This morning, if you follow German news, there's another step taken with the idea of banning diesel cars from some cities.
As SWR (regional public TV) tells the story....the court down in the Stuttgart region has said that it will review the case of diesel vehicles, and if a city by itself (not the state or the federal German gov't) can ban diesel cars.
If you talk to diesel owners.....they are livid over the possibility of this occurring. Car companies? Probably shaking in fear because it'll mean worthless cars and millions of law suits.
The push right now? The government and the car companies would like to find devices that could fit on any type of diesel car and satisfy the public on reducing the particles coming out. A one-type of solution? Don't bet on it. Cost? Some people throw numbers around.....like 1,000 Euro to 1,500 Euro. Who pays? Well.....the owner.
The real question on this court action is who can issue the ban? A city by itself? A state? Or the Berlin federal government? There are at least six major cities in Germany discussing the ban (Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Essen, Koln, Aachen, Bonn). If any of them reach a successful conclusion....the race would be on for dozens of other cities to jump into the ban.
If you go and review car sales in Germany over the past decade.....diesel car sales typically make up around fifty-percent of the vehicle sales. Last year, 2016, Germany had around 45-percent of it's new car sales related to diesel....down a notch mostly due to the VW public view.
How much destruction would this trigger on most of the German car companies? That's really the bigger of the topics. Most would prefer to just shell out some part of the 1,500 Euro and have some government tax credit to cover the remaining situation. If you don't reach this type of compromise, then you are faced with angry owners who can't drive into the city of their employment with the vehicle....meaning court action will occur.
A guy standing back and looking at the landscape....would say diesel car sales are probably dead from this point on. If you were a dealer.....you would not want any on your lot or be stuck with dozens of vehicles with no value. If you were an owner.....you'd like to sell the diesel car you have but the resale value probably isn't anywhere near what it should be. Fuel companies? There's some dramatic shift coming and massive change to the diesel sales probably anticipated.
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