VW’s Boss Has Declared That Downsizing Is Dead

Speaking at the launch of the refreshed Golf, VW chairman Dr. Herbert Diess said the downsizing trend is at an end

03 Feb 2017

VW’s Boss Has Declared That Downsizing Is Dead

When first perusing the press release for the facelifted VW Golf late last year, the first thing we noticed wasn’t the GTI’s power boost, nor the autonomous-ish tech. No, it was the new 1.5-litre TSI ‘Evo’ engine.

It’s a replacement for the old 1.4, so it represents something of an oddity in today’s downsize crazy car industry: an upsized engine. And it’s something we can expect a lot more of. When we queried the increase in capacity with VW chairman Dr. Herbert Diess at the refreshed Golf’s launch this week, he confidently declared that: “The trend of downsizing is over.” The reason is simple, with Dr. Diess adding: “Emissions tend to go up as engines get smaller.”

While it’s significant for a major industry figure for Diess to admit this, it’s not a surprise. It’s clear from real-world economy figures that while downsizing works jolly nicely on paper thanks to the highly unrealistic NEDC testing cycle, smaller turbo engines just don’t deliver anything like MPG and emissions figures they’re supposed to.

Meanwhile, Mazda is probably feeling quite smug it didn’t bother with any of this downsizing nonsense, sticking with comparatively large naturally-aspirated engines that achieve decent real-world fuel economy.

All this follows a report in Reuters last October, citing industry sources that indicated VW and other manufacturers are planning to scrap or increase the capacity of some of their smallest engines. The same report also mentioned Renault’s 0.9-litre H4Bt actually injects excess amounts of petrol to stop it overheating, for example, which is so stupidly wasteful it’s almost funny.

In the case of VW, what’s interesting is that while Dr. Diess concedes “displacements will go up,” he reckons the firm’s dinky 1.0-litre turbo three-pot is safe for now. “We will offer a three-cylinder 1.0-litre which is a very competent engine, but we don’t see any engines below that anymore,” he said.

The world of small engines is set to get quite interesting over the next few years.

Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.

Comments

JDM Shark 🇧🇷 Yo

Downsizing, it gives the car better “fuel economy,”-VW

Ah nice 2L inline 3 Diesel…stop that ugly inline 4 trend…make engine sound great again

There’s always the thought of a V4

Why not 2L 2 inline? 😂

Waiting for the “no replacement for displacement” guys

Well, I’m here now lol

and the three pot will get upsized to what? 1.05 liters? oooooooooooooh

1.2 with 12.000rpm at redline maybe 😂

I’m starting to like VW more and more

Will we see another V12 TDI? Would be an interesting engine choice for an R8 like they attempted a few years ago

My Father had an Explorer, same year as mine. It was a Limited, with almost identical options. The only big difference was that I had the 5.0 V8 with a four speed, and his was a 4.0 V6 with a five speed. His was also lighter due to the smaller powertrain. Mine got better city fuel economy, because it didn’t have to work as hard to get itself moving. To clarify, I drove mine pretty hard while he drove pretty slowly.

Disclaimer:high-school physics.
As far as I’m concerned, the size doesn’t matter much. Any work needs a specific amount of energy. It’s how efficient the engine is really (how much power it’s able to pull out of the amount of fuel it burns.) Technically 100ps use the same energy in a 7.0 little V8 or a 1.0 turbo (ignoring the friction and the weight). When being relaxed comes to play is reliability.