Exhaust affair – Environmental Protection Agency wants to ban diesel cars from city centers – Süddeutsche.de

• The President of the Environmental Federal Office says: “In the highly congested inner cities Diesel vehicles have certainly no future.”
• The Environment Agency rubs against the non-transparent actions of the Federal Motor Vehicle Office

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From Klaus Ott and Katja Riedel

the environmental Agency (UBA) will examine the pollutant emissions of diesel vehicles in the future itself and publish the results. “Our measurement program is nearing the tender”, said the official. Suitable testing company to take over the series of tests on the road. Until the approval of new models in Europe is based solely on the results of tests under laboratory conditions. This is now changing due to new requirements of the European Union (EU).

This is like a declaration of war. It has the exhaust affair of VW used before the Federal Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) began to determine the true harmful emissions from diesel vehicles. It then took until Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) announced the high nitric oxide levels. In future, all go much faster. In future is UBA to KBA, the environmental department against the car Authority. According to the motto: transparency instead of secrecy. To date, the Federal Motor Vehicle Office has some of the results are not disclosed. It involves excessive carbon dioxide levels in many vehicles.

UBA President Maria Krautzberger does not want to leave at your own measurements, but enforce consequences. “In the highly congested inner cities diesel vehicles will certainly no future”, Krautzberger told SZ, NDR and WDR. “I am relieved that this message seems to finally arrive at least in parts of the auto industry.” With these words Krautzberger responded to VW CEO Matthias Müller, who had expressed doubts about the future of diesel cars in the past week.

As a result of the VW affair that KBA had not only at the 2, 5 million manipulated diesel vehicles of the VW Group, but the pollutant emissions on the road tested in 53 other models from multiple manufacturers with samples. They ranged from Daimler over Opel to cars from the VW group without that software, which test results were falsified. Of these 53 models, all of which reportedly Euro 5 and 6 filled, the end of 2015 had approved a total of 2.6 million vehicles in Germany. Slightly more than two million of them have been discharged, as actually allowed more than twice as much nitrogen oxide. A devastating result. Various models exceeding the limit by five to ten times.

As transport minister Dobrindt two months ago presented the test results, he announced, Mercedes, Opel, Volkswagen and VW subsidiaries Audi and Porsche would total 630 000 Get particularly flashy cars in the garages. There, the companies should upgrade these models and thus provide for better exhaust gas values. Dobrindt presented a 134-page report of the KBA, the many repairs can be seen in April. Not, however, that more than two million vehicles had been exposed as a big environmental polluters. Exactly: 2,057,845 pcs, as of the end of 2015. They all fail to comply with the future requirements of the European Union

The damage to health and the environment should be at 30 billion euros

. the EU decided in the wake of the VW affair, that the levels of pollutants no longer have to be measured in the laboratory, but on the road. There, the limit of 80 milligrams (Euro 6) and 180 milligrams allowed (Euro 5) nitrogen oxides per kilometer be exceeded for many years by a factor of 2.1 but. The auto industry gets time to adjust. The factor of 2.1 is valid only from 2017, and only for new vehicles. The more than two million cars that were approved late 2015 in Germany and failing to comply with the new rules, so do not have to be withdrawn from circulation. You need this provision “does not meet” as the Dobrindts Ministry remarked in a reply to the Greens in the Bundestag.

The Green MEP Oliver Krischer thinks this is a deception. In his view, the more than two million vehicles for retrofitting in the workshop and not only the 630 000 who Dobrindt has agreed with the corporations. Krischer raises Dobrindt cronyism with the auto industry before, at the expense of the residents of the inner cities. “Emission limits apply to all. It concerns ultimately the health of people in our cities.” To air quality, it is because of the many millions of old diesel vehicles which are subject to far less stringent limits, anyway a bad way. Why UBA President Krautzberger not only measure the actual emissions for old and new models, but will generally change course. With the help of the tax.

The low petroleum levy on diesel vehicles must have an end, calls on the UBA boss. taxed lower that diesel by 18.4 cents per liter than gasoline, is environmentally wrong signal and lead to the fact that the state escaped billions of Euros per year. The damage done by diesel vehicles damage to health and the environment appreciates the environmental Bundesamt higher one: more than 30 billion euros a year

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