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German diesel car sales plummet

Xinhua, May 4, 2017 Adjust font size:

Diesel car sales in Germany fell 19.3 percent in April 2017, compared with the previous month, according to German Federal Motor Transport Authority figures published Wednesday.

This follows Volkswagen's emissions scandal and the resulting image problem for diesel cars.

The share of diesel cars on German roads decreased by 5.7 percent to 41.3 percent, compared with 47 percent in 2016 and over 50 percent in 2015. This downwards trend is fueled by the political debate concerning diesel technology. Multiple German cities have announced plans to ban older diesel cars, in order to try to maintain control over air pollution.

The public discourse needs to be objective, said Matthias Wissmann, President of the German Association of the Automotive Industry, referring to the generalized attack on diesel technology that has followed the scandal involving the use of software designed to cheat emissions tests. "We will need the Euro-6 diesel for a long time to reach the European climate goals," Wissmann told the association's technical congress.

The number of newly registered cars in April 2017 decreased by 8 percent to 290,697, compared with the previous month. The Easter holidays that fell in April in 2017 offset the statistics since there were three less business days compared to 2016.

In general, however, the conditions for German automakers are good, due to low interest rates and a positive market outlook. In total, the January to April period recorded 1.135 million newly registered cars, an increase of 2.5 percent year-on-year. Endit