Back in January BMW made the big announcement that it would finally introduce modern clean diesel engines to the U.S. market. At the time the Bavarian manufacturer told us that the new 335d and X5 xDrive35d would be launched by later in 2008 without getting any more specific than that. A blog specializing in news about the blue and white propeller brand is reporting that the new models will debut in mid-October. We decided to give BMW a call this afternoon and talked to spokesperson Charlene King. She reiterated the company has not made any new announcements about availability and re-confirmed that the diesels would debut this fall.

Having said that, last month Mercedes emphasized that they would be the first to offer Tier 2 Bin5 compliant diesels in the U.S. market when they launch BlueTec SUVs this fall. Neither company has actually provided an on-sale date, but there is no doubt that BMW will be racing to beat their arch-rivals to the showroom. Regardless of which company actually gets there first, both are likely to lose out to Volkswagen which has said they will begin selling the new Jetta TDI in September.

[Source: BMW, BMWBlog.com]

Porsche's CEO may be threating to shutdown production of his vehicles in Europe if new mandatory CO2 emissions standards come into force, but BMW is ready to push ahead. In spite of their reputation as a builder of performance cars, BMW already sells more than forty percent of their vehicles with diesel engines. The BMW M models get all the attention, but most of the volume cars even with gas engines are equipped with smaller four and six cylinder power-plants.

In remarks at the Geneva Motor Show CEO Norbert Reithofer, said that the Munich-based manufacturer is moving ahead with technology to make their cars cleaner and more efficient. The EfficientDynamics technology that will premier on the 1-Series, with start-stop control of the engine, and regen braking will expand to other models. They are also switching all their engines to a new engine management system that will further enhance efficiency. In addition a mild hybrid system being developed with DaimlerChrysler will debut in 2009, and the full Two-Mode hybrid is coming as well. Finally, he also confirmed that BMW diesels will be offered for sale in the US market in 2008.

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