No More Affordable Diesels
VW was the only major automaker selling affordable diesel powered passenger vehicles in the United States. You could, for instance, buy a diesel-powered Jetta sedan, Golf or Beetle for about $22k.
Not anymore.
At least, not for awhile.
VW announced yesterday (Wednesday; see here) that it will withdraw emissions certification applications tendered to the EPA for all 2016 model year diesel-powered VW passenger car models. This means they will not be legal for sale in the U.S.
Which means they will not be sold.Next up after the Cruze is the Audi A3 diesel. It’s an Audi, so an entry-luxury model. Base price, $32,600. It makes even less economic sense than the Cruze diesel. After that, you’re definitely swimming in the deep end of the pool with models like the diesel-powered version of the BMW 3 Series sedan (the $39,000 to start 328d) and the Mercedes-Benz E250 BlueTec ($54,300).
Some inside baseball:
Mazda had planned to bring an affordable diesel to market. The 2014 Mazda3 sedan (and the 2015 CX5) were supposed to have been available with Mazda’s new “Sky-D” diesel engine. And they are.
Just not here.
Mazda was unable to figure out a way to make them compliant with federal rigmarole and both efficient enough and priced low enough to make them plausibly competitive in the U.S. market. To meet the federal requirements, efficiency would suffer – and the cost would go up. While people might pay $32k for an Audi diesel (or $54k for a Benz diesel) a $26k (or more) Mazda diesel is a much harder sell.
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