Well here's my eco-credit story...

Today I spoke with the CA that sold us our Build to Order 35d in Aug (i.e. during eco-credit round 1). He says that they had already sold all their 35d allocations through the end of 2009. Now they have been told the eco credit has been extended though 1/4/10 and provided with a sales video instructing them to keep selling build to order 35Ds right up to the end of the year. His interpretation is that this means that the order must be placed, not built, not delivered, just ordered.

His take on the requirement for applying for BMW Financing is just to be sure the people ordering 35Ds are serious and able to pay for the X5. As I have already posted, we applied for BMW financing to 'lock in the eco-credit" but actually paid cash at delivery. We were upfront about this. He new at the time of the order that had no intention of financing the 35d.

He also says that the eco-credit has really increased interest in the BMW diesels by people who he wouldn't ordinarily think of as a likely diesel buyer.

BTW they had several 2010 X5s on their lot -- but not a single 35d in the foreseeable future

If I were BMW I would keep the eco-credit going as long as this keeps working. The more diesels they sell, the better their CAFE gets. And the more likely that they can introduce more diesel models to improve their CAFE even more. For BMW building diesels is a lot easier, and less risky, than building hybrids, since they have been building diesels for decades.

Funf Dreisig