BERLIN - German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze has told a newspaper she does not think software updates for diesel vehicles in Germany will be enough to solve air quality problems and that hardware retrofits are the best way to avoid driving bans.
The German car industry, which accounts for some 800,000 jobs in Europe’s biggest economy, is struggling with a global backlash against diesel cars after Volkswagen admitted in 2015 that it had cheated U.S. exhaust tests.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she will do everything possible to avoid driving bans but disagreements over how to tackle the problem of diesel cars with high nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions threaten to further strain her coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD).
In an interview with Tagesspiegel due to be published on Sunday Schulze said: “I fear that in cities where the limits have been far exceeded - Munich, Stuttgart and others - software updates alone will not suffice.”
She added: “The many measures from the immediate program for clean air, such as electrification of buses, are good and will help many cities but overall they aren’t enough to solve the problem in cities that are particularly badly affected.” (Reuters)