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According to CCTV news, the European Commission announced on the 8th that three German car manufacturing groups, Daimler Group, BMW Group and Volkswagen Group, have joined forces to curb the full use of clean technology for diesel exhaust. In violation of the EU anti-monopoly law, Volkswagen and BMW were fined a total of 875 million euros (about 6.7 billion yuan).

Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche, which all have technologies to reduce harmful emissions from diesel vehicles below EU standards, colluded between 2009 and 2014 to avoid competition in "emission clean" technologies, all of which do not reduce emissions below EU standards, the European Commission said.

It is worth mentioning that Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, was required to pay a fine of 727 million euros, but because it first disclosed the facts to the European Commission, Daimler was exempted from the fine. Volkswagen Group and BMW Group were fined 502.3 million euros (3.86 billion yuan) and 372.8 million euros (2.865 billion yuan) respectively.

The "emission cleaning" mentioned by the European Commission refers to the reduction of nitrogen oxides in automobile exhaust. The way to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions is to install a storage tank in the car and put in a special urea solution, that is, diesel engine exhaust treatment solution. The more the treatment liquid, the better the cleaning effect of the tail gas. According to the European Commission, the five car companies discussed the size of the liquid storage tank in their cars and reached an agreement.

In 2019, the European Union formally filed a lawsuit against Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler, accusing the three companies of colluding with each other to deliberately limit the cleanliness of vehicle emissions between 2009 and 2014 and delaying the release of gasoline engine particle trap technology. Specifically, the three companies limit the size of storage tanks used to hold AdBlue chemicals, and although more AdBlue can effectively limit harmful nitrogen oxides in diesel emissions, the larger the tank size, it will encroach on audio or other parts, thus affecting some configurations of the vehicle.

In terms of the amount of fines, Daimler's amount is much higher than that of Volkswagen and BMW, meaning that Daimler may be the worst automaker in the emissions scandal, but because of its "reporting" behavior, the European Commission waived the fine from Daimler. Even so, however, Daimler was unable to extricate itself from the emissions scandal.

On July 7, the German consumer protection group (VZBV) filed a lawsuit against Daimler for cheating on some diesel-powered Mercedes-Benz GLC/GLK emissions data. In fact, as early as 2018, Daimler recalled a total of 254000 vehicles, covering nearly 50, 000 Mercedes GLC and GLK models, but officials never admitted to "intentionally manipulating vehicle emission test results." or based on this, the German consumer protection organization (VZBV) decided to file a lawsuit in court, which aims to set a precedent Enable owners of Mercedes-Benz GLCs and GLK to get compensation related to cheating software in emission testing. However, Daimler believes that VZBV's lawsuit against the company is groundless and will challenge the lawsuit.

In response to the fine, Volkswagen is considering whether to appeal the antitrust fine imposed by the European Union. The company said the penalty for technical negotiations with other carmakers on emission technology was a precedent that remained to be discussed. After being fined, Volkswagen said the European Commission was entering a new judicial field because it saw technical co-operation as an antitrust violation for the first time. Volkswagen added that the European Commission was fining Volkswagen, although the negotiations were never implemented and no customers were hurt.

Judging from this incident, the emission gate incident not only made German automakers such as Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen pay huge fines, but also faced with reputation losses.

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