The head of the prominent German environmental advocacy group DUH, Juergen Resch, was recently quoted as saying that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was being “remotely controlled” by the country’s auto industry.
Diesel bans in major European cities are spreading like wildfire, necessitating the government and law to step in. And sometimes, the two don’t see eye to eye.
Nowhere is the fight between the public good and corporate greed more apparent than in Germany, a nation that has made diesel vehicles the basis of much economic prosperity. To get a better understanding of how important diesel-powered cars are to the German auto industry, watch episode 1 of the new Netflix series Dirty Money. It examines the love affair German car companies have had with diesel engines since the 1970s when OPEC shut off the world’s petroleum supply.
We reported a few months back on the news that the German environmental group Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) was filing lawsuits against a number of cities in the country, with the aim being to force the ban of Volkswagen diesel cars that are still releasing excessively high levels of emissions.
The Volkswagen challenges for cheating have been mounting, as have challenges for other automakers found to be cheating the system with regard to diesel emissions and fuel economy claims. Now, another target for purposeful wrongdoing and perhaps criminal activity is German motor authority KBA.
