German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze has told Reuters that they don’t believe that a software change would improve on the recent emergence of the dieselgate scandal plaguing the Volkswagen Group. Only a hardware retrofit could be the way to solve it.
German Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer opposes costly hardware retrofits, saying that he is committed to meeting emissions targets using measures already being implemented.
Still, the issue at hand is that cities are not meeting the emissions target and diesel vehicles have been the scapegoat in which fingers are being pointed at. Overall governments want to manage the quality of air in the cities as well as get on the good books of the European Union hence many parties are trying to fight it out whilst still maintaining good relations with industries especially in Germany where the auto manufacturers are one of the strongest economic factors.
All of these came about when Porsche and Audi employees were arrested for diesel cheating as part of the fallout of Volkswagen’s dieselgate scandal. Porsche released a statement which said, “We confirm that investigators today inspected and secured documents at the offices of Porsche AG in Stuttgart and Audi AG in Ingolstadt. Audi AG and Porsche AG are cooperating fully with the investigating authorities. Please appreciate that we can’t comment on further details due to the ongoing investigation.”
