BMW Headquarters Raided Over Emissions 'Collusion' With Rivals
BMW’s headquarters in Munich have been ‘raided’ by police and officials from the European Commission’s antitrust department, according to reports, as part of accusations of collusion with rival German brands.
The raid is said to have taken place on October 16; last Monday. BMW, with a clear hint of resentment, confirmed it was “assisting the European Commission with its work” but that no formal proceedings had been opened against the firm.
Months ago the German newspaper Der Spiegel accused BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi of agreeing to fit smaller, less expensive AdBlue urea solution tanks that can allegedly fail to clean exhaust emissions to the legal standard. BMW denies the claims – as do all the other companies involved.
BMW says its cars use a special kind of catalytic converter that stores NOx emissions temporarily, allowing the system to clean the exhaust smoke using less AdBlue. The sizes of the tanks, the company says, is proportional to the actual consumption of the solution.
Der Spiegel’s claims say collusion on various matters between German car-makers has been happening since the 1990s and involved over 200 employees in 60 working groups, according to Auto Express.
Comments
scandal much?
Government reminds me of my ex teacher. When one kid makes trouble, whole class is punished. If there were no dieselgate, no-one would even check anything.
You don’t understand. What’s being targeted here is an actual huge cartel, as in BLW-VW-Audi-Porsche-Bosch all working together to trump American, German and European emission authorities. The Dieselgate is a wholly different matter as each carmaker was supposedly working alone. Or do you not agree that huge carmakers being responsible for making diesel seem respectable when it isn’t and polluting more should be punished ?
That is a top 10 comment of the week right here
Accusations hanging in the air
Well played, Matt.
Stop this infringement of lassiez-faire!
Like Need For Speed Rivals.. See the different..?
Polution this polution that, thats all you hear nowadays, if the government really want to cut polution they shoud be looking at doing something about ships and planes first….
Or power plants. That’s probably the best option to reduce emissions but governments don’t want to use clean nuclear power for whatever reason