You can officially add Toyota to the list of manufacturers dropping diesel from their passenger car lineups. The brand has confirmed that it's phasing out diesel passenger vehicles in Europe over the course of 2018, starting with cars like the Auris you see above -- your only choices for the hatchback are a modest 1.2L turbo 4-cylinder or 1.8L and 2.0L hybrid solutions. The company will keep diesel commercial vehicles like the Hilux truck, Land Cruiser SUV and Proace van to "meet customer needs," but that's as far as it goes.
Toyota said the death of diesel was due to "strong customer demand" for hybrid versions of its cars. About 41 percent of cars sold through its European branch were hybrid models, while diesel represented "less than" 10 percent. This isn't so much a bold move as it is a pragmatic one: if hybrids are on the rise (sales jumped 38 percent year-on-year) while diesel is almost a rounding error, why keep diesel around?
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