“The federal government’s concept clearly emphasises that the air in German cities has become cleaner in the last years. Measures that have been taken by Volkswagen and other car manufactures so far, such as software updates and the scrappage and swapping incentives, have made an essential contribution to this. Volkswagen Group continues to be willing to make a major contribution to ensure unrestricted individual mobility for its customers and to prevent driving bans in particularly polluted cities,” said Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess.
The swapping incentives envisaged by Volkswagen Group will be approximately 4,000 euros on average for EU1 to EU4 diesel vehicles and approximately 5,000 euros for EU5 diesel vehicles, and will depend on the customer’s model. This promotion also includes compensation depending on the old vehicle’s residual value and an attractive finance offer. With this, Volkswagen Group intends to reach almost one million vehicle owners in the 14 cities.
The implementation of the hardware upgrade measures suggested by the government is essentially dependent on the solutions from the upgrade providers. These solutions must be available and approved as well as durable in the long term and be fully accepted by customers. We would like to point out that a hardware upgrade solution causes increased consumption and a loss of comfort.