Volkswagen Group has launched a new scrappage scheme in Germany to incentivise drivers out of older diesels.

The company is offering between €500 (£440) and €7,000 (£6,150) on top of the market value of an old pre-Euro 5 vehicle, if the owner buys a new or nearly new VW Group model.

Drivers choosing a low emission car will be given an extra incentive worth up to €8,000 (£7,025).

The deals are available to vehicle keepers in the 14 German cities classified by its federal government as having the highest levels of pollution.

Non-Euro 6 diesels are already banned from entering certain parts of Hamburg, and similar restrictions are expected in Frankfurt next year.

“The Volkswagen Group is making a significant contribution to improving air quality in German cities with this comprehensive package of fleet renewal measures. We are thus supporting the federal government’s efforts to prevent possible driving bans and offering our customers unrestricted individual mobility,” said Dr. Christian Dahlheim, head of Group Sales.

But, UK buyers will not benefit from the same deals. Volkswagen UK confirmed it has no current plans to introduce such a scheme.

Until April this year, UK customers could receive between £1,500 and £6,000 off the majority of new Volkswagen models, when trading in a pre-Euro 5 model.

Volkswagen said its first environmental incentive from August 2017 to June 2018 successfully demonstrated that systematic fleet renewal is a swift and efficient way of improving air quality.

Throughout the Group, more than 210,000 old diesel vehicles were taken off the roads, scrapped and replaced by modern, cleaner models. In combination with the software updates for diesel vehicles, nitrogen dioxide emissions have thus been reduced by more than 10,000 tonnes per year.

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