Hamburg on Thursday will become the first German city to ban older diesel vehicles from some highly polluted stretches of road, as public confidence in the once-loved technology goes up in smoke.
A 1,600-meter stretch of highway and a 580-meter section of another major road will be closed to older diesels.
The port city is the first to act on a court ruling that found such bans were a legitimate way for local authorities to reduce air pollution below European Union health thresholds.
Judges at the Federal Administrative Court found in February that cities could “gradually” eliminate diesel vehicles, starting with the oldest, while allowing exceptions including for emergency services, local residents and businesses.
“Germany has to do something” to improve air quality, said 37-year-old Sabine, who works on the Max-Brauer Allee, one of the roads hit by the ban.
“We should abolish diesels,” she added.
Diesel was long seen by Germans as a proudly homegrown technology that could help battle climate change, with lower emissions of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) than petrol motors.
Patented by Bavarian engineer Rudolf Diesel in 1892, the fuel is subsidised to this day in a number of European countries.
But its reputation has lain in tatters since Volkswagen’s “dieselgate” scandal broke in 2015.
The mammoth carmaker admitted to fitting millions of cars worldwide with “defeat devices” – software designed to trick regulators into thinking cars met emissions standards.
In fact, output of harmful fine particulates and nitrogen oxides (NOx), which can cause respiratory and heart diseases, was far higher than legally permitted.
Drivers have voted with their wallets ever since, sending diesel’s share of new car sales plunging from 47.7 percent in 2015 to 38.7 percent last year.
Nevertheless, Germany’s federal government under Chancellor Angela Merkel has often appeared to take the car industry’s side.
It has pushed back against diesel bans and rejects the idea of a “blue badge” drivers could stick on their windscreens that would identify the least polluting vehicles.