Alarming words from Professor David Bailey of Aston University this morning, as he reveals diesel's "slow death" is being driven by "environmental pressures and consumer confusion" .
He predicts that by 2025 just 15% of new car sales will be diesel, down from more than 50% to levels below even the figure that they sat at prior to the government incentivising its purchase (15 years ago, back in 2002 just 19.8% of sales were diesels).
It’s ironic, of course, that Bailey’s words have been seized on by the national press and thrust forward as yet another example why people shouldn’t buy a diesel. The very “confusion” that Bailey has identified is now being fed - unintentionally - by his words.
Diesel registrations down 31% in November as UK market shrinks
The trouble is, the general perception is that all diesels are the same. And who can blame the layman, when any explanation has to take you deep into the inner workings of Euro 4 regulations versus Euro 6? It takes dedication not to glaze over at that point. Far easier, to stick with the snappy ‘dirty diesel’ moniker and vow to never buy another one.
But I really do believe it’s worth knowing better, and hopefully as an Autocar reader so too do you - because there are economic and environmental reasons to give the black pump a second chance, especially if you are a high-mileage or large car driver. You can read more from Steve Cropley on that here.
The point is that personal transport comes at an environmental cost - be it CO2 or NOx driven. All engines produce both, with petrol creating more of the former and diesel more of the latter. Arguing over which is worse is like comparing apples with pears, albeit with darker overtones.
Insight: Is it time to give up on the diesel engine?
To my mind, the most important thing is that drivers choose what is best for their circumstances. That might be an electric car, it might be electrified or it might be a petrol or diesel one.
I certainly hope that people don’t feel urged into panic buying a petrol and then having to live with the fuel bills of a large seven-seater that does 20,000 miles a year. Commonsense simply cannot allow a blanket ‘diesels are bad’ attitude to pervade, although the fear must be that it is.
Certainly, by the 2025 date signposted by Professor Bailey I would imagine and hope that the pendulum for fully electric vehicles (13,500 sales of 2.5m last year in the UK) has swung somewhat. But even then the same fair-minded response must be to interrogate the true environmental impact of a vehicle using so many rare metals and powered by energy that isn’t always generated from clean sources.
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Is it time to move on now?
There are several recent reports and presentations available, from Bloomberg, ING and PodPoint among others, which indicate an imminent change in the mass car market, due to the falling costs and improving technology of battery electric vehicles (BEVs). This is economics, not environmentalism.
These reports predict that the market will shift dramatically to electric, beginning during a period from roughly 2020 to 2024 (yes possibly starting in two years). If they are right, then time is running out for both petrol and diesel for everyday cars.
Did you know, for example, that the cost of an average electric powertrain is half that of an average internal combustion powertrain? Or that an internal combustion car has an average of 1,400 moving parts and an electric car has less than 200? Or that battery costs have fallen off a cliff since 2015 and are still dropping?
Probably we, and the SMMT, should all start to consider these things and stop worrying about trying to encourage people to start buying diesel again.
By 2030, it looks increasingly possible that your average petrol or diesel daily driver will be completely obsolete anyway - outclassed by cheaper, faster and easier to maintain BEVs.
Gradual phase out
The gradual phasing out of diesels is the only viable solution as there is not in many cases, such as large passenger vehicles or commercial vehicles, any viable economical or affordable alternative. Consumers have in some cases been incorrectly led towards the buying of a diesel vehicle when inappropriate such as low mileage urban users. Company car drivers have certainly been steered towards diesel by Government taxation policies. Diesel currently remains the most viable for high mileage business users and also not everyone lives in a city and for many people living in rural areas an SUV type of vehicle is appropriate and only really viable with a diesel engine. It would therefore be irresponsible of a Government or Society to suddenly try and outlaw or ban diesel vehicles. The economy would be completely crippled if diesel was banned overnight. However, the scientific evidence is clear that diesel emissions are not good for us, the requirements to make diesels cleaner has also led to high levels of cost and complexity which has caused operating issues. Let’s not however overlook that there are still issues with emissions from petrol engines, so perhaps we should all be looking at how many miles we actually need to drive a year? Electric vehicles are not viable for the majority and hybrids are currently still too expensive or simply not yet available in many vehicles such as commercial vehicles. Realistically we have to accept that it will take many years to move away from diesel engines. Economical and affordable alternatives have to become available first. We therefore have to accept that diesel vehicles will need to remain re-saleable and on the roads, until it is viable to gradually phase them
Common sense, sadly, will be not to buy diesel
The diesel market will collapse, as did the petrol market a few years ago. Because the most important part of the equation for new buyers is resale value and the closely related lease/PCP rates. That's why everybody has been buying diesel, and now why they'll stop. And it is generally common sense to follow the herd when buying new or leasing - secondhand is a different matter. There will be bargains for those with a use for a diesel mile muncher.Who I feel sorry for is Toyota. Their petrol/electric hybrid tech, whilst not the most exciting to drive has always been genuinely cleaner, more efficient in stop-start use and not at all bad even over distance in my experience, and above all - its proven durable with no clogging filters etc etc. Seems the Prius drivers were right all along...
Why feel sorry for Toyota?
The Japanese giant invested massively in its hybrid tech twenty years ago and is now reaping tyhe benefit. What's wrong with that?
It's Honda that's been unfortunate, having failed to sell its hybrids (in Europe at least), then made a late switch to diesels and currently doesn't have a hybrid to offer right when market wants one. It also offered a CNG (natural gas) Civic in many markets, probably the cleanest internal combustion engine ever made. But, at the time no one seemed particularly keen on clean engines...