Audi: Diesel Is the Practical Choice
February 20, 2008

By Michael Jordan

Now that BMW has officially announced it will introduce a diesel-powered sedan for America, the German carmakers finally are making good on their promise to bring diesel to the U.S. as a clean-air solution.

BMW certainly isn't alone; Audi plans to announce the introduction of a diesel-powered Audi Q7 for the U.S. Johan de Nysschen, Audi of America's executive vice president, notes diesel-powered vehicles will play an important role in his company's attempt to expand its annual sales to 200,000 -- a long way from the less than 100,000 vehicles the company will have sold during 2007.

In an interview with AutoObserver, de Nysschen said, "When we introduce our V6 diesel in the Q7 during 2008, it'll be the cleanest engine in the world. And there you then really have, in our opinion, the best real-world car, because you’ve got great torque, great drivability and all the driving enjoyment. And you have the benefit of 40 percent reduced fuel consumption, so just by virtue of the lower fuel use, you’ve got lower emissions.”

Of course, the German car manufacturers have been using this line of reasoning to lobby for diesel in the U.S. for some time. But usually the argument for the contribution diesel can make toward clean air never goes further than this and the price penalty of diesel technology is conveniently overlooked -- the added cost of developing and manufacturing diesel engines compared with gasoline-fueled engines, not to mention the expensive system of exhaust scrubbers required to reduce both nitrous oxides and particulate emissions.

But de Nysschen pointed out the current popularity of hybrid technology in the U.S. has changed the game. “With diesel,” he said, “you can do everything without compromising the functionality of the vehicle. And you can have it at a lower cost premium than a hybrid.” Once the cost comparison is made between diesel and hybrid instead of diesel and gas, de Nysschen said, then the additional cost considerations of diesel will finally pencil out in the mind of the consumer.

Yet de Nysschen didn’t stop there: “If we want to look at the question holistically, then if we carry on with the status quo of gasoline-engine cars, we can refine them and improve them, but it gets a lower-dimension return. The cost escalates and escalates for every incremental gain you make with gasoline, and at some stage you might as well just go the diesel route because the potential gains are larger. If 40 percent of the cars sold in the U.S. annually were diesel, we would save the equivalent of all the fuel we import from Saudi Arabia. And that has got to be compelling.”

At the same time, de Nysschen also admitted no car manufacturer can afford to ignore the popularity of hybrid technology.

"As you know, we are not friends of hybrid technology at all," de Nysschen said. "We actually think it's a very poor idea. The thing is that hybrid offers fuel-consumption and emission advantages only in a very narrow set of circumstances that is not actually representative of the general driving cycle that you encounter in the U.S.”

Nevertheless, de Nysschen said, public enthusiasm for hybrids has forced Audi's hand. “We have to produce hybrids, and we will,” he said. “We will introduce a hybrid first in the Q7, and then another will follow later in the Q5. It could follow later in the other, longitudinal modular platforms as well, since the Q5 is built on the same platform as the A4 and the A5. So once you have it for one, it can be applied for others. But right now we're planning it only for the two SUVs.”

As the German carmakers lobbied for diesel over the past several years, they frequently dismissed hybrids as a relatively costly clean-air technology, even while ignoring the price penalty of diesel-powered engines over gasoline-fueled engines. And yet now it appears the public acceptance hybrids has ironically helped make a compelling case for the future of diesel in the U.S., something Audi of America hopes will lead to a major contribution to Audi AG's goal of selling 1.5 million cars a year worldwide by 2015.

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Source: Edmunds.com

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