"Germans’ love for diesel has turned cold"

The VW emissions scandal and looming driving bans in Stuttgart and other cities are beginning to have a serious impact on diesel car sales, reports Philipp Vetter in a front-page article for newspaper Die Welt. The share of diesel vehicles in new car registrations has fallen almost 10 percentage points to around 40 percent since the VW emissions scandal, as both private buyers and companies increasingly opt for other technologies. This is causing serious problems for carmakers, because they rely on diesel engines to stay below EU fleet emission limits. 
In a commentary in the same newspaper, Daniel Wetzel writes that the fate of the diesel engine will likely depend “which sort of panic” dominates – fear of climate change, which would favour diesel engines, or fear of local emissions, which slows diesel sales. 
German sales of pure e-cars and plug-in hybrids almost doubled in March compared to last year, but at 1.2 percent, their combined share of new registrations remains tiny.

Read the article in German here.

For background, read the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and German carmakers.