One of the biggest increases was seen at Audi, where 64.3 percent of A3 hatchbacks sold in June were equipped with a diesel engine. Mercedes-Benz is also riding the diesel wave and its BlueTEC lineup saw a 50.3 percent sales increase over the first half of the year compared to the first half of 2011.
The second reason is that there are many more diesels available in the United States today than there were ten years ago, and the number is constantly growing. Volkswagen will offer a TDI engine in its Beetle, Jeep will launch a Grand Cherokee diesel in 2013 or 2014, Porsche introduced the Cayenne diesel not long ago and even Cadillac has announced that it will be making a return to oil-burning powerplants in the near future.
Industry analysts agree that the compression-ignition engine has a bright future ahead of it in the United States.
"Clean diesel auto sales have increased in 22 of the past 23 months with double-digit increases in 20 of those months," said Allen Schaeffer, the director of the Diesel Technology Forum. "I expect clean diesel auto sales to increase further as several new diesel cars are introduced in the U.S. market in the next year."
Photo by Ronan Glon.
