EU Commissioner: Diesel cars are finished

As Bloomberg reports, European Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska said the EU has had a “breakthrough moment” since Germany-based Volkswagen AG admitted in 2015 that it fitted diesel engines with software to cheat U.S. checks on smog-causing discharges of nitrogen oxides. 

This deeply affected “the emotions in society toward emissions and cleaner cars,” she said.

“Diesel cars are finished,” Bienkowska said in a May 24 interview in her ninth floor Brussels office. “I think in several years they will completely disappear. This is the technology of the past.”

The auto-emissions scandal may help the EU gear up for a technological revolution in road transport. 

Europe is seeking to retain leadership in the worldwide market for passenger cars in the face of competition from the U.S., where Tesla is based, and China, which accounts for about half of electric-vehicle sales.