VW CEO Diess says clean car policies “threaten the very existence” of Germany’s car industry

Stricter EU emission limits and new, more realistic exhaust gas testing methods were pushing the car industry to the “brink of collapse,” Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess said at an event on 16 October, Spiegel Online reports. He lamented that the current “campaign” against cars was “threatening the very existence” of Germany’s car industry. Diess criticised the switch to electric cars as not beneficial to the environment because Germany’s power systems are still dominated by coal assets. "Instead of using petrol or diesel, we'll basically use coal, even if we're electrically powered, and in the worst case even lignite," he said. "That drives the idea of electric mobility ad absurdum!”

Read the article in German here.

Find background on Germany’s car makers’ fate in the energy transition here, and also read the CLEW interview Disruption caused by energy transition is unstoppable - Amory Lovins.