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VW Group, BMW and Daimler Are Under Investigation For Collusion In Europe (cnet.com)
The European Commission has launched an antitrust investigation into the Volkswagen Group, BMW and Daimler, over allegations they colluded to keep certain emissions control devices from reaching the market in Europe, according to a statement the Commission released on Tuesday. CNET reports: The technologies the group allegedly sought to bury include a selective catalytic reduction system for diesel vehicles, which would help to reduce environmentally problematic oxides of nitrogen in passenger cars, and "Otto" particulate filters that trap particulate matter from gasoline combustion engines.
"The Commission is investigating whether BMW, Daimler and VW agreed not to compete against each other on the development and roll-out of important systems to reduce harmful emissions from petrol and diesel passenger cars," said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, head of competition policy for the European Commission, in a statement. "These technologies aim at making passenger cars less damaging to the environment. If proven, this collusion may have denied consumers the opportunity to buy less polluting cars, despite the technology being available to the manufacturers."
"The Commission is investigating whether BMW, Daimler and VW agreed not to compete against each other on the development and roll-out of important systems to reduce harmful emissions from petrol and diesel passenger cars," said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, head of competition policy for the European Commission, in a statement. "These technologies aim at making passenger cars less damaging to the environment. If proven, this collusion may have denied consumers the opportunity to buy less polluting cars, despite the technology being available to the manufacturers."
It's shocking how Europe is always so biased against these American companies and never investigates any of it's own.
Oh wait.
... sometimes with good reason, but we need people like him to force innovation on these dinosaurs otherwise nothing will change even if at the end of the day the maverick loses and the dinosaurs survive but producing much better vehicles.
.Sure, it will end up with cars producing less CO2, but they'll as you say be less reliable and all the replacement parts required and/or early scrapping will easily offset any minor gains in the exhaust emissions.
Yet modern cars with all of this are far more reliable than they ever were back in the day of carburettors, doing mileage that cars of the 70s would never reach.
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Europe has much stricter environmental laws, but it turns out European manufacturers are shady as fuck. This is pretty much the perennial argument about private enterprise throwing up their hands once the government steps in.