The California Air Resources Board along with the Environment Protection Agency has approved the sale of the 2016 BMW X5 diesel car. The sale of the car was approved after government testing found no evidence that the car was equipped with software programmed to cheat emission test standards.

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In September, Transport Canada and United States-based environmental regulators announced that they will review all diesel passenger cars, SUVs and trucks for sale in order to make sure that they are not equipped with software or defeat devices that can cheat emission test standards.

Following the announcement, BMW decided to delay the production of the 2016 X5 diesel models until EPA testing and certification were completed.

In a statement acquired by Reuters, BMW said, "The vehicle will going into production shortly at our manufacturing plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina." BMW added that the 2016 X5 diesel models will go on sale within the first quarter of next year.

The EPA review on cars using diesel engine came after the scandal where Volkswagen was involved in. It appears that the German car manufacturer equipped some of its diesel-engine vehicles with software that has the ability to fool emission test standards. At least 482,000 vehicles released in the United States were equipped with the software and Volkswagen claims that at least 11 million vehicles are affected worldwide.

In November, the EPA approved the sale of two General Motors pickup trucks with diesel engines. These are the 2016 Chevrolet Colorado and the 2016 GMC Canyon. After thorough investigation, regulators found out that the trucks were not equipped with software capable of cheating emission test standards.

Volkswagen, along with its Porsche and Audi brands acknowledged that the emission test problem stretches to at least 85,000 units which were manufactured as far back as 2009.

According to Business Insider, top officials of both Audi and Volkswagen admitted in November that all vehicles with 3.0-liter engines bearing the model year from 2009 to 2016 might have emission problems.

Tags2016 BMW, 2016 BMW X5 Diesel, 2016 BMW X5, BMW X5, EPA, BMW news, BMW X5 release, BMW X5 news, BMW x5 latest news