WASHINGTON: The Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board approved the sale of the new 2016 BMW diesel X5 after government testing found no evidence of software to evade emissions standards, the government said Thursday.
In September, US environmental regulators and Transport Canada announced they would review all current diesel passenger cars, trucks and SUVs for sale to ensure that they did not have "defeat devices."
EPA spokesman Laura Allen said Thursday that the agency - along with California and Canada - was doing additional testing before approving new diesel vehicles. "Our screening tests found no evidence of a defeat device in the 2016 BMW X5," she said.
BMW said late Thursday it had delayed the start of production of the diesel X5 - known as the X5 xDrive35d - until EPA testing and certification were completed.
"The vehicle will be going into production shortly at our manufacturing plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina," BMW said. It expects the vehicle will go on sale in January.
The EPA diesel review came weeks after Volkswagen AG admitted it installed software in 482,000 US vehicles that allowed vehicles to emit up to 40 times allowable pollution in real world driving. VW says the issue involved up to 11 million vehicles worldwide.
Last month the EPA approved the sale of two new General Motors diesel pickup trucks - the 2016 GMC Canyon and 2016 Chevrolet Colorado - after finding no improper emissions.
The BMW SUV and GM pickups were the only non-VW 2016 diesel vehicles awaiting certification.
BMW says diesels accounted for 5.9 percent, or 20,178, of 2014 US vehicle sales.
