Volkswagen Claims Smaller Engines Will Not Be Cost Effective To Bring To Market

The key in this article is that engine manufacturers have been designing their engines to perform well under the conditions defined by law for in-lab-only emissions and fuel economy tests. In other words, they designed engines to "ace the test." And as you might reasonably expect, they perform beautifully under those specific lab-only test conditions, and much less admirably in the real world. In most cases, nobody -- not even the gentlest, most diligent driver -- can reproduce the lab results while operating the vehicle in the real world. (Consumers have come to accept this as "normal").

The article cites "the onset of better real-world economy testing [methodology]" as a key factor in their realization. In other words, VW is shifting their focus from acing the in-lab-only test, to performing well under real-world conditions, and in doing so, they've discovered that their old approach to designing engines that perform well only in the lab, is no longer suitable for attaining good real-world results. Is anyone surprised?

You'll find other manufacturers following suit.

VW isn't know for their amazing gas engines, so this isn't surprising.

These engines were likely to far along to pull the plug. It was only since dieselgate that automakers realized building to the test would be a dead-end strategy.

VW and "cost effective" are mutually exclusive terms.

Only highly polluting, cheating, high maintenance, high cost dirty diesels are cost effective for VW to fraudulently schleppe on people under the guise of "Clean Diesel". Fuck VW.

Translation:

With cars becoming heavier due to increasing safety regulations, the prohibitive cost of bringing carbon fiber manufacturing online and consumer driving behavior, we would be forced to replace drivetrain components, due to failure, under the necessary warranty coverage we will have to offer to remain competitive.

Translation:

VW is incapable of designing anything that is class competitive much less class leading.