Dud or Stud? Chevy's Diesel Cruze Gambit Offers No Guarantee of Success

General Motors is surprisingly boastful when it speaks of the upcoming Chevrolet Cruze Diesel, especially its newfound role as a warm Linus blanket offered to disenfranchised Volkswagen owners.

We’ve been told there’ll be manual transmissions galore, and lets-just-pretend-it’s-a-wagon hatchback variants, too. Now, GM claims a sporty RS version is in the works, which it believes will have VW owners scrambling to trade in their peace signs for bow ties.

Will buyers be kind to the new (and legal) “Whisper Diesel” or is this just an oily pipe dream?

One month before the Environmental Protection Agency blew open the diesel emissions scandal in September of 2015, the German automaker’s TDI models accounted for nearly 58 percent of the diesel light vehicle market in the U.S. Buyers were sold on the attributes of the high-mileage, torquey, four-cylinder units.

Five years ago, a VW dealer told this writer that he’d still sell every vehicle on his lot if 50 percent of them were diesels. Sadly, he claimed, head office only allowed a 25-percent diesel mix.

Now, GM has high hopes that TDI owners facing a buyback will trade their dirty “clean” diesel for a legitimately clean 1.6-liter diesel. Dan Nicholson, GM’s vice president for global propulsion systems, says that a good number of former owners “won’t stop wishing for a diesel.”

“And we’ll go after those customers,” he told Automotive News in August.

An RS variant is the latest promise for the diverse 2018 Cruze Diesel lineup, which bows in late summer or early fall of next year. Speaking to Motor Authority, GM North America president Alan Batey claims the diesel RS will be “fun to drive,” making that point more than once.

“You take this look, and you take those performance parts, and you marry it with a diesel,” he said, adding again, “This will be fun to drive.”

That could be true — if output matches the 136 horsepower and 236 lb-ft of torque seen in the 2018 Equinox. However, GM’s plans have already found its critics.

Speaking to The Detroit News, Michelle Krebs, senior analyst at Autotrader.com, claims the diesel push has nothing to do with sales.

“I think it’s purely a fuel economy play, as we move closer to fuel economy standards,” Krebs said. “I suspect the take-rate will be very low after the whole Volkswagen situation.”

Speculation has swirled around the model’s fuel economy, with a potential 50 mile per gallon highway figure mentioned. If the Cruze Diesel’s mileage comes close to that, not only would it be a highly marketable claim, but the automaker’s corporate average fuel economy would see a welcome boost.

As GM crosses its fingers, time will tell if the American diesel renaissance recovers from its near-dead state.

[Image: General Motors]