A heated row over coolants

European carmakers

A dispute over cars’ air-conditioning is a proxy war over climate-change laws

Aug 31st 2013 | BERLIN |From the print edition

 Cool air, hot heads

THE European Union loves its acronyms and initials. So officials in Brussels must be relishing the battle between R134a and R1234yf. These two refrigerants for cars’ air-conditioning systems are at the centre of an industrial and environmental row between the French government and Daimler, the German maker of Mercedes cars. This week a French court awarded the latest round in the dispute to Mercedes.

In 2006 the EU recognised that the fluid in air-conditioners was a powerful greenhouse gas. 

R134a, the most commonly used compound, has about 1,400 times the effect, per kilogram, as carbon dioxide. So the EU passed a law saying that coolants used in new models of vehicle after January 2011 should have a “global warming potential” of no more than 150. Honeywell and DuPont, two chemicals companies, came up with R1234yf, which complied with the law. SAE International, a body of automotive engineers, deemed it safe.

But last September Daimler announced that in its own tests the new stuff burst into flames. New SAE tests found this risk “exceptionally remote”, and Daimler’s tests “unrealistic”. The German authority that approves car parts did its own tests, and found—confusingly—that R1234yf “tended” to be more dangerous than the old coolant, but posed no clear harm. It declined to recall the new refrigerant. Both sides claimed victory. Daimler continued filling its cars with the old stuff. (Toyota has also reverted to using it in some models sold in Europe.)

In June France raised the stakes by forbidding the registration of new models of Mercedes in France. Daimler sued and, on August 27th, won a temporary ruling from the Conseil d’Etat, the highest administrative court in France, letting Mercedes sell its cars again. The court did not rule on the underlying dispute. Rather, it found that the government had erred in using a procedure meant for emergency threats to safety or grave damage to the environment. (The vast majority of French cars are, after all, still using the old coolant.) It put off a final reckoning for up to six months.

In the mean time the companies on each side of the row are lobbying Brussels. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, is the guardian of its treaties and laws, and must enforce them. However, Daimler thinks it has found a loophole: the ban on the old coolant applies only to new models; it argues that the cars in question are just updates of existing models. German regulators buy this argument; their French counterparts do not. A commission spokesman, treading carefully amid a row between two of the EU’s core members, cautiously says that this manoeuvre appears to circumvent the law, and is “under investigation”.

On one level, the dispute is about risk tolerance. A video from Honeywell shows R1234yf failing to burn at 600° C. A spokesman for the company says that Daimler and the German regulator put the coolant through tests “designed to fail”. Many things under a car’s bonnet will burn at 150-200°C. How extreme must a test be to prove a product’s safety?

But the row is about more than the science. The new refrigerant costs around €50 ($67) more per car than the old one. And Daimler is in the middle of a cost-cutting drive, as it strains to keep up with its super-efficient German rivals, BMW and Volkswagen.

The spat is also an old-fashioned trade fight between France and Germany, dressed up in the newfangled garb of climate protection. Germany’s government has fought to loosen EU limits on greenhouse-gas emissions by cars’ engines. It so happens that its main carmakers produce bigger cars with higher emissions than other EU countries’. Some see France’s strike at Daimler as a sign that it will not be bulldozed by its big neighbour.

The commission has tried to calm everyone, agreeing to perform more tests on the new coolant. Germany’s environmental reputation is, meanwhile, on the line. It is making a huge push for renewable energy at home. Championing a polluting manufacturer abroad would send a rather mixed message.

From the print edition: Business