Now that diesel car consumers are angry with Volkswagen for admitting it installed defeat devices on diesel engines to sidestep mandatory equipment to ensure cleaner emissions, competitor, BMW has yet to see impact on its own diesel sales.
The Munich based automaker with factories in America sells multiple vehicles in the U.S. with 2.0L 4-cylinder and 3.0L 6-cylinder diesel engines, and executives say the take-rate for diesels has remained about the same since the news broke in Wolfsburg in September last year. Smaller diesel engines also are offered on BMWs available in Europe.
But the negative impact on diesel engines overall seems inevitable, says Wolfgang Stütz, general manager-advanced development of diesel engines for BMW. Whether the underhanded acts of some brazen engineers at VW ultimately will doom the market for diesel engines is difficult to predict for now.
When the industry learned of VW’s shenanigans, automakers with diesel engines, such as BMW, ordered internal inquiries to determine if their companies were susceptible to such deception.
BMW spokeman says. “We do not manipulate emissions systems, and we had also in the past a process inside the company to make sure there are no defeat devices on board.”
In the case of BMW, the process was refined to make it more stringent in light of the VW debacle, but still it revealed no issues or concerns, he says.
Although BMW offers diesels in luxury sedans, its most popular diesel vehicle is the X5 CUV. As many as 30% of X5 customers have opted for the 3.0L diesel inline-6 in the recent past, although the take-rate has dipped slightly. BMW’s 4-cylinder diesels are popular in both the 328d xDrive Sports Wagon and the X3 xDrive28d utility vehicle.
