Three courts from Austria – the regional courts in Klagenfurt and Eisenstadt as well as the Supreme Court (OGH) – have asked the European Court of Justice for clarity in view of the VW exhaust gas lawsuits. The Advocate General made it unmistakable: The installation of software that depends on the outside temperature and altitude is illegal!
After the “Schummel” software became known, which shows better emission values and is supposed to protect the engines, there were lawsuits against VW, but also against Audi. The lawsuits, which the Austrian courts referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), concern cars whose software limits nitrogen emissions under certain temperatures and at a certain altitude. One wanted to have clarified whether this corresponds to Union law.
“It doesn’t,” says ECJ Advocate General Athanasios Rantos. The so-called “thermal windows”, outside of which the exhaust gas cleaning is stopped, only work when the outside temperature is between 15 and 33 degrees and below 1000 meters of altitude.
“Buyers can withdraw from the sales contract”
Actual driving conditions look different, according to Rantos – especially in Austria and Germany, keyword geographic location. The average temperatures are lower, there are mountain roads. “Buyers can withdraw from the purchase contract”, plaintiff Michael Poduschka and VSV chairman Peter Kolba agree. The buyer assumes “real operation and not what the car is doing on the test bench”.