>In an interview with Automobile, Bosch Senior Vice President of Diesel Engineering Dr. Johannes-Joerg Rueger (he’s not German, is he?) recently said that he expects diesel sales in North America to top 15% by 2015. At the same time, he expects worldwide hybrid sales to only account for 5% of total cars in the same timeframe. And he should know, considering a large portion of Bosch’s business comes from making diesel fuel systems.
Sounds reasonable enough, considering that Europe has access to purchase both diesels and hybrids and consistently purchase diesels in greater numbers. AutoblogGreen, however, begs to differ.
“At this point, unless a number of automakers like Honda and Hyundai take the success of the VW Jetta TDI to heart and reverse course to bring diesels to the U.S., It’s hard to see how diesels will get there. Of course, with TDI versions of the new Golf and the Passat replacement coming this fall and in 2011, perhaps the VW group can do it alone.”
While ABG is usually spot-on, in this case we’ll beg to differ with their begging-to-differ. While automakers like Honda and Hyundai may seem reluctant to introduce diesels into the American market, it hasn’t stopped luxury automakers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz from pushing their diesel offerings. Here’s an ad that BMW recently started running:
The hope and speculation is that if the American public begins to associate diesel with luxury German offerings like BMW and Mercedes then much of the stigma will begin to wash away. In turn, the rest of the market will follow. Our money is that the hope and speculation will turn out to be right.