VW & Audi announce diesel trade-in program in Germany

Companies from The Volkswagen Group are running a new trade-in program as a part of the deal reached during the National Diesel Forum.

Volkswagen and its sister company Audi - have announced environmental trade-in programs for their older diesel engine powered vehicles in Germany.

In Audi’s case, the program extends to the people who drive the older Euro-4 compliant or earlier diesel cars, and wish to upgrade to new Euro-6 compliant one. The trade-in bonuses will range from €3,000 to €10,000 (Rs. 2.25 lakh - 7.5 lakh) - depending upon the model being traded-in, and the new model being opted for.

VW’s trade-in program, which will run separate from that of Audi’s - isn’t much different. The company is offering various trade-in benefits for the owners of the Euro-4 compliant or older diesel cars - which start from €2,000 for the Up! sub-compact hatchback, all the way up to €10,000 for the Toureg SUV.

The similarities of both of these program do not end here. Both Audi and VW are pushing their old diesel car customers towards opting for hybrid, all-electric, or CNG powered cars. Audi will provide better incentives to the owners opting for cars with a plug-in hybrid powertrain or g-Tron models that run on CNG - the incentive for the upcoming A4 Avant g-tron and A5 Sportback g-tron will be around €9,500 in total.

Similarly, in VW’s case, customers opting for the e-Golf hatchback will be entitled to get an additional benefit of €2,380 over the trade-in amount. The company also confirmed that it will provide free software updates to its more recent Euro-5 and Euro-6 compliant vehicles in order to reduce their nitrogen oxide emissions by an average of 25 to 30 per cent.

This trade-in program comes as an after effect of the deal made at the ‘National Diesel Forum’ - which was held in Germany in early August 2017. According to this deal, the German automotive industry agreed with the local government to undertake a series of actions to save diesel technology. The companies which are a part of this deal include - The Volkswagen Group, Daimler, BMW and Opel.

Another company from The Volkswagen Group - Porsche, is also offering a similar exchange bonus on trading older diesel vehicles with new eco-friendly models from the firm. However, unlike VW's and Audi's programs which are limited just to Germany, Porsche has extended its program throughout Europe. We expect the other two programs to also extend to the whole of Europe - as VW and Audi cars are much more accessible than Porsche vehicles.

European automakers have been under immense pressure over speculated emission violations of their diesel powered vehicles. The whole issue first came into spotlight in late 2015 - after VW’s ‘Dieselgate’ scandal was exposed.