Germany will ban unclean diesels from city centers starting in January
From January 1st, Germany is banning diesel vehicles without Diesel Particulate Filters (DPF) to enter city centers. Ford is launching an informative campaign along some of Berlin's main avenues and squares: Frankfurt Avenue, Tempelhofer, Mueller Road and Hohenzollerndamm. People paid by Ford will appear at the side of the streets informing drivers with messages such as the one at the pic above "With filter or on foot".
Cars will have to include a mandatory windshield sticker stating their pollution levels, according to the Euro xx standards and will be subject of fines if the most polluting ones get to the city center. This is specially important for diesel cars: most of them don't have DPF installed. DPFs can actually improve the color of the car's sticker. Red color will be for cars that produce more than 50 mg of particules per cubic meter of air (Euro I).
The banned areas are established by every municipality. Drivers caught will have to pay a 40 EUR fine and lose one point from their driver's license. German authorities are helping motorists retrofit their diesels with DPFs through a 330 EUR subvention.
Related:
[Source: Ford (link is in German)]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Phil L. 7:08PM (10/26/2007)
I'm curious to see how this works out.
Mandating emissions retrofits - requiring new equipment that wasn't part of the vehicle's original design - is relatively uncharted territory. I've not heard of any similar programs in the US (even clear back to the 70s and the beginning of the catalytic converter era). Is anyone aware of other retrofit programs?
Such efforts raise concerns about cost, standards and OEM support. If you vehicle is still under warranty, and has a problem that might be related to the new pollution equipment, who is responsible for fixing it?
Still, it seems like diesel particular filters are a specific technology that can be readily added to older cars. I hope this program is succesful!
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Michael Hippenhammer 4:23PM (10/26/2007)
Where can I buy a particulate filter for my VW TDI? I would install one ASAP if I knew where to get one.
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pscs 6:19PM (10/26/2007)
@michael: if your car is relatively new it complies with the euro4 regulations so it's fine, and you wont get fined. haha...
please, these paragraphs are all absurded in weird spelling (not UK) :P
US - UK
Filters - Filtre
centers - centres
windshield - windscreen
color - colour
meter - metre (i mean, US ppl dont even use the metric system...)
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armmat 2:42AM (10/28/2007)
OMG!! What would SUV driving idiots in the US think of this if they were told their POS vehicles were to be banned in the city for being too big, too bulky, and too polluting? No Way!! USA! Land of the free for all!
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corkypue 9:41PM (11/17/2007)
This is what we in the U S of A are doing, what are you doing?
http://www.wrapair.org/forums/msf/offroad_diesel.html
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