Page 11 - ATZ WORLDWIDE

© [M] Chisnikov | stock.adobe.com Protecting the climate is important. Urban air should not be

harming the health of our city dwellers. In Germany, these facts
are undisputed. The controversy arises when the talk turns to
which measures should be applied. Nothing is under greater
scrutiny here than the combustion engine, in what has become
an emotional, loud and passionate debate. As things heat up,
people start raising the spectre of bans and quotas. But getting
back to a constructive discussion ending in solutions requires
a fair approach.

TROUBLE’S BREWING Once it emerged in mid-September
of 2015 that the Volkswagen Group had
“Not even one.” This was the precise been manipulating its cars to falsify
response from Gerald Killmann, Vice exhaust gas emission measurements, it
President of R&D at Toyota, when asked triggered a debate which has been raging
during an early June panel discussion constantly ever since. The European
how many scandals the automotive Commission is currently investigating
industry could still afford with the inter- the allegations of a cartel between BMW,
nal combustion engine. Mending the Mercedes-Benz, VW, Audi and Porsche.
lost trust between politics, customers “This affair [the diesel emissions scan-
and industry should rather be taken dal] goes beyond the vehicle industry
as a task, announced Killmann to the alone; it also involves government and
motor-vehicle conference “Engine and authorities”, were the words of a lobby
Environment”. This challenge is becom- report in 2017 [1]. The report, to be pub-
ing increasingly daunting. lished at the end of June, is being written

Average real exhaust emissions of Diesel cars with different emission levels in comparison
to to their limit values (averaged over all type of roads and temperatures) (© [M] Umweltbundesamt)
ATZ worldwide 09|2017 9