Is Petrol The New Diesel?

Friday, 7. May 2010

Has diesel had its day? For the first time in 10 years we saw a drop in diesel car sales compared to petrol sales. The proportion of diesels sold to petrol dropped to 41% compared to petrol, 58%. The proportion for the previous year was 43%, an all time high following 10 years of year on year increases. The move has been brought about by improved small petrol engine technology. Manufacturers have turned their development money into small efficient petrol engines pumped up by turbo charging technology. VW was one of the first with its 1.4TSi engine capable of pushing out 160bhp as a result of which they have seen sales swing from 83% diesel in 2008 to 70% diesel last year. Efficiency has greatly improved making the new petrol engines virtually as efficient as diesel without any major loss of performance. Other manufacturers likely to announce new turbo petrol cars are Fiat, with their MultiAir technology and Ford with EcoBoost. By Graham Hill