Nearly a decade after the revelations surrounding the Dieselgate scandal, Volkswagen hopes to turn the page as best it can. However, the group is not done with justice, particularly in Germany.

Indeed, the administrative court of the Schleswig-Holstein region, located in the north of the country, made an important decision by invalidating the approval issued by the German automotive agency KBA for the software fitted to several older diesel models.

This decision, similar to one made almost a year ago, was welcomed by environmental NGO Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), underscoring its commitment “Protecting the health of millions of people in our cities who are exposed to toxins in diesel exhaust”.

A device of wide application

DUH, which initiated this lawsuit against the approval, sees the decision as a decisive victory for air quality in urban areas. According to the organization, this is the approval of the stake software for equipping at least 62 models of Volkswagen, Audi and Seat diesel cars, potentially representing millions of vehicles. DUH believes that these vehicles should be stopped and fitted with new software to deal with polluting gases.

However, Volkswagen reacted sharply to the court’s decision, calling it a“incorrect and unreasonable”. The German manufacturer announced its intention to file an appeal, thus resuming a strategy that had already been implemented after a similar decision last year. Volkswagen denies the need to stop production of the affected cars or apply new software to them.

The main issue in this case is that in 2016 the KBA approved a device called a “thermal window” to replace illegal exhaust control devices on some diesel engines. These devices were the cause of the Dieselgate scandal in September 2015, which shook the global automotive industry. Since then, there has been a dispute between environmental activists and car manufacturers over software fixes.

Volkswagen is not the only one affected

Manufacturers, including Volkswagen, say the new device is aimed at protecting the engine by reducing or deactivating the nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission filtration system from a certain temperature. However, environmental organizations, including DUH, consider the software a workaround to comply with environmental standards during the approval testing phase and deviate from them during actual use.

The decision is just the beginning of a series of appeals filed by DUH against the approval of similar software on diesel cars from other brands such as Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, BMW, Fiat and 15 other manufacturers. These cases will be considered in the coming months.

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