By William Boston
BERLIN--Large European cities from Munich to Madrid are banning
or restricting diesel vehicles due to mounting alarm over toxic
emissions, presenting a major challenge to European car makers who
sell millions of them.
National governments have been slow to react to a string of
scandals that have exposed diesel engines as far bigger polluters
than advertised. But these cities, goaded by environmental groups,
are emerging as the leaders of an anti-diesel movement that is
forcing Europe's car industry to rethink its future.
Among the cities considering or seeking a ban on diesel vehicles
or an environmental tax are BMW AG's hometown Munich, and
Stuttgart, which hosts Daimler AG and Porsche SE. Their message to
Europe's car makers: If you can't clean diesel, we will.
"Cities are sending a signal to the public and manufacturers
that there is a preference for clean vehicles," said Ray Minjares,
a researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation.
The group uncovered emissions cheating by German car maker
Volkswagen AG that has drawn attention to the issue over the past
two years.
The scandal, which has since spread to other auto makers,
started in the U.S. But less than 5% of U.S. cars are diesels,
compared with half of all new European cars sold--some 85 million
on the road.
The European Union took center stage after it set aggressive
targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to fight climate
change.
European auto makers, especially the Germans, bet big on diesel
as their main tool to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Diesel burns
more efficiently than gasoline, so it gets better mileage and emits
less carbon dioxide. The industry pushed it and won support from
European governments, which have subsidized diesel through lower
taxes since the 1990s.
Climate change isn't the only issue. A study co-authored by Mr.
Minjares concluded that just one pollutant from diesel engines
caused 107,600 premature deaths world-wide in 2015. Around 80% of
them were in Europe, China and India.
But car makers will be hard-pressed to shift from diesel and
still meet European greenhouse gas targets. Demand for electric
cars is still less than 2% of global auto sales. All sales of new
electric vehicles, including plugin hybrids, accounted for just 1%
of the 14.6 million new cars sold in the EU last year.
German car makers and unions are worried about the impact on
their livelihoods. More than half the European sales of Germany's
top brands, including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Porsche, sport
diesel engines.
Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler, which owns Mercedes, said this
week that "driving bans are a political response, but will not lead
to real change because they can't really be implemented."
Germany's largest industrial union, IG Metall, also objects, in
part because they say bans would disproportionately hurt poorer
drivers. Car makers, it says, should make older engines cleaner
while politicians should promote electric vehicles and invest in
technology to improve traffic flows.
"Such a sweeping demand is nonsense," Roman Zitzelsberger, head
of IG Metall's southwestern Germany chapter, said this week.
The German auto industry is offering a trade off: It has offered
to update software on mid-aged diesel vehicles on the road in
Germany to bring them in line with modern emissions standards if
bans are dropped. But nearly half of the 15 million diesel cars on
the road in Germany are too old to fix.
The mayors driving the movement say they have little choice. As
traffic hubs, they suffer some of the world's most toxic air. And
since the Volkswagen scandal discredited "clean diesel," a barrage
of court orders is forcing them to address the issue.
In car-crazy Germany, where Rudolf Diesel invented the eponymous
engine, Stuttgart will begin next year to ban all but the most
modern diesels, around 90% of them. Munich, which is considering a
similar step, must present a plan by week's end to drastically cut
the city's chronic pollution, in response to a court ruling.
Paris, which prohibits any diesel vehicle made before 1997 from
driving in the city, will extend the ban next month to diesel
vehicles made before 2001. That will affect nearly a fifth of the
nation's heavy goods vehicles and a smaller percentage of passenger
vehicles.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan is creating an ultralow emission zone
with a system of prohibitive road tolls. "The air in London is
lethal," said Mr. Khan in April as he unveiled plans to steeply
raise the toll on the most polluting vehicles starting in 2019.
Oslo, the Norwegian capital, enacted a diesel ban in January as
winter smog smothered the city, fining violators nearly $180. The
ban, in effect from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., was lifted once winds picked
and the air cleared.
The strategy is gaining traction beyond Europe. Mexico City
joined Paris, Athens, and Madrid at a mayors' conference in
December in a pledge to ban all diesel vehicles from their cities
by 2025. Seoul plans to ban diesel made before 2006 from driving in
the city's central districts.
"It is correct and important to discuss driving bans," Dieter
Reiter, Lord Mayor of Munich, said this month.
Write to William Boston at william.boston@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 27, 2017 06:36 ET (10:36 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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