Berlin - Germany, Europe's biggest car producer, is to impose penalties from 2012 onwards on manufacturers who do not cut their vehicles' carbon-dioxide emissions, government sources said in Berlin Friday. The warning came in a denial of reports that Berlin favoured an emissions trading system that would allow makers of high-powered cars to "buy" the right to pollute from vendors of puny cars.
The sources also said Berlin would resist pressure from the carmakers to postpone the emissions cuts to 2015.
Germany, which made 5.8 million of the 18.6 million cars produced in Europe last year, hosted this week the IAA motor show in Frankfurt, where makers insisted they were going green.
The sources said the details of the new regime were still under discussion between Berlin and the European Union.
At the IAA, Chancellor Angela Merkel told the industry she backed the 2012 date for emissions limits.
