On September 12, 2018 ARD magazine Plusminus dealt with the state subsidy of company cars and how it slows down the traffic turnaround.

The company cars are mostly diesel cars from German manufacturers such as BMW, Mercedes or Porsche. In most cases, company cars are also used for private purposes, as owners of company cars only have to pay tax on their cars at 1% of the list price per month. 

Not only the increasing burden on the environment is strongly criticized. The Institute for Public Economics (FiFo) at the University of Cologne has looked into the tax aspects of the company car privilege and found out that expensive company cars are primarily to the taxpayer's detriment. According to Michael Thöne, it is not possible to determine exactly what the special tax treatment of company cars costs the state and taxpayers each year. However he says, that there is a wide range, with a lower limit of 800 million euros and an upper limit of 4.7 billion euros in tax per year.