German ministers presented a plan Tuesday to reduce harmful diesel emissions in the country's most polluted cities, but were immediately slammed by consumer advocates and environmentalists for sparing the mighty auto industry.

While there are concrete spending commitments and rule changes in the package, ministers have left it up to manufacturers and individual drivers to refit older private cars, or replace them using trade-in bonuses from industry.

The deal was about "avoiding driving bans, preventing limitations to mobility, no additional or unjustified costs for diesel drivers, and responsibility from the car industry," Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer told reporters in Berlin.

Tuesday's deal aims to reduce harmful nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the air of cities close to 50 milligrammes per cubic metre, avoiding court-ordered exclusion zones.

In those towns, Berlin will cover 80 percent of costs for refitting municipal and commercial vehicles with upgraded exhaust treatment systems.

An emissions limit for older vehicles in 14 cities where NOx exceeds 50 milligrammes will be enforced if driving bans are imposed.

However, drivers will have to actively choose to trade in their old diesel or have a new exhaust system fitted.

BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen are offering between 4,000 and 8,000 euros ($4,630 to $9,260) to owners looking to trade up to the latest models.

Meanwhile Volkswagen and Daimler have agreed to refits, but BMW has rejected them outright.

- 'Opportunity to regain trust' -

The moves were an "opportunity to win back trust in diesel" after years of scandal, Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said.

But Scheuer admitted that "of course the trade-in or refit measures are voluntary, we can't oblige people to do anything".

Industry expert Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer of the Center for Automotive Research in Duisburg predicted "the effect of the discounts will be negligible" as previous such schemes have petered out.

And environmentalist group Greenpeace condemned the hard-fought compromise between Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU alliance and their coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD).

Without obligatory refits, "manufacturers continue to attempt to turn their emissions fraud into a sales bonanza for new cars," the group charged.

Three years have passed since Volkswagen's 2015 admission to installing cheating devices in 11 million vehicles worldwide, allowing them to secretly spew far more NOx than legally permitted.

Since then, other carmakers like BMW and Daimler have been targeted in official probes and forced to recall thousands of vehicles.

In Germany industry has so far got off lightly, only updating engine control software for many of the affected vehicles.

Consumer advocates and environmentalists note that much of Volkswagen's so far 27-billion-euro bill over the scandal stems from fixes and buybacks in the United States.

"The car industry is leading the government by the nose," said Klaus Mueller, head of the VZBV consumer federation.

Making carmakers pay for refits and buybacks "works in the US. Why can't it happen in Germany too?" he demanded.

- Pressure on all sides -

But politicians face competing pressures.

On the one hand activists urge them to use bans to prevent thousands of premature deaths NOx is estimated to cause each year.

The European Commission could also take Germany to court over its dirty air.

On the other, diesel drivers fear driving bans that, like those already in force in Hamburg and looming for Stuttgart and Frankfurt, would slash their vehicles' value.

And car industry chiefs say they can't afford to divert funds to costly refits to millions of vehicles, calling them a distraction from competition with challengers from the US and China.

With the sector's more than 800,000 jobs weighing on their minds, many in Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU alliance share executives' preference for selling millions of new cars to replace more polluting older models.

And as tighter limits on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) bite in the EU from 2021, manufacturers are eager to get as many of their newest, cleanest cars on the road as possible.

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VOLKSWAGEN

DAIMLER

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