Germany-wide driving bans for diesel cars?
A study brings alarming results and shows that most diesel vehicles actually conceal their actual emissions through defeat devices. Up to 150 car models from different manufacturers could be affected. How will the authorities act? Will more diesel driving bans and environmental zones be introduced?
There is still no end in sight for the years-long diesel scandal - with more and more new findings raising questions about internal combustion engines and their actual pollution potential. After numerous rulings by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on defeat devices, the international environmental research association ICCT has now published a comprehensive analysis. With the help of a large test database and various studies, the research team came to the shocking conclusion that most diesel cars still exceed the permissible limits - and probably use illegal defeat devices to gloss over the actual pollutant emissions.
It is no longer only the vehicles of the brands that were among the protagonists of the diesel scandal from the beginning that would be affected and under investigation. In the evaluation of exhaust gas measurements, highly elevated nitrogen oxide values were found in most cars with Euro 5 and Euro 6 diesel engines. A good 85 percent of Euro 5 and 77 percent of Euro 6 diesels - according to the ICCT report - showed "suspiciously high emissions" in the emissions test. In 40 percent of the cases, there were even "extreme" values for harmful nitrogen oxides (NOx), which make the use of a defeat device almost certain. But even less elevated values indicated, according to the study, that an engine calibration strategy - also classified as a prohibited defeat device - could have been used in numerous diesel cars. The ICCT considers it "very likely" that up to 150 car models with diesel engines - about eight million vehicles on the road - have a built-in defeat device.
Legal steps have already been taken against the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), but the KBA is already supposed to bring all diesel cars with emission standards 5 and 6 in Germany into compliance with the applicable regulations. This is what Deutsche Umwelthilfe is demanding, along with the immediate removal of the inadmissible defeat devices.
However, before the problem can be tackled at its root, it is necessary for the government to take additional measures to regulate the circulation of diesel vehicles more effectively. Since the authorities can now assume that most diesel cars have an illegal defeat device - and thus pose a greater risk to the environment. An effective approach could be, for example, to tighten environmental zone regulations and extend active diesel driving bans. Such diesel driving bans are already active in cities such as Stuttgart, Munich, Hamburg and Darmstadt. Given these alarming study results, these would now have to be extended throughout Germany and tightened to include diesel Euro6.
After all, reducing emissions and pollution remains one of the most important political goals in climate protection for this and the coming years. How will Germany react to the latest developments in the diesel scandal?