The diesel crisis still ranks in the top ten subjects within the German news media. I sat and read through an article via N-TV (our German commercial TV news network) this morning.
Someone finally sat down and analyzed the numbers affected by the current bans being planned, with most all of the cars affected....being the diesel category-4 cars (manufactured prior to 2005). The number? Near 1.3-million from across Germany (total).
They point out this comment by the German Federal Transport Minister....Andreas Scheuer....CSU member....that the German government itself is NOT a car dealer.
Scheuer suggests that the car companies (not just VW).....ought to go out and offer trade-in deals or sales options to the affected people of the 1.3 million diesel category-4 models. The second option that Scheuer makes is that the compannies could come up with a retrofit 'kit' and provide that to the owners.
So far, none of the car manufacturing companies have wanted to discuss the upgrade kits and I think the age of the cars in question...over 13 years old....makes the kit question almost worthless. Most folks have suggested the kit, with labor cost figured up....would be over 1,500 Euro (you would have to have some test certified at the end and that figures into costs as well). If you had a car worth 2,000 Euro....is it even worth the effort?
I noticed one interesting statistic in this discussion. The ministry went out and asked....from the forty-odd cities with the diesel ban being discussed.....how many category-4 cars exist, and the answer is 476,000. So out of the 1.3-million cars in question....roughly one-third are the 'problem-children' and would not be able to enter the cities if these bans were to take place.
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