Interested to see how my fellow coupsters respond to this story that just appeared in BimmerLife: https://bimmerlife.com/2021/07/10/b...e=bimmerlife&utm_medium=email&utm_name=member. Note that this is totally unrelated to the VW emissions test defeat mess.
According to the story, BMW, along with Volkswagen brands Audi and Porsche "possessed technologies to reduce emissions more than European standards had called for, but purposefully avoided competing to introduce them." BMW has responded that they took a different approach to emissions reduction than their competition, and that the technical discussions (ten years ago) with other German automakers had no effect on production decisions. These facts would seem to indicate that there was no collusion.
I can think of a dozen reasons why this might have happened. First and foremost, BMW met the existing emissions requirements. Why risk deploying a new technology when you meet the requirements. And how does the Commission know this new technology was better at reducing emissions? What about cost? And even if it was better, perhaps the better technology was not as robust as the technology they determined to use. Perhaps they didn't want to go first with an unproven technology in case there were unforseen technical problems. Perhaps the new technology required them to use different suppliers without a proven track record. Perhaps they had long term arrangements with existing suppliers that entailed substantial financial costs to break. Perhaps the new technology required different materials that are only available from politically unstable areas of the world.
The story implies BMW did something nefarious, when it is entirely possible they made a reasonable business decision.
According to the story, BMW, along with Volkswagen brands Audi and Porsche "possessed technologies to reduce emissions more than European standards had called for, but purposefully avoided competing to introduce them." BMW has responded that they took a different approach to emissions reduction than their competition, and that the technical discussions (ten years ago) with other German automakers had no effect on production decisions. These facts would seem to indicate that there was no collusion.
I can think of a dozen reasons why this might have happened. First and foremost, BMW met the existing emissions requirements. Why risk deploying a new technology when you meet the requirements. And how does the Commission know this new technology was better at reducing emissions? What about cost? And even if it was better, perhaps the better technology was not as robust as the technology they determined to use. Perhaps they didn't want to go first with an unproven technology in case there were unforseen technical problems. Perhaps the new technology required them to use different suppliers without a proven track record. Perhaps they had long term arrangements with existing suppliers that entailed substantial financial costs to break. Perhaps the new technology required different materials that are only available from politically unstable areas of the world.
The story implies BMW did something nefarious, when it is entirely possible they made a reasonable business decision.