Volkswagen will be North America’s only carmaker producing both gasoline and diesel midsize sedans when it starts operation in its Chattanooga plant next year, according to the auto company.
VW is projecting up to 30 percent of its new sedan’s sales will hold its clean diesel engines, and it’s banking on a marketplace that’s changing its opinions about the fuel.
“For most Americans, it’s a fairly new technology,” said VW spokesman Christian Buhlmann about the company’s diesel engines launched in 2008 in the United States.
He said the German automaker already is seeing solid diesel sales.
In March, almost 7,000 of VW’s 22,000 sales in the U.S. were diesel vehicles, he said.