Damaging dispute over a refrigerant

It is about time that both Mercedes-Benz and the EU settle their dispute on the use of an air conditioning refrigerant that the company says is too dangerous to passengers’ safety while the EU insists the alternative is even worse for the environment.
The issue goes back to the discovery that “R124a” a gas used in vehicles’ air conditioning is a global warming agent that is 1400 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.
The EU decided to ban its use in vehicles produced from the start of 2013.
While other manufacturers complied, Daimler refused and said it identified unacceptable safety risks in using an alternative product produced by Dupont and named “R1234yf.”
The conflict has been unresolved for over a year and led to a court case in France, where a French court overturned a French government ban on sale of Mercedes-Benz cars not using the alternative refrigerant.
The ban included popular cars such as the A-class, B-class, CLA and SL models.
The French court ruled that the ban imposed by France’s ecology minister was unjustified and that the vehicles had not been shown to present a serious threat to the environment.
While Daimler says it will switch to a CO2-based air conditioning system by 2017, the decision would not resolve the immediate issue with EU member countries for over two years.
This situation does not serve the company well and may result in other bans within the EU and complications in the US too where the new refrigerant is used by American manufacturers.
It would do well for Daimler to resolve its issue with the EU as a matter of urgency and perhaps reach an interim agreement until its new air-conditioning system is in place.
The issue also raises questions on why Daimler, among all manufacturers, has raised objections to the new refrigerant on safety grounds.
The issue is puzzling to consumers who have to decide whether Daimler is correct, in which case other brands of vehicles would be unsafe and the EU would be wrong; or whether Daimler got it wrong.
A third possibility is that the whole issue is irrelevant to either safety or to the environment.
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Adel Murad is a senior motoring and business journalist, based in London.
Email: [email protected]