"Diesel's days are numbered" or how the government shoots itself in the foot by attacking the car sector

“Diesel’s days are numbered. It will last more or less, but we know its impact on particulates and on the air we breathe is important enough that we should start thinking about a phase-out process.” Teresa Ribera, the Minister for the Ecological Transition, is the author of this damning statement which, far from clearing up the current confusion over diesel, has simply shot the government squarely in the foot by directly attacking the car sector.

Nor can it be said that the minister lacks information, since these statements come just days after a meeting with Jose Vicente de los Mozos, president of ANFAC and of Renault Spain, who surely briefed her on the current problem the Spanish market is beginning to show regarding diesel and the importance of clarifying the true message that must be conveyed to the public on the matter. A meeting that clearly did little good, since Ribera’s remarks only further complicate the serious threat hanging over the Spanish car industry.

The minister must understand that seeking to improve the quality of emissions produced by old diesel engines in order to safeguard air quality in cities does not mean destroying the car industry in Spain. Not least because we are talking about 10 percent of GDP (almost 100,000 million euros) in direct value, plus the strong influence that this sector’s activity has on other sectors of the Spanish economy.

In Spain there are 17 plants of major brands in the automotive world, whose assembly lines turn out almost three million units each year. In the first five months of 2018 alone, these plants produced 1,351,483 units, figures that are rising (+3.67%) so far this year compared with the same period last year. The great majority of this output is destined for export (1,087,273 units were shipped beyond our borders), making the car sector one of the major engines of Spanish exports, both in number of units and in the economic value of the transactions it generates. An important factor in earning the foreign currency needed to balance our trade with third countries.

Minister Ribera is completely mistaken in saying that “diesel’s days are numbered.” She is mistaken because, as the president of GANVAM, Lorenzo Vidal de la Peña, has reminded her, “it is a fact that new Euro 6 diesel engines emit the same or fewer particulates than a petrol engine, and less CO₂ because they are more efficient and consume less fuel.”

Euro 6 diesel engines meet 100 percent of the emission limits set by the current regulations imposed by the EU. She is mistaken because—as the statement issued by GANVAM rightly points out—”demonising diesel across the board conditions demand by lumping efficient models together” and creates “a negative effect on a strategic economic sector such as the automotive industry, because it throws out all the effort and heavy technological investment made to cut the polluting potential of these vehicles to a minimum.”

Someone should explain to the minister that a diesel vehicle that has been driving the streets and roads of Spain for more than 20 years is not the same as one fresh off the assembly lines of the plants. Their particulate emissions are not the same: a diesel from before 2006 is not comparable to a modern Euro 6 diesel, the ones currently being manufactured and sold on the market, which are vehicles that meet 100 percent of the emission limits set by the current regulations in force, imposed both by the EU and by the Spanish authorities.

When discussing the problem of air pollution from particulates emitted by diesel vehicles, the minister should be far more prudent. Clearly, it is diesel consumption that produces the emissions, but these can and should be tackled by addressing the real root of the problem, which is none other than the high average age of the Spanish car fleet. The average age already exceeds 12 years.

“It is reckless,” says the president of GANVAM, “for the minister to make this kind of statement, because it is clear she is not taking into account that with today’s technologies, diesel emits fewer greenhouse gases, which is exactly what our country needs to reduce in order to meet international environmental targets.”

The minister should consider that Spanish factories turn out almost three million cars a year and nearly two million engines, of which a good share are diesel. Spain is the eighth largest car-producing country in the world. The Spanish car industry directly generates roughly 9 percent of the country’s employment and, through its volume of imports and exports, accounts for approximately 20 percent of the total Spanish trade balance.

Minister Ribera is therefore playing with fire by attacking diesel in general without qualifying her statements and demonising this type of engine without making clear that the modern vehicles the car industry currently sells are not responsible for the problem.

Instead of this kind of reckless statement, the Spanish government should establish incentive plans that would allow families to replace their old diesel vehicles with more modern ones, thereby helping to rejuvenate the car fleet, whose age is the real cause of the problem.

Across the total market, the share of diesel vehicle registrations in Spain has fallen from the 75 percent it reached in 2015 to just 37 percent of the total today. This decline is already causing significant problems for production schedules at our plants and putting financial pressure on the various manufacturers in the sector, since it is jeopardising the return on the substantial R&D investment made in recent years by car makers to cut diesel emissions as far as possible and bring them into line with legal requirements.

The minister surely is also unaware of industry advances, such as the recent breakthrough by Bosch that will allow emissions from the exhausts of future diesels to be cut to just 10 percent of the emissions of current Euro 6 vehicles, practically solving the problem entirely.

Minister Ribera has made a serious error that far from helping to resolve the existing problems only makes them worse. What she needs to understand is that fighting for higher air quality does not mean destroying or demonising the car industry, but rather helping it meet the required criteria, further boosting the substantial benefits the industry brings to the country.