"The Olympus of diesel". “Diesel taste”. Turn-of-the-century advertising was a hymn of hedonism to the gods rattling around inside diesel engines, accompanied by tax drivers who still guarantee the cheapest fuel today. Several decades later, the market has turned around and the sale of this type of vehicle is beginning to be residual. And since the factories are behind the registrations, the Spanish car production plants have undertaken their own reconversion: the number of diesel cars that come out of them continues to decrease and the companies take it for granted that the decline is already irreversible.
In June, according to the latest production data from the Anfac manufacturers' association, barely 20,012 diesel-powered passenger cars were assembled in Spanish factories, 10.6% of the total. On the other hand, those with gasoline were 125,154 and equivalent to 66%, while the number of electrified reached 25,056, that is, 23.8%. This group includes hybrids, which have an electric and gasoline motor. If the production of diesel cars falls at interannual rates of 45%, that of gasoline rises 5.1% and that of electrified cars, almost 24%.
These percentages are the result of the radical change in the activity of the factories in a few years. Upon detecting the trend, Anfac began to report on it in September 2020, when gasoline already represented 66% of the cars produced, a percentage similar to the current one, and diesel still equaled 26%. In less than three years, diesel cars have reduced their weight to less than half.
“The decline of diesel began with dieselgate. Before it was 60% in favor of diesel and 40% in favor of gasoline, but now it has changed radically”, explains the president of the Seat works council, Matías Carnero. “With electrification, diesel is going to be penalized even more”, and that has been “a challenge for Spain, which in the past had specialized” in this type of vehicle.
Another factor that is sweeping diesel from Spanish factories has to do with the type of models manufactured. The country is characterized by producing small vehicles in its range, such as the Volkswagen Polo, Taigo and T-Cross, the Audi A1 or the Seat Ibiza and Arona. They are precisely the ones that, due to their size, have previously run out of a diesel version, explain sources in the sector.
The Stellantis plant in Vigo has stopped producing diesel versions of passenger vans, which are now 100% electric, which is also a symptom of changing times. The last stronghold of diesel is precisely vans, trucks and industrial vehicles, where diesel continues to be dominant. The transition in these vehicles, as Stellantis is doing, consists of going from diesel to electric without gasoline as an intermediate step.
Of the 38 models that are manufactured in Spain, 19 are already electrified and none is produced exclusively with a diesel engine. In Mercedes Vitoria, Stellantis Vigo and Renault Palencia there are already more models that were once considered alternative than conventional, and from the Seat Martorell factory the commitment to Cupra is electric, without concessions to diesel.
In Anfac they take it for granted that the sales of diesel cars will drop even more, in view of the trend in Europe and the behavior of the market. "So far this year, in Spain the decline in its weight in the market continues," indicate sources from the association.
In the EU, diesel cars still account for 13.4% of the market, despite their sharp decline. A year ago, its weight was 17%, according to data from the European association Acea.
"Diesel has been demonized and there is an interesting paradigm shift," says the general secretary of UGT at the Ford factory in Almussafes, Carlos Faubel. The problem, he asserts, is that the rapid disappearance of diesel is not being matched by the same speed in electrification.
