So much for Germany’s mighty automobile lobby. Today Germany’s Federal Administrative Court ruled that Stuttgart, home of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, has the right to ban diesel vehicles from its city centre. This sets an important precedent. If Germany’s motor city can outlaw diesel, other cities will surely follow their example (indeed, the ruling also applies to Düsseldorf, which brought a similar case).
Naturally the German car industry opposes this ban, and so do the German government, but their chances of overturning this ruling seem slender. The Federal Administrative Court (or Bundesverwaltungsgericht, if you want to brush up on your knowledge of tongue-twisting German compound nouns) is the highest court in the land.
The German car industry has invested heavily in diesel, a decision that now looks terribly misguided. This ruling is the latest nail in diesel’s coffin, following on from Volkswagen’s ‘Dieselgate’ scandal (in which the German car giant admitted it used illegal software to tamper with American emissions tests).
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