“Fukushima moment of the German automobile industry”

Germany currently faces a “Fukushima moment of the German automobile industry”, Green Party head Cem Özdemir told Ann-Kathrin Büüsker for Deutschlandfunk. Germany now had to invest billions of euros in correcting mistakes, instead of investing in the “technologies of tomorrow”. Software updates were not enough to prevent driving bans, said Özdemir: “The air in our cities will not get better with a few mouse clicks, and I doubt that courts will be convinced.”
After the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the German government had re-initiated the nuclear phase-out, accelerating the change of the landscape of the country’s energy industry.

Read the interview in German here.

For more on the summit’s outcome, read the CLEW articles German carmakers pledge diesel software updates and buyer’s bonus and "Win for car industry" - First reactions to German diesel summit.