As events surrounding the undisputed charges that Volkswagen deliberately circumvented US emissions control regulations on some of its diesel-powered vehicles, there appears to have been an opening for another diesel maker to fill the gap left behind as VW withdrew the faulty cars from the market.
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Auto Bild said the BMW X3 xDrive 20d had produced 11 times as much nitrogen oxide as permitted in independent road tests conducted by the worldwide Council on Clean Transportation.
There was no indication that BMW had engaged in deception similar to Volkswagen’s by using software to fool official pollution tests but the report of high emissions from one of its diesel-engine cars nevertheless shook investors.
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. “As far as we are concerned, PSA Peugeot Citroën complies with the existing homologation procedures in all countries where the Group operates”. “All these data show that the problem is not specific to VW”, Peter Mock from ICCT was quoted as saying. “At the BMW group, there are no specific activities or technical provisions which influence the emissions recorded during the test mode”, said a spokesman.
BMW shares were last down nearly 6.2% at 74.7 cents.
In a response to the reports, BMW said: “There is no function to recognise emissions testing cycles at BMW”. Daimler AG dropped as much as 5.8 percent. After hitting the $163 mark Friday, it sank to $102 early Wednesday, before rising a bit on news of Winterkorn’s resignation. There are media reports that the board will pick the head of sports-car maker Porsche. However VW Thursday refused to comment on any management changes.
JPMorgan auto analyst Jose Asumendi calculated Tuesday that globally VW had 25 percent of engines exposed to diesel technology.
“It begs the question of how “polluted” the industry will turn out to be”, he said in a note on Thursday morning.
“All emissions systems remain active outside the testing cycles”.
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The U.K.’s Vehicle Certification Agency also said it would launch a wide investigation into whether auto markers had been misleading regulators and called on the European Union to do the same.
