Germany / Historical Summit: What is the future of diesel engines?

Representatives of politics and the German automotive industry achieved on Wednesday the so-called 'Diesel summit' in Berlin an agreement on measures to reduce harmful exhaust emissions for cars powered by diesel engines.

Measures included software changes of around five million cars, and this decision has come under severe criticism of the public.

"The automotive industry has committed itself to changing the software to 5.3 million cars, at its own expense," Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt said after the meeting.

At the same time, representatives of the federal government, cities and municipalities from one of the Association of German Automobile Industry (VDA), on the other hand, pledged to pay 250 million euros in a fund that will enable the cities that are most affected by emissions of harmful gases to develop "alternative transport systems ", And improvements in public transport, which would encourage drivers to go public transport.

At the same time, the German transport minister has often criticized foreign diesel car makers who did not respond to a summit involving only German manufacturers from Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW, Opel and Ford.

The association of the German automotive industry (VDA) said that after the software was improved in the affected cars, nitrogen oxide emissions, due to which diesel cars in Germany were threatened by a ban, would be reduced to such a measure that "no restrictions would be needed".

These measures relate to the state-of-the-art diesel-powered cars labeled Euro 5 and Euro 6 in Europe. For older diesel cars with Euro 4 and low-end cars, a complete solution has not yet been found.

BMW has offered its customers with eco-friendly cars 4 and offered a "ecological premium" of 2,000 euros.

According to the Federal Office for Motor Vehicles in Germany, almost one third of the diesel cars are in use. This means that out of 45.8 million registered passenger cars, 15.1 million are with a diesel engine.

• 2 Aug, 2017
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