INDUSTRY NEWS
Costs deal death blow to small diesels
Volkswagen will kill off its small diesels within five years, writes Michael Taylor
Exploding costs will kill off all of Volkswagen’s small diesel engines within five or six years. They might have survived the $20bn fallout from the Dieselgate emissions scandal, but modifying its diesel engines to meet the EU’s 2020 emissions laws could balloon beyond €800 a car, enough to wipe the 1.4l and 1.6l diesel engines off the board. VW’s head of development has admitted the company has all but confirmed it has developed its last small diesel engine, a 1.6l four-cylinder turbodiesel, for 2017’s all-new Polo. While it will retain the more versatile EA 288 2.0l TDI for Audi, VW, Seat and Skoda sedans, hatches, coupes and SUVs, the smaller three and four-cylinder will be gone completely in about five years, Frank Welsch insists. They will be replaced, he says, by mild-hybrid versions of petrol-powered four-cylinder engines, most likely to be the all-new 1.5l turbocharged petrol engine, which will make its debut in 2017’s Golf 7.5 facelift. It means the small Polo and even the ...
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