Many car manufacturers have severely reduced their diesel offers.
Since the 'dieselgate' outbreak, 24 models have no diesel offer anymore, according to the Automotive Research Centre (CAR) in Duisburg.
For another 40 models, diesel demand is so weak that the engine tends to disappear there as well.
All over Europe, diesel sales have fallen sharply. In some countries, they’re recovering slightly, but they will not ever reach the figures from five years ago, reports New Mobility.
The industry and the engineers needed a few years to recover from the scandal, but now that the newest diesel engines are exceptionally clean, nobody wants them anymore.
In 2015 more than half of the Fiats 500L sold in the German market were diesel-engined; in 2019, it plunged to 7,6%. The Audi A1 had diesel engines in more than a third in 2015; at the end of last year, this was reduced to…zero.
Not so long ago, the diesel car was reigning, at least in Europe. Countries like Belgium and France counted 70% or more diesel cars in new car registrations.
The problem is that under 10% of share in a specific model, diesel makes no sense because it’s simply too expensive,” says Dudenhöffer. Even in Germany, this threshold isn’t reached anymore for a lot of models; something thought impossible five years ago.
“The diesel engine may die slowly, but it will die,” says Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, Director of the Automotive Research Centre.
The Brussels Times
