Diesel sales will continue to dwindle as directinjection

Tag : diesel
Volkswagen's global head of sales, Detlef Wittig, says Europeandiesel sales fluctuate with the price of the fuel.
"Diesel and gasoline engines in Europe as a whole were splitroughly 50-50 and diesel was growing over the years.
"Now there is a standstill and for a few months when thediesel price was equal to the gasoline price the diesel sales wentdown. So we have obviously reached the peak but it depends on thedifference between gasoline prices and diesel prices.
"When they are too close, the disadvantage of the cost of thediesel engine [outweighs the gains]."
He says that when diesel is more expensive than petrol it no longerbecomes a viable option, unless the driver is doing less than30,000 or 40,000km per year.
The frank admission is likely to raise eyebrows at Volkswagen'sAustralian headquarters, where booming sales of diesel cars haveunderpinned spectacular growth for the brand in the local market inrecent years.
And Wittig says diesel sales will continue to dwindle as directinjection, turbocharged petrol engines become more fuel efficient.
"The fuel consumption of the TSi (petrol) engine is getting closer and closer to the consumption of the diesel engine," hesays.
Diesel sales in Australia have exploded in recent years as buyerssought lower cost alternatives to petrol vehicles to combat soaringpump prices.
Volkswagen has been at the forefront of that boom, with currentsales of its most popular model, the Golf, running at 50 per centof the total range. Peugeot and Citroen have also benefited fromthe trend, while Japanese and Korean car makers have also jumped onthe oil-burner bandwagon.
But with the retail price of diesel costing up to 30 cents a litremore than petrol in recent monthsin Australia, the growth hasplateaued. Diesel variants can cost up to A$3000 more than theirpetrol equivalents and it can often take several years for privatebuyers to recoup the benefits of the more efficient fuel.
Mr Wittig also predicted that Volkswagen's double-clutch,semi-automatic transmission would eventually spell the end of theconventional automatic gearbox in the German maker's range.
All new versions of the Golf will be offered only with DSG ormanual transmissions, as the gearbox provides better accelerationand lower fuel consumption than a manual, with the convenience ofautomatic gearshifts.
"We have doubled the installation of automatic transmissionssince we introduced the double clutch transmission," he says.
"It is lower cost, higher fuel efficiency and more fun todrive [than a conventional auto]," he says.