Mazda sees ‘certain future for diesel’

Mazda’s large SUV CX-60 is only available in the Netherlands as a PHEV, but it is also sold elsewhere in Europe and Japan with a new six-in-line diesel engine. While the market share of this type of powertrain is declining rapidly, Mazda still believes in it. The fact that politicians are not fans of it causes a lot of irritation, as we noticed during a Mazda event where we talked to Christian Schultze, director of technology research at Mazda’s European R&D center in Frankfurt.

“We certainly still believe in diesel,” he says when asked. “If we look at the CX-60, half of it is still sold as diesel in Germany. Diesel technology is unfortunately still bashed. For no good reason, it’s just emotion. If you look at our inline-six, it is a very economical engine that meets all strict new environmental requirements regarding emissions. There is no complaint about it. That’s why I still see a future for the diesel car. The elections for the European Parliament will be held next summer and I hope that many people will vote and vote ‘well’. The current parliament is very ideologically green, sometimes without purpose. Or for the sole purpose of doing it for the sake of doing it. For the future, we must understand that electrification is fine, but the idea of ​​’only electrification and nothing else’ is completely illogical… If we really want to do something for our climate, we should not put all other solutions aside. An example: in Germany the number of EVs is 2-2.5%. So more than 97.5% of cars have a combustion engine. Should we leave all this technology as it is now? If we reduce the CO2 emissions of current combustion engines by 20%, we will achieve ten times as much as all EVs together now do. And that is if those EVs run on 100% electricity generated from renewable sources, which is not the case. That’s the order of magnitude we’re talking about.

He also believes that synthetic fuel is not seen enough as a serious option. “European politicians apparently always have two goals: reducing CO2 emissions, which is fine, and energy independence. But the two are difficult to combine. If you look at synthetic fuels, for example, they come from countries other than the well-known OPEC names. And in the meantime, the focus is mainly on aviation with SAF. But synfuel is at least three times more expensive than the current tax-free kerosene. But it’s almost cheaper than the raw fuel price of cars, once you take out taxes. That makes cars, not planes, the best target for carbon-neutral synthetic fuels. There are such great opportunities there, but no one can explain why this is not receiving attention.”