A year on from the Volkswagen emission scandal, speculation is growing about the life-span of diesel engines, fuelled by rumours that Norway is planning to ban all diesel engine passenger cars by 2025. With these factors in mind Turbo specialist Melett has been looking at the possible impact these factors may have on the turbo aftermarket.

In a bid to improve air quality in Norway, leading political parties have called for a ban of the sale of all diesel passenger cars by 2025. However, such a scenario would seem unlikely in Ireland or the UK where government policy is largely in favour of low emission diesel vehicles and the diesel population is much higher. Norway is well down the road towards an electric and hybrid vehicle fleet so the impact of a diesel ban would not have such an impact.

In the early 2000’s several European governments accepted a trade off of a negative effect on air pollution from diesels being vastly outweighed by the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Governments are highly unlikely to give up the greenhouse gas advantage of diesel in the short- or medium-term, meaning the immediate future of diesel cars is safer than many predict.

Technology advances also mean there are many benefits to diesel engines. It has been well publicised that today's diesel passenger cars are the cleanest ever, with high tech filters capturing 99% of particulates. Since the introduction of the Euro emission regulations in 1992 diesel particulate matter has reduced significantly and is currently at the same level as petrol applications at 0.005 g/km. NOx emissions have also significantly reduced and are just 0.02 grams behind petrol passenger cars.

Overall, diesel engines are more efficient to run and contain more energy per litre than petrol engines. Diesel’s have led the way in turbocharging technology, with petrol applications now quickly following suit.

This means in terms of the turbo aftermarket, there are still plenty of turbochargers globally that will need repair, and due to the adoption of turbos on petrol applications, this will continue for very many years to come.