Germany’s Schleswig Administrative Court has ruled in favor of an environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) called Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), and against the national automotive authority, the KBA, in a case that revisits the history of Volkswagen’s Dieselgate scandal and could potentially result in recalls of numerous diesel vehicles.
The case relates to a number of diesel vehicles that used the Volkswagen EA 189 four-cylinder diesel engine. Installed in vehicles found to also contain temperature-activated emissions cheating devices, the German Federal Transport Authority (KBA), approved a software fix for the vehicles in 2016.
The German NGO has long argued that, since the emissions cheat device was left in the vehicle, the vehicles could still emit more pollutants than are allowed under German regulations. As a result, despite having been “fixed,” by the KBA’s standards, the cars were still allowed to emit excessive nitrogen oxide, a pollutant that has serious negative effects on human health.
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Therefore, the DUH launched what it calls a test case against the KBA in 2018 to revoke the approval for the VW Golf Plus TDI equipped with the EA 189 EU5 diesel engine. Today, the NGO announced that the court ruled in its favor, and overturned the approval for the software fix.
“Today is a very good day for clean air and the health of everyone in Germany. The fraud diesels finally have to be cleaned up,” said Jürgen Resch, DUH’s managing director, in a statement translated by Google. “For so many years, the Federal Motor Transport Authority and the responsible Federal Ministry of Transport have put the profit interests of some corporations before the well-being of all citizens and have violated law and order.”
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Volkswagen said that it will wait to receive the full reasoning from the court before deciding on next steps, reports Reuters. As this was a test case, though, the automaker is unlikely to be the only one affected by this decision.
DUH claims that, according to its estimates, there are millions of dirty diesels from a number of automakers on Germany’s roads that still have a temperature-controlled defeat device installed on them. As a result, it is planning other cases involving BMW, Mercedes and other Volkswagen diesel vehicles.
“This verdict has a fundamental effect because it can be directly applied to all other vehicles with temperature-controlled defeat devices,” said Remo Klinger, the attorney representing DUH in these court cases. “We are therefore calling on the Federal Motor Transport Authority to recall the affected cars from all manufacturers and have them retrofitted. Otherwise, we will take legal action in all cases.”
