A few weeks back, Volvo announced that it would begin producing electric motors on all its cars starting in 2019, making it the first traditional automaker to ditch the combustion engine.
Well, another major player is also publicly expressing their willingness to change. Recently, Reuters has reported that luxury automaker Porsche may eliminate the diesel engine from its offering.
The company’s CEO Oliver Blume said that the company is evaluating its lineup and will decide by decade’s end whether to eliminate the diesel engine. The review is something Reuters is blaming on diesel’s badly tarnished image, stemming from the massive scandal involving Porsche parent company Volkswagen rigging emissions devices enabling its diesels to pass regulatory tests.
Porsche hadn’t been formally implicated until this month, when investigators in Germany said they would escalate their efforts to review possible involvement of Porsche employees in defrauding consumers by manipulating their emissions.
Meanwhile, to tap into growing demand for electric cars, Porsche is making a billion dollar investment in overhauling its main Stuttgart plant to build its first battery-only model – the four-door Mission E, due to hit the streets in 2019. Currently, Porsche uses diesels to help drive down its overall C02 emissions, but a firmer emphasis on battery-only or hybrid models could mean diesels ultimately become more hassle than they’re worth.
In fact, Blume told Reuters that battery-only vehicles could account for a quarter of Porsche's sales by 2025.