[tj123]

Renault considers killing off diesel engines

Renault, the French car maker, may stop offering diesel engines in most of its cars sold in Europe. The move is a reaction to the cost of ensuring that diesel engines comply with tighter emissions regulations.

The crackdown follows last year's diesel emissions scandal involving German car maker Volkswagen. Renault's move was reported by Reuters and has not yet been officially announced. Senior Renault executive Thierry Bollore has said that tougher emissions standards and testing methods would make diesel engines uneconomic to make. He told a meeting of Renault bosses in July that diesel engines had already been removed from the company's smallest cars, such as the Twingo, even before the Volkswagen scandal.

By 2020, when more stringent EU emissions standards come into force, larger Renault cars such as the Clio and the Megane are unlikely to have diesel engine variants.
More than 60% of the 1.6 million cars Renault sold in Europe last year were diesels.


Volkswagen's chief executive, Matthias Mueller, said in June that his company was now wondering "whether it still makes sense to invest a lot of money in further developing diesel".

From 2019, tougher European rules on diesel engines will involve measuring emissions in real-world driving conditions, making the new standards much harder to comply with.


For its part, Renault is being investigated by the French authorities for publishing suspected fraudulent emissions figures as the fallout from the Volkswagen scandal continues
According to French road tests on 100 vehicles, Renault and Nissan cars emit more than eight times the current limits for nitrogen oxide.

Source -BBC http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37287129

[sgiitk]

Good, tighter norms are cheaper to meet on Petrol engines. afaik one country which loves the Diesel is France, others are not that keen. Useful but not really in love with the D. France having largely an agrarian economy, one can probably see. One clarification, the French may be agrarian (with very low efficiency to boot), but technology is also first rate, world leading in many areas. Take the example of the TGV, and Areva for starters. Also, their aerospace industry. Even today we have not really seen the like of the Anglo-French Concorde!

[timuseravan]

We are moving towards a future when electric vehicles will take more and more market share from conventional fuels ones. Meeting the strict emission criteria involves a lot of R&D dollars which will be better spent in developing electric cars.

[arnabchak]

The way forward is where Tesla is leading the world to. Its electric. The dependency of fossil fuels will slowly reduce to such an extent that newer engines using the fossil fuels will become redundant. Probably by 2025, the annihilation of fossil fuel driven engines will be truly complete.
On the home front, the shift from Petrol to Diesel in 2010 onwards and then from Diesel to Petrol post 2014 is very evident. Take the case of the City. They introduced the Idtec a year too late. It had a spike and then it tapered off. The Ivtec still rules for the City.
Realisation and implementation for Honda took time. And eventually the shift had happened. Going forward, the trend towards petrol will only increase as norms become more and more stringent. And then, steadily, the electric revolution will take over.

[RSR]

My humble request to Renault-Nissan & Carlos Ghosn:

By all means, send small diesel engines to their graves in Europe and other civilised parts of the world. I guess North America will rid itself of cars & light trucks running on the dirty fuel (diesel obtained from crude oil) before any other region.

However, for heaven's sake, please do NOT stop investing in small diesel engine technology! For you're going to badly need small diesel engines (<= 2000cc) in India. Even if all other Third World countries bid goodbye to light vehicles running on the dirty fuel, India won't.

Such is the power & influence wielded by the dirty fuel lobby in this country. They are the ones who dictate how petrol & diesel are priced at the retail level. The oil mafia and the powers-that-be that ostensibly decide how fuels are priced are mere puppets in the hands of the diesel lobby in India. They literally dance like little wooden/plastic puppets to the tunes of the diesel lobby as they pull the controlling strings from behind the scenes.

The filthy artificial diesel-petrol price difference will come down when some sensible independent organisation like the Hon'ble SC of India cracks down on diesel and exerts pressure to cut carcinogenic emissions spewed out as a result of burning the dirty fuel.

As soon as the pressure from the SC eases, the dirty fuel lobby would immediately go back to their vile ways and the filthy diesel-petrol price differential will start rising again. This is so obvious to anyone with even half a brain!

So, Monsieur Ghosn, do not give up on light vehicles drinking the dirty fuel just yet, at least for India! If you do, you will regret it soon enough, as you just aren't aware of the unimaginable influence wielded by the vicious dirty fuel lobby & their stooges in this country!

[subuiyer]

Came across this article today on BBC website. I will not be surprised if more European manufacturers take this route of reducing their diesel portfolio in response to some really stringent emission norms that will take effect in coming years.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37287129