Porsche and the end of its definitive farewell to diesel engines

Porsche has confirmed that it will no longer build a model with a diesel engine. However, in the future we will see many Porsche connected by a cable to a plug.

That Porsche was going to say goodbye for good to diesel engines was something that was a foregone conclusion; only the official confirmation was missing. Now, the German brand, which had already announced its electrification plans with investments of more than 6,000 million euros in electromobility by 2022, has confirmed what was coming. We will not see a new Porsche model running on diesel again. And no, it is not that the “bosses” of the Stuttgart brand have read our article with 10 reasons to say goodbye to diesel.

After repeatedly stating that they would never build an SUV or that a Porsche with a diesel engine would exist, in 2008 the Porsche Cayenne V6 3.0 diesel was launched

The “Dieselgate” case, involving the Group Volkswagen engines rigged to get past emissions regulations, which broke out in 2015, ended up splashing Porsche too, and that was a hard blow. The German brand had to recall first 22,000 Porsche Cayenne in the summer of 2017, and 60,000 units of the Porsche Cayenne and Porsche Macan in May 2018, all with the V6 3.0 diesel engine, after irregularities were discovered in the engine control software.

Although it would not be fair to attribute to this reason the change of direction of Porsche regarding diesel engines, in a decision that seems to have been taken a long time ago. In fact, Porsche has not offered models with diesel engines since February of this year. As a first justification, the brand argues that demand for these versions continues to fall, in contrast to the unstoppable rise of hybrids. One example: during 2017, 63 percent of the Porsche Panamera sold in Europe were hybrid versions, and only 12 percent were diesel variants.

What we do not know is to what extent this shift in trend in favour of hybrids is due to users “punishing” the brand by losing confidence in its diesel engines (or the Group’s, to be more exact). Or it may be motivated by the evolution of hybrid technology, which has led to the most powerful Porsche in current production being a hybrid model, the Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid.

Porsche never built a diesel engine of its own development; they were always TDI engines from the Group Volkswagen, adapted by the brand for its sports cars.

The CEO of Porsche, Oliver Blume, has declared on this matter: “At Porsche we do not demonise diesel. It is, and will remain, an important propulsion technology. We are a sports car manufacturer, for which diesels have always played a secondary role, and we have come to the conclusion that we will not contemplate this type of engine for the future. Naturally, we will continue to take care of our existing diesel model customers with the professionalism they expect”. This means that current customers of a Porsche with a diesel engine can rest easy. As expected, they should not fear in the future any possible breakdowns, spare parts or maintenance at an official brand service.

The Porsche Taycan will be the first fully electric Porsche model, which has already confirmed it is definitively abandoning diesel engines, to focus on hybrid and electric cars.

As for Porsche, its new roadmap has been set for some time. In 2019 its first fully electric car arrives, the Porsche Taycan. And according to the brand, by 2025 every new Porsche “could” have an electric propulsion system, whether a purely electric car or a hybrid. Does this mean we will never see a diesel Porsche 911, but that we will see a “nine-eleven” with a cable to plug into the electrical grid to recharge its batteries? Time will tell, but Porsche makes the word “could” very clear in that sentence.

Porsche and the diesel engine: a little history

To see the word “diesel” in a four-wheeled vehicle bearing the Porsche logo, we have to go back to 1937. At that time, Ferdinand Porsche developed a tractor to make life easier for the farmers of the time, fitted with a single-cylinder engine. It remained in production until no less than 1963, although perhaps this is not the car we would all think of if we asked ourselves about the first diesel Porsche in history.

Porsche succumbed to two market trends it had resisted, even denying the greater one. The author of these lines heard on more than one occasion executives of the brand at presentations or motor shows say things like “Porsche will never build an SUV”, or “Porsche will not have a model with a diesel engine”. But as they say, in 2008, Porsche already had in its range an SUV with an engine that ran on diesel: the Porsche Cayenne. For this model, Porsche used the 3-litre V6 engine from the Group Volkswagen, with 240 CV. Subsequently, Porsche has used successive evolutions of this engine, and also fitted the V8 TDI used by various Audi models.

With the first-generation Cayenne, Porsche boasted of being an SUV… and of having a diesel engine. We will continue to see SUVs, but electric or hybrid ones.

Porsche has offered –and with great sales success– diesel versions of the Cayenne, the Panamera and the Macan. In recent years I have been lucky enough to try them all. And I can assure you that, at least in their most powerful versions, Porsche managed to give the diesel engines of Volkswagen (and they were very proud of it) that “touch” which allowed Porsche diesels to remain precisely that, authentic Porsches. Although many fans of the brand always considered it an aberration that a Porsche ran on diesel.

It remains to be seen now what the latter think about a Porsche running on electricity and making no noise.