchdogs), so there is less reason for an EU consumer to sue a corporation.
IANAL, but I'd say the EU system is anti-litigious, not anti-consumer.
I agree with this, I feel the same. However, it seems to me, that if there is a customer related problem already in place, US will find it and react to it faster. To put an example here, all of the major automotive recalls of the last few years were exposed in the US, while Europe reacted to them with a delay (Volkswagen diesels, Takata airbag, Toyota accelerator pedal).
Given how extreme the American reaction to the VW scandal was I do wonder what the response would have been if that company had been GM, Ford or Chrysler. A part of me is really happy that the US brought this to light and made VW pay for their transgression, a part of me feels that the asymmetry between the damage VW has done to Americans and the damage that America has done to other countries is so extreme that it feels as though this is simply a cheap trick to extract some $ from VW and to harm their brand relative to US brands.
Even so, stupid on the part of VW and it should have never happened.
> Given how extreme the American reaction to the VW scandal was I do wonder what the response would have been if that company had been GM, Ford or Chrysler
There were recalls related to GM (GM ignition switch recall - 30M cars worldwide) or Chrysler (just recently [1]) too. ..you are right, these are more dangerous things like cheating the emissions. However, I believe they are not showing favor toward US companies. There are recalls of Fiat-Chrysler cars too because of cheating on emissions [2]. However, they are not affecting millions of cars as in VW case.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/fiat-chrysler-recalls-1-poin... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/business/energy-environme...
People know VW was promsing something they couldn't hold.
That certainly doesn't make it right. But it is a mitigating factor. That said, I'm super happy it got exposed so that mileage numbers might actually have meaning in the future.