From diesel fidelity to careful abandonment: How the automakers stand for the diesel future

03/01/2018

From diesel fidelity to cautious abandonment How the automakers stand on the diesel future

DPA

Diesel fuel pump at a gas station

For one thing is clear: Matthias Wissmann is still rock solid for diesel. Even after the judgment of the Leipzig Federal Constitutional Court, the driving bans for diesel cars legally permissible, Wissmann keeps faith with the diesel engine. After all, as the outgoing head of the German Automobile Industry Association (VDA) said after the decision, the measures agreed at the diesel summit would already work. The free software updates will improve urban air quality “quickly and significantly,” he said in a press release.

At the end of January, he also broke a lance for the engine at the VDA New Year’s Reception: “We also need the combustion engine for a long time to come, including the diesel in its most modern form,” he explained. E-mobility is a great solution – but not the only one.

But is that really still the position of all German automakers that Wissmann represents? Car buyers are from exhaust scandal and impending driving bans quite unsettled. This is reflected in the number of new registrations for diesel cars in the EU. These have dropped significantly in the past, as statistics by car data specialist Jato Dynamics show: in 2017, only 44 percent of all new cars in the EU were delivered with diesel engines, compared with 49 percent a year earlier.

Now, manufacturers are not only accelerating their electric car plans to be able to meet the EU’s CO2 limits. Some are also putting their previously undeniable loyalty to diesel to the test. How German and international automakers recently positioned themselves on the topic of the future of the diesel drive – and how much they still depend on the diesel drive.

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