BMW AG said it doesn’t cheat on emissions tests, responding to a report in German magazine Autobild that the X3 sport utility vehicle exceeded the European limit for air pollution.
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That prompted a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigation that caused Volkswagen to admit it had rigged 11 million cars worldwide with cheating software, a scandal that has crushed the German automaker’s stock, severely damaged the VW brand and triggered costs of more than $7 billion.
Auto Bild reported the model – which is manufactured exclusively at BMW’s facility in Spartanburg County, and is assembled at plants in Chennai, India, Kaliningrad, Russia, and Graz, Austria – tested even higher than the Volkswagen Passat.
BMW was also drawn into the scandal, with reports in the German motoring press that its X3 off-roader pumped out 11 times more pollution than allowed.
“All measurements suggest this is not just VW’s problem”, Peter Mock, of the global Council on Clean Transportation [ICCT], told Auto Bild on Thursday.
Regulators last week announced that VW installed software to manipulate USA emissions tests, a scandal that sent its stock price plummeting and resulted in the resignation of CEO Martin Winterkorn. Yesterday all we had to go on was a short statement from a spokesperson saying that “There is no function to recognize emissions testing cycles at BMW”.
“It is clear that the Federal Office for Motor Traffic will not exclusively concentrate on the VW models in question but that it will also carry out random tests on vehicles made by other carmakers”, he said Thursday.
But an European Union source said there could still be difficulties in introducing new test procedures that match real-world driving conditions after years of official inertia and industry resistance to change.
The Commission has proposed new legislation on tightening up its vehicle testing regime to produce results more in line with real driving conditions, which it says is the responsibility of member states to enforce. Following the report, shares of BMW plunged 8% to their lowest level in two years.
BMW has since denied they have used defeat devices like VW, and we also noticed that Mercedes has denied such wrongdoing.
Today, BMW released a full statement defending itself and claiming that they are not familiar with the claims of Auto Bild that has since retracted its story.
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BMW shares traded down 6.6 percent to 74.53 euros at 12:59 p.m.in Frankfurt.
