VW broadens BlueMotion

With the world looking increasingly to diesel and hybrid power to cut fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, Volkswagen has seen a surprising shift in demand back towards petrol engines in recent times.

The German giant has long attracted strong demand for its advanced diesel engines, which comprised almost half of VW’s local vehicle line-up about five years ago but are now fitted to a smaller proportion of the models bought in Australia, following the introduction of the company’s ground-breaking small-capacity ‘twin-charged’ TSI engine in 2009.

Across its entire model range, diesel versus petrol vehicle sales have gone from 48 versus 52 per cent respectively in 2006 to 45:55 in 2011. The surge in petrol engine popularity is most marked in the Golf line-up, which has seen the diesel versus petrol split drop from 42:58 in 2006 to just 25:75 last year.

Of course, as is the case with most manufacturers, diesel power continues to command a price premium over petrol engines. The Golf range is currently opened by two petrol engines - the turbo-petrol 1.2 77TSI ($21,990) and 1.4 90TSI ($24,990) variants. The cheapest diesel Golf remains the 1.6 BlueMotion at $28,990, with the high-tech turbocharged and supercharged petrol 1.4 118TSI Comfort variant costing $29,490.

At the company’s Think Blue Eco Driving Challenge this week, Volkswagen Group Australia spokesman Karl Gehling told motoring.com.au the shift is not as anomalous as it looks.

“It doesn’t reflect a migration from diesel to petrol – in straight units-shifted figures we haven’t seen a drop in diesel sales. Rather, we’ve seen substantial growth in overall sales, with a noticeable skew towards petrol models,” he said.

Over the last few years, the company’s petrol engines have been the chief beneficiaries of constant technological update. Official fuel consumption figures for petrol Golf models have dropped from 8.6L/100km combined in 2006 (2.0 FSI) to 6.2L/100km in 2009 with the arrival of the TSI118. It remains at 6.2 today.

Over the same period, diesel TDI models have seen steadier but less dramatic improvement, dropping from 6.1L/100km combined in 2006 through 5.6L/100km in 2009 to a current 5.3L/100km.

All figures quoted here are for conventional auto/DSG transmission models, meaning we’ve excluded the manual-only Golf BlueMotion, a halo model launched mid-2011 to showcase the BlueMotion suite of technologies Volkswagen is incorporating to varying extents across its entire diesel fleet.

While the petrol models saw dramatic change with a substantial overhaul to base engines in 2009, the diesel line-up has drawn steady benefits with the introduction of these technologies.
 
The Golf BlueMotion is the only model that gets the lot. It’s a package that runs deep, with the 77kW 1.6-litre TDI engine remapped for fuel economy and lower idling speed.

Along with the expected automatic idle-stop and regenerative braking systems, the manual transmission gets taller third, fourth and fifth ratios to reduce revs at commute and highway speeds, resulting in what Volkswagen says is a win-win, boosting both performance and fuel economy.

Ride height has been dropped 15mm and aerodynamics have been tweaked, including underneath, to make it slipperier. The engine also uses heat more efficiently, thanks to front-end modifications designed to cut cooling system drag.

The result is combined cycle fuel consumption of just 3.8L/100km and CO2 emissions of just 99g/km, making it the most fuel-efficient new vehicle available in Australia, if not the lowest-emissions – that honour remains with Toyota’s hybrid Prius family.

Mr Gehling told motoring.com.au that despite the resurgent interest in its petrol models, Volkswagen remains committed to diesel and BlueMotion. “It’s a matter of rolling out the right technologies in the appropriate models,” he said.

VW has expanded the number of models it offers with a BlueMotion Technologies badge, which is now applied to any model that features at least two elements of the company’s fuel-tech suite - namely idle-stop and brake energy regeneration – including the entire new Passat range, the Tiguan 103TDI AWD, Touareg 150TDI and the recently released CC.

Along with those elements, the second-generation CC (formerly Passat CC) now has a coasting function that automatically disengages the DSG when it detects the driver’s foot coming off the accelerator pedal in appropriate conditions, while the six-cylinder Touareg BlueMotion gets a thermal management system designed to get larger engines up to operating temperature faster.

The other new model to wear the BlueMotion badge at VW’s Think Blue Challenge this week was the Golf 103TDI, a special low-consumption version of the popular 2.0-litre turbo-diesel hatchback that’s available only in popular Comfortline DSG guise and brings fuel savings of up to a litre per kilometre.

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