FCA has planned to stop production of all its diesel cars by 2022 as part of the brand’s strategy for next four years. However, an official announcement is due and the automobile group is likely to make it public in June this year. With this strategy, the car brands like Fiat, Jeep, Maserati, Alfa Romeo will abandon diesel engines by 2022. In India too, cars from the brands under FCA group will follow the same policy.
Presently every FCA car brand has at least one model with diesel engine. All the Jeep SUVs come with diesel engine as option. While the scenario will surely change by 2022, it is not clear if the pick-up trucks from the group or the vans that come with diesel engines only will follow the same strategy or not.
Interestingly, this move comes at a time when diesel emission scandals from several automakers are coming under scanner, FCA itself has been accused of the similar scandal as well. The group was accused of using an emission cheating software in the 500X to manipulate the emission level. With the strategy to abandon diesel engines, FCA cars will surely focus on greener powertrains like hybrid and electric powertrains options alongside petrol motors.
Another reason behind the plan to abandon diesel engines is the stricter emission norms that are demanding extensive upgradation of the diesel motors. Due to the upgrade diesel engines are becoming much pricier, leading the car price going significantly higher. In India, Fiat’s 1.3-litre DDiS diesel engine has been a very popular motor powering several models from different car brands. This engine is all set to be discontinued in 2020, as India will see the implementation of BS-VI emission norm from April 2020 and Fiat has no plan to upgrade the engine.
Source: Financial Times