Reports some BMW cars exceed pollution limits

The German luxury vehicle maker has denied any wrongdoing after claims that its BMW X3 diesel comfortably exceeds European emissions standards under real-world conditions.

“The BMW Group does not manipulate or rig any emissions tests”, the Munich-based company said in a statement in response to the report.

Even if there were no signs that BMW had also used sophisticated softwares as Volkswagen to fool pollution tests, the news further destabilised the vital German industry already shaken by the VW bombshell.

That’s worse than the Passat did, but better than the Jetta, which belched out 22 times the acceptable level of nitrogen oxides, the magazine said. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index fell 2.15 percent, both reaching their lowest level since early January.

Audi R&D boss Ultirch Hackenberg, Porsche’s Wolfgang Hatz and VW’s United States chief executive Michael Horn, who admitted “we totally screwed up”, were reported to be in line to lose their jobs at a meeting of the supervisory board on Friday.

Yet Volkswagen, the carmaker at the centre of a scandal that wiped out more than 30 billion euros of the sector’s market value, continued to suffer as details emerged about how Europe’s largest auto company rigged emissions tests.

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

Winterkorn resigned on Wednesday, taking responsibility for the vehicle emissions scandal in the US but saying he wasn’t aware of any wrongdoing on his own part.

BMW shares lost nearly 10 per cent before recovering somewhat, but late in the trading day in Frankfurt BMW shares were off by about seven per cent, at €74.20 (about $112 Cdn). “However, there are concerns for the long-term damage on the business with diesel cars for every manufacturer that builds cars with these engines”. There are also other ways of using software to recognize a test run.

Steve Gooding, director of motoring research charity the RAC Foundation, warned that the UK’s 11 million diesel drivers would be confused by just how much technology to make the vehicles cleaner has improved.

European stocks slid Thursday on a mix of broad worries about global growth worries and the unfolding impact of cheating allegations against German auto giant Volkswagen AG that now threaten to taint BMW AG.

Other ways a test might be detected, the EPA says, range from the position of the steering wheel to barometric pressure.

According to Automotive News, the European Federation for Transport and Environment issued a report this month, before Dieselgate blew up, raising “doubts about the integrity of Europe’s emissions testing”. In a report released on September 10th, it suggested that a number of manufacturers use such devices, and questions the integrity of European emissions tests as a whole.