Green state premier seeks to avoid driving bans in Daimler’s home town Stuttgart

The Green state premier of the southern German federal state of Baden-Wurttemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, will try to evade diesel driving bans that could be imposed to improve air quality in Stuttgart, the state’s capital, the newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung reports. “I hope I can avoid them,” Kretschmann said, adding that there are numerous measures to reduce air pollution levels without banning diesel cars from entering the city’s busy roads. “Air quality already is improving. Every year. It just doesn’t happen fast enough,” Kretschmann said. The premier of carmaker Daimler’s home state criticised the German car industry for its sluggish reaction to the dieselgate scandal, which revealed that companies had sold millions of diesel cars with manipulated nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions values. “Dear car industry, wake up already!,” the Green politician said, adding that the federal government also played a questionable role in the scandal’s settlement. Kretschmann said he privately drives a diesel car that meets the latest  Euro 6 emissions standard, and would only consider buying an e-car once their range has been expanded.
Germany’s first driving bans had recently been imposed in the northern city of Hamburg, following a ruling by the country’s administrative court that allows imposing such bans to comply with EU air quality standards.

Read the article in German here.

See CLEW’s diesel bans Q&A for background.