Despite lithium battery investments, Bosch still bullish on diesel

While most of the hype for light duty diesel engines in America of the past two years has died down in favor of plug-in vehicles, not everyone has given up compression ignition. Top of the list is Bosch. While the world's largest auto supplier has garnered attention for its joint venture with Samsung to produce lithium ion batteries, it garners far more revenue today for its fuel systems and expects to do so for some time in the future.

Speaking to Automoblie, Dr. Johannes-Joerg Rueger, the senior VP of diesel engineering at Robert Bosch GmbH still expects light duty diesels to account for 15 percent of North American sales by 2015. On the flip-side, he only sees five percent of worldwide sales going to hybrids and electrics in that same time frame. At this point, unless a number of automakers like Honda and Hyundai take the success of the VW Jetta TDI to heart and reverse course to bring diesels to the U.S., It's hard to see how diesels will get there. Of course, with TDI versions of the new Golf and the Passat replacement coming this fall and in 2011, perhaps the VW group can do it alone.

Photos Copyright ©2009 Sam Abuelsamid / Weblogs, Inc.

[Source: Automobile]