Diesel
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Audi CEO Rupert Stadler was arrested in Germany on Monday in relation to the dieselgate scandal, according to multiple reports. The German authorities took Stadler into custody over concerns that he would suppress evidence. Munich prosecutors said Stadler's arrest was not made at the request of the U.S. Instead, it appears to be part of German prosecutors' widening probe into Audi. Specifically, the authorities are investigating whether Stadler acted swiftly enough to halt deliveries of Audi models with defeat devices once the cheating had been discovered, a person familiar with the matter...
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Daimler recalls 774,000 diesel vehicles in Europe because of illegal emissions control devices
Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, has been ordered to recall some 774,000 vehicles in Europe after German transportation officials allegedly found up to five illegal emissions control devices on a handful of cars. According to Bloomberg, the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag reported...
Sean Szymkowski -
Germany's second-biggest city to introduce diesel bans on May 31
Hamburg will become Germany's first city to impose a ban on diesel cars. The ban will be introduced on May 31 but only along two major roads in the city center. A number of signs have been erected to warn drivers of the ban and suggest alternative routes. It's not a blanket ban on diesel, as it is...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Volvo ditches diesel
Volvo announced Wednesday that from 2019 it will no longer launch cars fitted with diesel engines. It follows the automaker's announcement last July that every car it launches from 2019 will feature some form of electrification, whether it be mild hybrid, plug-in hybrid or pure electric power. The...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Report: Former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn facing US charges in dieselgate scandal
A Michigan federal court has charged former Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn with defrauding the U.S. for his role in the VW diesel emissions scandal, according to a report from Reuters. Winterkorn resigned in September 2015, shortly after the company admitted that its 2.0-liter turbodiesel...
Kirk Bell -
Mercedes-Benz isn't ready to walk away from diesel
Diesel has, more or less, become a rather dirty word in the aftermath of Volkswagen's dieselgate scandal. However, as the majority of European automakers back away from the fuel, Mercedes-Benz isn't ready to walk away from it just yet. Mercedes-Benz head, Dieter Zetsche, told Autocar in a Monday...
Sean Szymkowski -
Many executives are gone. More than $30 billion dollars have been spent in legal battles, retro-fits, and recalls. Yet on Monday we learned that Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller believes there is a coming "diesel renaissance." "Diesel will see a renaissance in the not-too-distant future because people who drove diesels will realize that it was a very comfortable drive concept," Mueller said Monday in Geneva. "Once the knowledge that diesels are eco-friendly firms up in people's minds, then for me there's no reason not to buy one." That's a bold statement, as reported by Automotive News Europe...
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How did Volkswagen's diesel defeat device work?
Every media outlet in the world covered Volkswagen's tangled web of lies and deceit as "Dieselgate" opened up and spewed the truth nearly three years ago. Its consequences are ongoing today, and VW's future trajectory has been changed forever. But, how exactly did VW's "defeat device" work? Jason...
Sean Szymkowski -
German cities given green light to ban older diesel cars
Germany's top court has given the green light to the cities of Stuttgart and Duesseldorf to ban older, more polluting diesel cars from entering areas worst affected by pollution. The ruling was made Tuesday by the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig in response to appeals from some German...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Just kidding, Porsche isn't done with diesels yet
Maybe the executives at Porsche need to schedule a meeting so they can all get their stories straight. Recently, we reported that the German automaker was moving up its timetable to axe the diesel engine from its lineup. Their original plan seemed to have the oil burner powerplants running through...
Jeff Glucker -
Volkswagen settles Dieselgate lawsuit ahead of trial
Volkswagen AG settled a lawsuit with more than 300 owners days before a potentially embarrassing trial in the U.S., Reuters reported last week. According to the report, Volkswagen reached a settlement Friday with David Doar, a North Carolina man, and similar owners after a judge rejected a request...
Aaron Cole -
Report: FCA plans to kill diesel cars by 2022, future for engines is cloudy
The future for diesel-powered passenger cars is a little hazier now. A week after Porsche announced it would stop offering diesels in its SUVs, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will propose similar action in its small passenger cars, according to a report by the Financial Times. The report indicated that...
Aaron Cole -
Porsche in recent months has been in the midst of internal talks regarding the future of diesel engines within its own lineup. Those talks are clearly over, because the German automaker has just killed off the last remaining oil-burner holdouts in the lineup. For Porsche, diesel is now officially dead. According to Autocar, Porsche has removed the last two models offered in a diesel flavor. The Macan S Diesel and the Panamera 4S Diesel are off the market. This brings Porsche's diesel chapter to a close just 16 years after it kicked off. That first Porsche to get a diesel engine was the...
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2018 Ford F-150 diesel video preview
Long haulers know that there's nothing quite like an oil-burner under the hood. The instant torque and long-legged nature of diesel trucks has endeared itself to heavy-duty buyers for a long time. But a diesel powertrain has escaped the most popular light-duty pickup in North America. Until now...
Aaron Cole -
Power to the people: Diesel BMW 5-Series headed to the States, on sale next month
We'll stop short of saying diesel has been resurrected, but reports of the oil-burner's demise may have been premature. This month, the EPA certified for sale the 2018 BMW 540d xDrive and rated the diesel-powered sedan at 26 mpg city, 36 highway, 30 combined. It will go on sale in the U.S. in...
Aaron Cole -
Diesel Ford F-150 specs revealed: 250 hp, tows up to 11,400 pounds, on sale in spring
Favorable climates breed diversity in any species. Ford detailed this week its 2018 F-150 Power Stroke diesel engine, the first time a diesel has been offered in the mega-selling pickup in its 70-year history, and the sixth engine configuration available to shoppers today. The diesel engine...
Aaron Cole -
Meet the 2017 One-Ton Duramax diesel-powered Chevy Suburban
If you want to buy a new Chevrolet Suburban 3500 Heavy Duty from your local dealer, tough luck. Want a diesel-powered Suburban or Tahoe? You must've been dreaming. Wake up to Duraburb Inc's creation. Based out of Apopka, Florida, Duraburb has been converting full-size GM SUVs to diesel power since...
Joel Feder -
Hyundai SUV onslaught will include diesel, electric and fuel cell models
Hyundai’s been caught out by the consumer shift to SUVs and pickup trucks, and this is reflected in the automaker’s sales which in the first half of the year are down nearly 11 percent compared to an overall market decline of only 2.9 percent. The picture is much bleaker when you focus...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
In 2011, Audi announced radical plans to start energy production using wind farms located in the North Sea. By feeding this renewable energy back into the grid, Audi could boast that the energy used by its future electric cars would be completely clean. However, instead of stopping there, Audi looked at turning some of the renewable energy into liquid fuels that could used by more conventional cars. The first was a synthetic gas chemically similar to natural gas that Audi started producing in 2013, called e-gas. This was followed in 2015 by a synthetic gasoline, called e-benzin. (Benzin is...
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Fix is in for some VW, Porsche, Audi dieselgate SUVs
Volkswagen can begin updating roughly 38,000 SUVs illegally equipped with emissions-cheating devices, federal and state regulators announced Monday. The EPA and California Air Resources Board sent a letter to VW, Audi, and Porsche officials Friday approving fixes for 2013-2016 Volkswagen Touaregs...
Aaron Cole -
German Chancellor Merkel says non-electrified cars will be phased out, but won’t say when
Governments, particularly in Europe, are under pressure to curb emissions. In July, both France and the United Kingdom agreed to ban the sale of cars powered solely by gasoline or diesel by 2040. But the government in Germany, a country perhaps more closely linked with its auto industry than any...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
2018 Ram 3500 Heavy Duty makes 930 lb-ft of torque, may rotate earth
The 2018 Ram 3500 can lay claim to two automotive superlatives. At least, right now it can. When equipped with a 6.7-liter turbodiesel, dual rear wheels, Aisin 6-speed automatic, and a 4.10 rear axle ratio, the 2018 Ram 3500 will make 930 pound-feet of torque and haul a 30,000-pound fifth-wheel...
Aaron Cole -
German automakers propose 25 percent NOx reduction, even in older models, to avoid ditching diesels
Automakers have spent billions developing diesel engines to help meet tougher carbon dioxide (CO2) emission standards, so understandably they aren’t willing to walk away from the technology just yet. But diesels are very much on the nose in the wake of the Volkswagen Group scandal, with some...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Porsche Cayenne recalled in Europe due to diesel cheating concerns
Following a recent probe, Germany’s official transport authority, the KBA, on Thursday ordered Porsche to recall 22,000 Cayenne SUVs across Europe after discovering emissions cheating software. The recalled Cayennes are those examples fitted with a 3.0-liter diesel engine, the same fitted to...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran