This Aerial Video Puts The Scale Of VW's Buyback Scheme Into Perspective

Around half a million cars are affected by the VW diesel emissions fixing scandal that kicked off in 2015. A huge chunk of the ‘cheating’ vehicles are being purchased by the German car maker as part of an extensive buyback scheme, but that leaves the problem of storage.

It’s unclear at the moment if the buyback cars will be fixed or simply scrapped, so for the time being, they sit unused in parking lots across the USA. One of these is the Pontiac Silverdome stadium, closed since 2013. This aerial footage of the site puts the sheer scale of the scheme and the wider scandal into perspective, particularly when you bear in mind it’s one of several sites, with thousands of cars stored in locations such as the Port of Baltimore and Norton Air Force Base.

These are perfectly useable, functioning and in some cases fun-to-drive cars, so it’s sad to see them sat in this state of limbo, awaiting their fate.