In July 2013, the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy issued a decision preventing the registration of certain Mercedes-Benz vehicles manufactured by Daimler, on the basis that the vehicles were using the refrigerant r134a which is being phased out in the EU pursuant to the mobile air conditioning systems (MAC) Directive 2006/40/EC. Vehicles registered from 1 January 2011 must use a low GWP refrigerant. The approved alternative to r134a is r1234yf produced by Dupont and Honeywell. Daimler has argued that the eco-friendly coolant has repeatedly caught fire during safety tests performed by the University of Munich, whilst in March the EU's Joint Research Centre produced scientific evidence confirming the safety of the replacement refrigerant.
France's highest court, the Conseil d'État, has recently supported Daimler and ordered France to permit the registration and sale of cars using r134a, ruling that the Ministry had not produced sufficient evidence of risk to the environment to justify the safeguard measure, on account of the small number of vehicles involved.
Daimler has committed to phase-out of r134a by 2017, replacing it with a CO2 system.
In January 2014, the European Commission took early steps in an enforcement action against Germany, following its extension of previous type-approval to Daimler vehicles using r134a. This circumvents the 2011 deadline and allows Daimler to take advantage of the transitional period for previously registered vehicles; on 1 January 2017, all new vehicles must be compliant.
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