According to reports in the green blogosphere, Subaru, maker of fine, boxer powered all wheel drive cars, will soon be adding diesels engines to its range of engine choices, at least in the home market. Odd really, because Japan was never that into diesel cars. Sure, delivery trucks, but very few private individuals buy diesels.
Subaru introduced its first diesel engine in Europe in 2008, naturally, a boxer, and has sold over 30,000 examples, but that makes sense since oil burners are very, very popular there. So popular in fact that 54.1 percent of Legacy sales in Europe have been diesels.
So why start selling the same mill in the home market? Obviously, amortizing costs is always nice, but there’s also new legislation to contend with. There’s new emissions regulations set to take effect in Japan in 2010, and there will be growing worldwide enviro concerns that will push more and more diesel technology onto the market.
And if Subaru is already selling them in Europe, and will soon be selling more at home, what about America? Turns out that’s still on the menu. Subaru spokesman Dominic Infante restated that Subaru still has plans to offer its diesel in the U.S. sometime in the next decade at this year’s New York Auto Show.
Which sounds great to me. Subarus, even the high performance variants, and nice, practical cars, and having a diesel option means they could get even more practical and cheaper to run (and easier on the environment). And eventually, you could run them on Bio-D, which would be fun. But not as much fun as, say, a diesel Impreza with a whole bunch of STi bits bolted on.
A diesel WRX, I wonder how that would work?
Source: AutoBlogGreen
Photo from Flickr user www.ericcastro.biz
“…in the next decade.” How much vaguer can you get? Photo-John keeps asking when will Subaru starting selling diesel powered cars in the U.S. Oh, just wait a few more years, P-J. They might be offered before you turn 50.