In September 2015, it was announced that Volkswagen had massively refined the emission values of diesel cars. To this day, vehicle owners are fighting for compensation. With stricter controls and high penalties, the EU now wants to prevent scandals of this kind from recurring.
Five years after the diesel scandal, new EU rules will come into force tomorrow, Tuesday, to prevent such cases of fraud from being repeated. New car models should therefore not only be checked more strictly in the future before they come onto the market in the European Union. For the first time, there will also be random tests to determine whether approved models also comply with the regulations in traffic. In extreme cases, violations can result in drastic fines of up to 30,000 euros per vehicle.
In September 2015 it became known that Volkswagen had used unauthorized software in diesel vehicles to improve exhaust gas values. The result was that cars only complied with limit values on the test bench before approval, but emitted many times more harmful substances in road traffic. Damaged drivers are still fighting for compensation today.
"High deterrent effect"
"The goal is not to experience a scandal like five years ago," said an EU official. The rules for so-called type approval would be fundamentally changed, and fines would also have a "high deterrent effect" in the future. Type approval means: If a car manufacturer wants to bring a new model onto the market in the EU, he has prototypes tested in advance in an EU country and compliance with all safety and environmental regulations certified. If he has all the stamps, the model can be sold throughout the EU.
According to the EU Commission, three areas will be refined in the future. For the first time, EU countries must also check cars in regular operation after type approval, namely at least one in 40,000 cars. The EU Commission can also have such tests carried out itself. The Brussels authority can also keep an eye on the testing and approval bodies of the EU states and start EU-wide recall campaigns. And it can impose the aforementioned fines if an EU country does not take action against manufacturers in the event of proven breaches of the rules.
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