Announcing Diesel-Powered Homewreckers

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Diesel engines increasingly turn into causes for divorce in the promiscuous automotive business. PSA Peugeot Citroen and Ford are calling off some of their diesel dalliances.

While heaping praise on a 12 year cohabitation that produced “more than 20 million engines in two displacement families (1.4-litre to 1.6-litre and 2.0-litre and above),” a joint statement by PSA and Ford says that they will no longer cooperate making bigger bore diesels. Or, as the statement says in an emotionally responsible manner:

“The two companies have decided to independently develop and manufacture their larger diesel engines (2.0-litre and above) to meet their future needs as well as new regulations. This decision has no impact on the current production of the existing jointly-developed diesel engines.”

When GM and Peugeot decided to shack up together in a broad based alliance, “Peugeot had said the tie-up would not affect existing partnerships including joint diesel-engine production with Ford,” Reuters can’t help remarking

Peugeot and Ford will continue to cooperate on smaller diesels and a new generation of engines developed to meet new European emissions rules entering into force in 2014, the companies said.

We all know what happened to Suzuki and Volkswagen after Fiat sold diesel engines to Japan.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Beerboy12 Beerboy12 on Apr 05, 2012

    I still cannot think of any other reason for a GM / PSA tie up so I guess that means it's doomed but I still wanna see that diesel corvette... :-)

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