Company-Car Check Gives Bavaria Another Red Card Despite Improvement

Bavaria’s state government has improved its position in a ranking of official cars, but the German Environmental Action group still gave it a red card for high emissions.

The group’s assessment placed Bavaria 11th among Germany’s states, up from 13th the previous year. Average emissions from the ministers’ cars fell from 179 to 170 grams of CO2 per kilometer.

Transport Minister Christian Bernreiter and Environment Minister Thorsten Glauber helped the state’s score by using fully electric cars, according to the assessment. Science Minister Markus Blume, Finance Minister Albert Füracker, Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann and Economy Minister Hubert Aiwanger reportedly use diesel vehicles. Other ministers use hybrids.

“

A declaration of war on forward-looking transport policy and a disastrous signal for German climate policy.

The assessment did not provide detailed information about the official car used by Prime Minister Markus Söder because he travels in specially protected vehicles.

The environmental group criticized politicians at national and state level for continuing to rely on combustion engines. It counted 90 fully electric vehicles among 249 examined, a slightly lower share than the previous year. The group estimates that plug-in hybrids use electric power for about 11% of their driving when calculating emissions, and said such vehicles make up the largest part of the official-car fleet. It urged governments to buy only electric vehicles when replacing cars.

“

Politicians in federal and state governments are massively failing in their role-model function.