March 10, 2004

Japanese Diesel

Why aren’t there more Japanese diesel engines ?

Reading the Reuters report on the subject, you can come to the following summary:

  • 42% of cars in Europe sell with diesel engines
  • it takes 300,000 sales a year to justify an engine design and factory

So, this also means that some niche market companies, say Porsche & Subaru, would have a hard time justifying the design costs of a “Horizontally Opposed Turbo Diesel”.

Unless of course somehow their combined needs, plus the ones from Saab and the small airplane folks who love both the VW TDI but prefer “boxer” engines could add up.

Unlikely. So, who would be a good large volume customer for more such engines ? Honda took the cost plunge simply to remain self-dependent.

Posted by petergun at March 10, 2004 10:27 PM
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