The German Environmental Aid (DUH) draws new hope for its mass lawsuits against the automotive industry. It assumes that around five million diesel vehicles in Germany could have their type approval withdrawn as early as February. This would result in the cars having to be either retrofitted or retired. The reason for this is the discovery of new documents which, according to the environmental association, show that the diesel emissions scandal is not the work of individual VW engineers, but the result of commissioned work by the leading German car manufacturers Audi, Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler from the automotive supplier Bosch. “This cartel has saved hundreds of euros per car and willfully and deliberately accepted that people would be killed and that people would become ill,” said DUH chairman Jürgen Resch on Thursday at a press conference in Berlin.
The environmental association relies on documents from the years 2006 to 2015, which were passed to him in the summer and which he has since forwarded to the Stuttgart public prosecutor. Minutes and slides from meetings show that Bosch has repeatedly pointed out the legal risks associated with the technology commissioned by the car companies. Among other things, this involves a temperature-dependent throttling of exhaust gas cleaning, which led to nitrogen oxide emissions well above the limit value.