Today, German prosecutors and police raided BMW’s headquarters on suspicion of the company using emissions cheating software.
Oops. Today there were more police, more raids, more suspicions of emissions cheating. This time, BMW is under the microscope. According to a BBC News report, about 100 law enforcement officials searched BMW’s headquarters in Munich, Germany for evidence. They also searched the Steyr, Austria engine plant as well. BMW Group employs about 125,000 employees as of December 2016, with 4,500 working at Steyr. The plant assembles 6,000 engines per day, according to a Reuters report.
Of course, BMW isn’t the only company to come under suspicion. In recent years, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, and Nissan have all been caught up in their own scandals. Then there’s Volkswagen, for whom the term “dieselgate” was coined. They’ve since been slapped with billions of dollars in fines in one of the largest scandals ever to entangle an automaker.
In BMW’s case, prosecutors are specifically looking at “erroneously allocated” software that was used to help 11,400 vehicles cheat on their emissions. This figure includes BMW 750d and M550d models. Neither model is sold in the United States. However, the 540d xDrive sedan is sold in this market, although it’s not under scrutiny at the moment.
Last month, the company recalled 11,700 cars for engine management issues. Those cars were 5- and 7-Series models built between 2012 and 2017 with high-performance diesel engines. This latest emissions news breaks the day before the publication of BMW’s 2017 annual results, according to the BBC.
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