Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Please note that it is not permitted to have referral links posted in your signature. Keep these links contained in the appropriate forum. Thank you.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2055940817/signature-rules

PSA halts diesel hybrid....

Options
  • 25-09-2008 6:45pm
    #1
    E92
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,147 ✭✭✭


    ...in favour of a petrol hybrid:D!

    This speaks volumes about what PSA thinks about the future of the diesel engine for cars, especially when you consider their past history with diesels; anyone remember the Peugeot 205 DTurbo and the fact that they were one of the first to bring a common rail diesel to the market? They also had a diesel in many categories of car long before anyone else did(bar Merc of course) too.

    After all they've announced previously that they're developing a 1.0 3 pot to get under 100 g/km for CO2, and that 100 g/km 3 pot is a petrol.

    They're axing it because like I've said an infinite number of times, it's too expensive, or in PSA's words they "couldn't get the costs to work", and that is in spite of the fact that this whole thing was subsidised by the EU.

    I was ridiculed for saying before that diesel hybrids just aren't going to happen in anything other than large cars, and it looks like I've been proven right.

    Of course, and typically Irish, just as we start on the journey towards dieselmaina, the rest of Europe is already preparing to move on from diesel, and back towards petrol, and petrol hybrids.

    Last month only 40% of new cars in Germany were diesel, compared to in 2007 when at one stage 49.4 % of new car sales were diesel there.

    Overall for 2008, diesel represents under 44% of new car sales in Germany, in 2007 it was over 47%.

    So the tide is definately starting to go out on diesel, and that's a trend that will continue as long overdue tougher legislation on diesels will make them dearer, and will rob them of some of their mpg advantage(well direct injection petrol will do that anyway).

    The much admired Peugeot RC-Z concept, which has 313 bhp, and does 109 g/km for CO2, is a hybrid, which we knew anyway, but PSA has now confirmed that this concept runs on.... petrol as well!

    FromCar Magazine:

    Peugeot RC... concept: 313bhp and 109g/km? Sounds too good to be true...

    It does rather, doesn't it? With a sports car power output of more than 300bhp, it sounds as if the RC... concept will use a petrol-electric hybrid system – but that doesn't tally with the extremely low emissions claim of 109g/km. Peugeot's clever cats only burn off other emissions, not CO2, don't forget, so it's either developing some new technology or making pie-in-the-sky concept car claims.

    Previously, Peugeot had committed to diesel-electric hybrid powertrains, but today the company admitted that the programme to launch the 308 diesel Hybrid had stalled. It was being funded by European governmental bodies and an official confirmed that they couldn't get the costs to work.

    'Our strategy is now to launch a specialist hybrid car, not a volume model,' he admitted. 'And it might not be by 2010, as originally promised. We haven't committed to a timescale, but it could be not long after 2010.'

    What's more, the company now admits it is pursuing petrol-electric hybrid systems as well as the diesels it had previously confirmed.

    Sounds like a classic U-turn!


Comments

Advertisement