Renault will remove the majority of its diesel engine options in the UK by the end of the year, leaving only the Mégane available to order with diesel power.
As of this week the Kadjar SUV is no longer offered with the 1.5-litre four-cylinder diesel. The sole engine option is now a turbocharged 1.3-litre petrol with 138bhp.
Later in the year, diesel versions of the Renault Captur crossover and Renault Clio supermini will meet the same fate, although both of those cars now offer petrol-electric hybrid powertrains.
This means the Mégane family hatchback and estate will be Renault's only diesel offerings for UK customers. The engine itself has been overhauled to meet Euro 6d and RDE2 regulations, which substantially reduce the amount of particulate and NOx emissions allowed.
A number of manufacturers have been cutting diesel engine variants from their line-ups across Europe in the past few years, and that has continued during 2020 as the fuel has dropped to just over 20% of the UK market to date.
Just last week, Ford announced that it was dropping diesel versions of the Fiesta, while the Mazda 6 will also be moving to petrol power-only.
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Kadjar 162bhp dropped from range
I am looking to renew in a year or so and being kept up-to-date is important to me.
I will never have an electric or plug-in hybrid as I live in an apartment and my landlord will not fit a charging point, plus I do not see the point of plugging in when a fossil-fuel can charge whilst driving.
The answer to electric car charging is passive charging at traffic lights, will cut down on red-light-jumpers and highways with passive charging built-in, this would allow the speed to be governed easier than Speed-Sign-Recognition software that fails with a dirty windscreen!
I could revolutionise the highways with my foresight and ideas. They're just plain commonsense and the infrastructure is already in place.
Such a shame . .
That 1.5 diesel was a good little engine. We hired a Clio in France with the 1.5 engine. Very economical and quite quiet for a small diesel.
Do Renault produce a decent diesel engine?
I recently drove a Captur 1.5 diesel automatic. It didn't have enough power to overtake anything faster than a fat man on a bicycle. It was dangerous. If you used the box manually, you could not find a rev range that had any torque. If you used kickdown then it just held the revs at 4K and the harshess and straining made you think that it was about to explode.
Agreed
So true LucyP, its exactly why such powertrains are not sold in the USA. We have arguable the opposite problem - excess!