VW, BMW and Daimler to update 5.3 million diesels to control emissions

We had recently reported how the German automobile manufacturers have agreed with their Government to perform a series of measures to control emissions from diesel engines and save the diesel technology from being banned in the country. The German Government has already threatened to ban people from driving diesel cars within city limits and also to ban the diesel technology itself if the manufacturers do not update their Euro5 and partial Euro6 models voluntarily.

Now, VW, BMW and Daimler have reached an agreement with German authorities to update 5.3 million cars with Euro 5 and Euro 6 diesel engines to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.

As per online reports,the three automakers will apply a simple software tweak to reduce emission levels by 25 to 30 per cent. VW accounts for the majority of the cars in question, 3.8 million to be exact, while 900,000 come from Daimler and the remaining 300,000 are BMW models.

As per the agreement reached, all the three major automobile manufacturers in Germany shall ensure that all of its customers’ vehicles shall be updated free of cost to reduce the emissions and make them more environment friendly. However, while most of these diesel engines shall make do with a software update, some would require a hardware add-on as well to counter the emissions.Also, based on the interest levels of customers owning older and heavily-polluting diesels, an incentive scheme has been established to allow them to trade in their vehicles for a newer and more efficient alternative.

In fact, BMW has even announced incentives of up to 2000 Euros for Euro4 diesel car owners to trade in their old vehicles for a new, less polluting, more efficient models with up to 130/kg of CO2 emissions in the NEDC.

In a statement discussing the software update, chairman of the board of management at BMW, Harald Krueger said “The meeting [between BMW and German authorities] was an important step. We support the initiative and are investing in the Sustainable Urban Mobility fund. State-of-the art diesels will definitely play an important role in future mobility as well.”