Porsche NEVER wanted to offer DIESEL engines – and now it doesn’t

Porsche has announced that it has ended production of all diesel-engined cars and in future will only offer ICE, hybrid and BEV models in its range.

When Porsche first introduced a diesel engine in the Cayenne in 2009, Porsche anoraks everywhere howled in anguish. And, so did Porsche.

The idea of a thug of a engine diesel living under the skin of a Porsche, instead of a glorious, naturally aspirated petrol engine was pretty much anathema to Stuttgart.

But, just as the Cayenne SUV changed minds (well, most minds) as it became a cash cow, once everyone got used to Porsche delivering cars with a (VW) diesel engine, business buyers, in particular, lapped it up for its strong performance and more efficient tax breaks.

But the writing has been on the wall for diesel engines at Porsche, and the arrival of the new Cayenne without a diesel option looked to set the future path, as did Porsche’s reaction to the defeat device they found lurking in their VW diesels.

Last summer, when explaining what they were doing to ‘fix’ their over-emitting VW diesels, Porsche said:

Diesel engines traditionally play a subordinate role at Porsche – the company does not develop or build diesel engines itself. In addition, the demand for Porsche diesel models is falling, whereas interest in hybrid models has risen dramatically. Currently, one in four of new Panamera delivered is a hybrid model. Nevertheless, diesel engines do make an important contribution when it comes to achieving CO2 targets and are set to remain in use at Porsche in the future. Over the course of the next ten years, Porsche plans to offer optimised combustion engines, plug-in hybrid models and purely electric sports cars in parallel.

That was the writing on the wall, but Porsche has acted far sooner than expected, and you can no longer buy a Macan or a Panamera with a diesel engine.

Is anyone sorry?