Court Blocks Attempt to Force BMW and Mercedes to Stop Selling Gas Cars

A Climate Case With Big TargetsBMW and Mercedes-Benz are two of the industry’s biggest performance brands, so it was no surprise when environmental group Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) sued the automakers for allegedly exceeding their “carbon budget.” However, Reuters reports that Germany’s Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe rejected the lawsuit, ruling that no such budget had been allocated to individual companies.DUH – whose three managing directors stood as plaintiffs – sought to force BMW and Mercedes-Benz to stop selling new combustion-engine vehicles starting in November 2030. Although the case was filed in Germany, such a ruling could have had implications beyond that market. In the U.S., for instance, both automakers have local manufacturing operations but still rely on exports from Germany, including some BMW M and Mercedes-AMG models. A stop-sale order could have f …