Jaguar Land Rover’s managing director says the public is generally misinformed about the effects of running an oil-burner, insisting that “there is nothing wrong with buying a modern diesel car”.
Jeremy Hicks told Autocar that the car-buying public wasn’t well informed about modern diesel engines and pollution.
“More than half of drivers don’t know what Euro 6 standards means. Almost a third don’t know whether the CO2 emissions we want to curb should be attributed to petrol or diesel engines. It is the same when it comes to NOx,” Hicks said, referencing a new study commissioned by the British automaker.
“You can choose diesel to help fight global warming or petrol for better air quality,” he added.
Hicks told the publication that “demonising diesel” would not “actually address the problem we are trying to solve”, emphasising that the Euro 6 engines used in many modern vehicles are “substantially cleaner than previous iterations”.
“There has been a seismic shift in diesel technology, almost eliminating NOx. Nobody is trying to ban Euro 6 engines in London or Stuttgart or other cities looking to cut pollution to be fair, but the impression is being given that all diesels are the same – and it causes confusion and creates false impressions,” he said.
“Here is the truth: if you care about air quality in our cities there is nothing wrong with buying a modern diesel car.”
Hicks went on to “imagine a well-intentioned person deciding against buying a diesel car for environmental reasons as they sling another log onto the wood-burning stove thinking they are returning to nature”.
“If air quality is going to improve, our vision has to be broader and our focus sharper than just the private motorist,” he told Autocar.
