Under pressure from prosecutors to falsify emissions and public debate over the future of diesel engines in Germany, Daimler has announced a software upgrade of 3 million vehicles in Europe.
The "voluntary measures", as characterized by the German car industry, apply to almost all Euro 5 and 6 Mercedes vehicles on the old continent and will have a total cost of 220 million euros for Daimler, but will not burden the owners of the vehicles, who will, however, have to wait about an hour for the software upgrade to the workshop as reported by the Athens News Agency.
In a statement, as quoted by Deutsche Welle television station, Daimler CEO Dieter Czeske said that "the public debate over diesel engines has caused uncertainty. That is why we have taken new measures to reassure the owners of these vehicles but also to restore confidence in diesel engines. "
With the decision to "recall" 3 million vehicles, Daimler goes one step further than its competitors BMW and Audi, which have committed to upgrading about half of their diesel fleet to Euro 5.
At the same time, Mercedes is planning the release of a new generation of diesel engines in the near future, hoping to restore confidence in diesel technology, which has been shaken after the scandals with falsified pollutants in giants such as Volkswagen and Audi.
620.000 jobs are at stake in the automotive industry
Just last week, German media outlets such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung, West German Radio (WDR) and North German Radio (NDR) reported that more than one million Daimler vehicles were equipped with fake software. The report was based on a search warrant issued by Daimler headquarters in Stuttgart last May following investigations into car fraud associates.
Meanwhile, a report by the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economics on behalf of the German Automobile Association (VDA) has come to light, as do the carmakers against a possible ban on new German-built vehicles such as internal combustion engines. ask the Greens by setting a limit in 2030.
At the presentation of the exhibition in Berlin, the head of the Clemens Fust Institute stressed that 620.000 jobs in Germany today depend directly or indirectly on the construction of vehicles with diesel or gasoline engines. Regarding the alternative scenario, according to which the jobs that will be lost will be replaced by others in the development and construction of electric vehicles, the president of the Institute of Economics stressed that "there is no empirical basis" and that "we do not know how sales will develop." electric cars ".