Diesel passenger cars hard to justify: Toyota's Soden

Fancy a turbodiesel Corolla? Don't hold your breath -- that's the short version of the message from Toyota Australia product planning chief, Doug Soden.

"From a product perspective it would be nice to have some diesel variants in my [passenger car] model line-up. [But] Considering we can't get enough Corollas would I work hard to put a diesel into Corolla… Hmmm… It makes it difficult to justify some times. That's not to say it wouldn't be nice to have it," Soden commented

Soden contends diesel passenger cars only "come into their own" when used for longer trips. He says the efficiency of Toyota's petrol engines puts less emphasis on diesel for the brand -- especially when applied to vehicles that are used "stop start."

"Everybody gets hot under the collar about diesels but as the person charged with running the product planning for Toyota and Lexus in Australia, it's not pushing my buttons."

In vehicles like the RAV4 which straddle the SUV and passenger market Soden is more amenable to widening Toyota's turbodiesel offering. But commenting on the decision to launch a 3.5-litre V6 200kw-plus petrol RAV4 rather than the 2.2-litre 130kW/400Nm D-4D engined 'Euro' version he said: "Sometimes it's what you can get as well."

"But I think with RAV4, I'm not sure that type of [customer] set would go all over diesel… You've also got to look at what sort of offerings are available -- what sort of diesel engines are available for RAV4."

"I tend to think commercial vehicle for diesel at the moment -- with the choice of diesel versus petrol. You've just got to look at how many variants you put into the market and competitors too," Soden said.

Soden admitted if X-TRAIL "jumped out there with a diesel engine and started really selling some volume" Toyota would look at the decision but also said substitution was an issue with multi-engine offerings.

Though Toyota Australia is not in a diesel daze, head office has announced plans it will step up its passenger diesel development. Driven largely of its desire to perform better in Europe, according to Powertrain R&D chief Masatami Takimoto, the company has commenced a joint venture project with GM affiliate Isuzu to develop a range of high-tech diesel powerplants.

Takimoto says Toyota's turbodiesel project focus will be significantly reduced emissions as well as fuel efficiency.