BMW’s the Next German Automaker Under Fire Over Emissions

“All measured data suggests that this is not a Volkswagen-specific issue”, explained the worldwide Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT), the non-profit organization that tested the X3, in a statement, without providing more specific information.

Shares in BMW plunged almost 10 percent on the Frankfurt stock exchange on Thursday following a newspaper report that one of its diesel models exceeded European Union emission norms.

In a statement following the report, BMW officials denied any wrongdoing and said there is no part of the X3 system that would differentiate road and laboratory testing.

BMW said its vehicles did not have functions to recognize the emissions cycles and that it followed all local testing requirements.

“It all seemed very peculiar as well, as we reported, since the ICCT, the institution that has been carrying out these tests, said when revealing the Dieselgate scandal that Volkswagen’s results were compared to other manufacturers” and BMW was amongst them. “We are contacting the ICCT and asking for clarification of the test they carried out”, the company added.

The company also repeated that it does not manipulate or rig any tests on its cars.

The news agency reported that a spokesman for Daimler said it does not use so-called defeat devices employed by Volkswagen and complied with rules on nitrogen oxide emissions around the world.

The diesel-cheating affair that toppled Volkswagen AG’s chief executive officer deepened as Germany announced plans to widen its investigation and the scandal threatened to ensnare rival BMW AG.

The scandal has raised fears that it could be an industry’ wide issue with several major companies having exposure to the same diesel technology.

The emissions controversy erupted last week when USA regulators revealed that Volkswagen had sought to evade emissions standards compliance by programming some of its diesel cars to switch on emissions controls only when they were being tested.

“Claimed MPG (miles per gallon) figures have been pie-in-the-sky for years and electric cars whilst “clean” in the emissions sense remain suspiciously/prohibitively expensive and poor ranging”. It’s believed that VW resorted to the cheating software because its engineers couldn’t figure out how to make the engines pass government emissions tests while still meeting their targets for performance and fuel economy.