UK: Land Rover mulls diesel-only offer

18 May 2007 | Source: just-auto.com editorial team

With diesels accounting for 95% of all Land Rover sales in Britain, how long before the firm ditches petrol models altogether in its home market? It's something that has been considered, according to UK managing director John Edwards.

"There are no plans to go diesel-only here at the moment," he said this week. "But it's something we have looked at and we will continue to do so. There's a strong argument for it, as less models means a more effective production process."

But one of the key reasons behind such a bold move would be the positive publicity it could generate, allowing the company to claim it's addressing environmental issues.

Edwards added: "People have this idea that Land Rover just makes gas-guzzlers, but it's not true. The average fuel consumption of our fleet in the UK is over 30mpg. However, moving to diesel-only in the UK would obviously be a very strong message in terms of the environment."

But would die-hard Landie fans accept it? Edwards isn't sure. "There are still some Range Rover customers and some of our more mature owners who continue to not see past petrol.

"They would be very upset if we stopped selling those models. We pretty much only build petrol models to customer orders now anyway, but we will obviously continue to make them for other markets, such as the USA which is petrol-only."

A quick trawl through rival Japanese brands' UK websites suggests going petrol would not be out of line for Land Rover. Competing models from Nissan and Mitusbishi are all now diesel-only while Toyota still offers petrol options for its Land Cruiser and Amazon models, though just-auto understands take-up is low.