BMW's U.S. Engineering Boss Says 4-Cylinder Turbo-Diesel On the Way

BMW says it will offer four-cylinder diesel engines in some of its U.S. cars, definitely in the 3 Series and likely in the 5 Series sedans as well.

The automaker had revealed the four-cylinder diesel program more than a year ago but said at the time that a decision to bring it to the U.S. would be made after the Presidential election and a clear signal from the new administration as to the fuel economy demands that would be placed on auto makers.

President Obama's decision to accelerate the federal 35.5 mile-per-gallon fleet average fuel economy requirement to 2016 from its original 2020 deadline apparently was the signal BMW needed.

The company, which sells a ton of diesels in Europe, said it hopes to eventually hit 20 percent market share for its oil-burners in the U.S., Inside Line Senior Editor Erin Riches reports in a dispatch from the company's North American headquarters in New Jersey.

Like all diesel passenger vehicles sold in the U.S, now, BMW's will be of the "clean diesel" variety, with highly treated exhaust to meet tough California emissions standards was well as federal EPA tailpipe rules.

Tom Baloga, BMW of North America's engineering veep, told Riches and other journalists that the diesel would be a turbocharged 2.0-liter model turned for performance rather than super-high fuel efficiency.

It needs to match the power performance and outstrip the fuel economy and emissions performance of a BMW turbocharged six-cylinder gas engine, Baloga said.

He would not get specific about the kind of emissions filtering BMW would use but hinted that a four-cylinder diesel would likely be a heat-activated catalytic system, as is used by Volkswagen in the Jetta TDI, rather than a more complex urea-injection system - also called selective catalytic reduction (SCR) - as used on the 6-cylinder BMW X5 xDrive35d and 335d sedan.

The six-cylinder diesels have been well-received by critics but haven't been particularly hot sellers in the U.S. since their introduction earlier this year, in part because of tall starting prices ($44,000 for the sedan and $51,200 for the X5) and in part because relatively low gas prices have made it difficult for many to justify the extra cost of a diesel, even though it delivers 20 percent better fuel economy than the gasoline models.

All the more reason, we say, to bring over those less expensive turbo-fours.

You can read more in Riches' Inside Line report.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

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John O'Dell November 11, 2009, 2:30 AM

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