Diesel crisis causes drop in used car sales – business calls for hardware retrofitting

As a result of the diesel crisis, used car sales were down 1.9 percent in 2017, compared to the previous year, according to the German Association for Motor Trade and Repair (ZDK). “Auto dealers are deeply unsettled," ZDK president Jürgen Karpinski said in a press release. "Threatening driving bans in metropolitan areas makes used diesel cars almost unsalable.” Used diesel passenger cars stood on dealers’ plots an average of 100 days; petrol cars just 80 days. Each day costs the dealer 28 euros per car, Karpinski said. In addition, there was a loss in value of several thousand euros per vehicle. In some cases, this situation  “threatens dealers' existence” ZDK says, “So it’s all the more important to make faster progress on a political level regarding hardware retrofitting of older diesel cars.” In 2017, 68 percent of cars sold in Germany were used. ZDK did not provide detailed data on used-car sales by fuel type.

Find the press release and additional material in German here.

Also read the CLEW article German cities might test free public transport to cut pollution and find background on the diesel technology’s impact on clean air and climate in the CLEW article Why the German diesel summit matters for climate and energy.