The Chief Executive of Swedish car manufacturing company Volvo, Hakan Samuelsson stated last Wednesday that Volvo will stop making diesel engines for its upcoming models and would focus on hybrid and electric cars, and release the first pure electric model in the market in 2019.
More than half of the new registered cars in Europe are Diesel-run, and 90 percent of Volvo’s XC90 sales in Europe have diesel engines. But due to heavy criticism from the people after the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal, Volvo decided to bring changes to its future cars.
Diesel is one of the most popular and criticized fuels, as it has a profound impact on the environment and human health. Nitrogen oxides that are emitted when the fuel is burnt, cause thousands of deaths and are accumulating in the air of many major cities throughout the world, especially Europe (since diesel cars are most popular there).
Samuelsson believes strict emission rules to be implemented on Diesel-engine cars will push their maintenance prices up, so the Hybrid-cars will be a better and winning alternative amongst the people.
Tesla has already manufactured 2 all-electric -vehicles for which people are cueing up. Renault has also admitted it will stop making diesel engines (for small cars), whereas Volkswagen has decided to manufacture petrol-hybrid cars for the next generation of Polo.