Hybrid technology to fill auto gap: industry officials

VW scandal may be setback for diesel

TOKYO, Oct 29, (RTRS): The Volkswagen diesel emissions test rigging scandal could accelerate a shift towards gasoline-electric hybrid cars and plug-in electric hybrids — even as cheaper gasoline, for now, saps demand for green cars.

The fallout from VW — where the cost of the scandal pushed the German automaker to a first quarterly loss in at least 15 years — is rippling through an industry already embracing alternative ‘greener’ propulsion systems to traditional gasoline and diesel.

Diesel technology, which had been seen, especially among European carmakers, as a mainstream solution to helping the industry meet tougher fuel economy and emissions regulations, now looks vulnerable — though it’s far from finished.

“Anybody can, with certainty, guess what’s going to happen ... This (VW) scandal is not going to make diesel more popular in the United States. This scandal is not going to make diesel more popular in Japan,” Nissan Motor CEO Carlos Ghosn told reporters on Wednesday on the opening day of the Tokyo Motor Show.

With diesel potentially falling out of favour, automakers and their technology suppliers will likely turn to non-diesel solutions in a stricter regulatory environment.

Over the next five years and beyond, auto industry officials see hybrid technology — especially heavily electrified plug-in hybrid know-how — emerging more into the mainstream. Volkswagen itself is now looking closer at long-range plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles as it seeks to put the scandal behind it.

“If you take out diesel as a key solution ..., initially conventional hybrid technology, and then plug-in hybrids, will have to be used to fill the gap,” said a person close to AVL, a privately-owned global powertrain specialist. “Beyond 2020, hydrogen fuel-cell cars will have to play a greater role.”