Diesel automobile sales continue to gain momentum and share in the US market even as hybrids and electric vehicles continue to stall as a segment. Mazda, for instance, just announced that it will offer a diesel beginning late next year. It's Audi, however, that continues to push theclean-diesel proposition more than any other brand.
As the brand unveiled its new offering of its TDI (Turbo Direct Injection) diesel engines across most of its product lineup — now including all of its mainstream models in addition to the A3 and Q7clean diesel models where the option originated a few years ago — at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Audi of America President Scott Keogh was articulating his company's case for the technology in an unprecedented way.
Fuel-efficient, emission-reduced clean diesel "is the best choice for drivers seeking to save at the pump, for a nation seeking to free itself from the grip of foreign oil, for a society seeking smart ways to cut greenhouse gases, for a world seeking more sustainable mobility," Keogh told journalists assembled in Los Angeles, where the Q7 also received the ALG residual value award.
Also in LA, Audi unveiled what Keogh called the "Audi TDI clean diesel clock," which tracks how much gasoline Americans have saved over the last few years because they've purchased A3 small-sedan and Q7 large-SUV TDI-powered vehicles. The "clock" in the background reached 4.5-million-plus gallons of gasoline while Keogh spoke, and he predicted that "we're probably going to have to add an eighth digit" as Audi adds four more TDI models to its stable.
Keogh also pitched clean diesel directly to emissions-sensitive Californians, noting that over the last 12 months, more than one-third of Audi A3 TDIs sold in the U.S. were sold in California. And over the previous two years, California buyers bought as many Q7 TDIs as people in New York, Florida and Pennsylvania combined.
Audi is a true frontrunner, in the best sense of the term, when it comes to clean diesel. In fact, it has pushed the technology harder and faster than any other auto brand in the U.S., with the possible exception of its sibling Volkswagen brand — and at a time when every other automaker was preoccupied with hybrids or all-electric vehicles.
"At the time" Audi started its clean-diesel push in the U.S. in 2009, with its "Oil Parade" TV ad showing barrels of oil rolling back up onto a ship at an American port, "most [American] drivers still believed diesel was the worst thing you could fill up with at a truck stop -- other than bad coffee," Keogh said. "Diesel was more sooty than sexy."
Now, TDI versions comprise more than 55 percent of the Audi A3 model mix and about one-third of Q7 sales.
Mazda has become the latest automaker to plan to stick its toe in the clean-diesel market in the U.S., joining fledgling efforts by GM and Chrysler. Mazda will become the only Asian automaker to sell a diesel engine in the United States when it adds a 2.2-liter turbocharged diesel to the 2014 Mazda 6 lineup in the second half of next year.
Overall, reports the Diesel Technology Forum, U.s. clean-diesel auto sales increasd by 26 percent through October over a year earlier. If Keogh and Audi have their way, that share will only climb.
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