Germany's top administrative court in Leipzig has ruled that municipalities can ban older diesel cars and trucks from some areas to combat air pollution.

The ruling comes in the case of Stuttgart and Duesseldorf which wanted to ban the older, dirtiest diesels from areas worst-affected by pollution.  The government tried to block it, but the ruling sets a precedent for cities and municipalities across the country and possibly elsewhere in Europe.  No bans are in place right now, but 70 German cities heavily exceed EU nitrogen oxide limits, with Cologne, Stuttgart and Munich the worst offenders.  Germany needs to lower these levels fast, or else it will face huge EU fines.

Any such bans would first be limited to certain vehicles, places, and times of day.  But there are more than 45 million cars on German roads that are powered by diesel.  Germany's auto industry has been big on diesel for the best part of a century, even in recent years when Japanese competitors were developing groundbreaking hybrid vehicles and Tesla in the US set near standards for electric vehicles.  Consumers were already moving away from diesel and towards cleaner vehicles.

Especially since the 1990s, Europe was happy to subsidize diesel because the newer vehicles emitted less CO2 than regular petrol cars.  But that changed in 2015 with the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal.  The automaker had installed computers on its sidel cars which fed false information during emissions tests.  That tanked public confidence in diesel even further, accelerating what some see as the inevitable death of diesel.