Dieselgate Is Finally Causing A Huge Drop In Diesel Car Sales

With manufacturers already making moves to end their reliance on diesel, a massive drop in diesel car sales in May could be the long-awaited first real sign that the public is falling out of love with the fuel

Matt Kimberley

Updated: 12 Sep 2024

Dieselgate Is Finally Causing A Huge Drop In Diesel Car Sales

All the doom-mongering around diesels seems to be taking effect at last, with new figures revealing a year-on-year drop of more than 20,000 sales in a single month.

The UK-only figures, supplied by the Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), paint an ugly picture for May. The same month last year saw 101,844 diesel cars sold, but this year it’s just 81,489. Now that UK councils are jumping on the punitive measures bandwagon as well, Dieselgate is finally having a tangible effect on the market. The Volkswagen Group is already taking huge steps to move away from diesel in the wake of its rule-breaking.

This may be a bit boring, but we like to keep you posted on today’s developments that will affect the cars you’ll buy tomorrow. At the moment, it looks like diesel is seriously falling out of favour, although since petrol car sales haven’t jumped massively, it seems people may just be refraining from trading-in their old derves until they know whether there’s going to be a new scrappage scheme. Petrol sales are up by a gnat’s wing, with 96,518 cars marking a 0.4 per cent boost versus last May.

It’s also bad news for the industry as far as private buyers are concerned, with a 14 per cent fall in May 2017 versus May 2016. That makes 12,500 fewer cars sold as people hang on to their money until it becomes clear which way this whole thing goes.

Comments

But what about the torque :(

My dad’s daily which is a DIESEL has plenty of it, and he most likely won’t get rid of it anytime soon.

Petrol engine are starting to fill the gap. I mean, I use to have a lot of the newest Peugeot / Citroen normal cars to drive. I can tell you that the Puretech and THP engines have the same low-end torque as their diesel equivalent but it just continues to rev past 4500rpm

Electric

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I WANT DIESEL NOT TO DIE!!! cries

My biggest wish at the moment is a time machine.

Demand go down but what about the price? I don’t have problem driving a diesel car.

YOu might not but your government might if you’re in Europe. London for example is going to increase the congestion charge on diesels.

As much as you might hate to admit it, the days of the Diesel engine are numbered. The future belongs to petrol/electric hybrids or even fully electric cars.

Thanks Volkswagen you f*ing douchebags. Really sucks since there are other manufacturers that really build clean diesels like peugeot for example.

How about Dodge? Or GM?

A German liking Peugeot cars, sir, have an upvote, your dear French friend :)

They all lie about the emissions. VW were just the ones that got caught. At least we’re finally getting rid of diesel cars.

Vin’s not happy:

VW is owned and operated by ex-nazi elites that care about only the deutchmark aka Euro…they pollute the world thumbing their noses at laws they view as”unduly forced” upon them by the people…. ironically, the Beetle was called the “people’s car”.You just gotta laugh or cry depending on your perspective and fortitude.

Drops mic…

Wow, if stupidity hurt, you would already be dead. Besides: Almost every other manufacturer also cheated on the test results.

This is happening not just in the UK I live in Ireland and I was out potentially car shopping with my parents for their next car. 3 years ago they were looking for a new car and they were looking at only getting a diesel but now they don’t want to touch a diesel!
What was even more astonishing was I was talking to the sales woman at one of the dealerships and even she said diesel is dying! Their sales are lower in it and we live in rural Ireland where diesel is probably in one in every 4 cars easily so it really goes to show diesels time is drying up! Poor Vin :(

Luckily, here in Asia, diesels are still pretty common.

This is a bit worrying - if nobody buys diesel cars, what happens to the diesel that is produced? What happens to petrol prices?

There’s not enough fuel already. Now imagine if we get rid of diesels, where do we get all the extra petrol from? Crude oil has petrol in it, but also diesel. You can’t produce one or the other - you have to produce both. That’s the physics of it. You can’t choose to produce less diesel and more petrol.

So if you produce more petrol, then there’s going to be more diesel. What exactly is the human race going to do with the excess of diesel, and how is it that we’re going to overcome the shortage of petrol?