Volkswagen Diesel Woes Cast Doubts on Other Makers’ Claims

By Paul Ausick Updated Apr 28, 9:22AM EDT · Published Sep 24, 9:05AM EDT

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As events surrounding the undisputed charges that Volkswagen deliberately circumvented U.S. 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. Another way of looking at what’s happening though is to question the veracity of every claim that a car maker uses to promote its green credentials.

A case in point has already hit VW’s fellow Germany-based automaker BMW. A report Thursday morning at Presseportal claims that BMW’s X3 compact crossover SUV spits out 11 times the amount of nitrogen oxide permitted the Euro 6 standards that went into effect this month. (The report is in German.)

The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), an independent, non-profit environmental research organization in Europe, tested the diesel version of the BMW X3, the BMW X3 xDrive 20d, and found that nitrogen oxide emissions were worse than emissions from the embattled VW Passat, according to Presseportal.

The ICCT released a white paper earlier this month on nitrogen oxide control technologies used in European diesel passenger cars. This is a big deal because more than half of new car registrations in the European Union last year (53%) were related to diesel cars. In the United States, less than 1% of new vehicle sales are attributable to diesel-powered cars and light trucks.

Volkswagen Group’s VW and Audi divisions account for 28% of all diesel vehicle registrations in the EU in 2014, with BMW accounting for 22% and Mercedes-Benz accounting for 21%. In the United States, VW and Audi accounted for 67% of all diesel sales last year, with BMW taking 15% and Mercedes-Benz 10%.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that BMW has denied including a software switch in its cars, similar to the program that VW used to detect whether its vehicles were being tested in a lab or driven on a real-world road. An analyst in Frankfurt told Bloomberg that there is nothing to suggest that BMW did anything wrong, but there is new concern about the damage that could be done to sales of all diesel cars from any automaker.

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About the Author Paul Ausick →

Paul Ausick has been writing for a673b.bigscoots-temp.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.