Despite an increasing U.S. appetite for diesels, the Chevrolet Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel – GM’s first oil-burning passenger car in three decades – hasn’t exactly met with strong demand during its first year on the market.
Since it arrived in dealerships last summer, the Cruze diesel has found just 5,974 takers, according to WardsAuto. During the same time period, the Volkswagen Jetta TDI recorded 46,409 sales, with the diesel engine accounting for 26.7 percent of total Jetta volume.
In contrast, just 2.0 percent of Cruze buyers opted for the diesel.
Sales for diesel-equipped vehicles in the U.S. have increased by 25 percent for the first six months of 2014.
A variety of factors have likely contributed to the sedan’s slow sales start. As a new type of offering from GM, the Cruze diesel doesn’t enjoy the highest level of consumer awareness, a situation that will improve with time but has potentially been exacerbated by limited marketing efforts.
The Jetta, on the other hand, is well-known among diesel aficionados, having benefitted from a long period as the U.S. compact sedan segment’s only oil-burning choice.
And while the Jetta offers several different levels of content and the option of a manual transmission, the Cruze diesel is available only in a single, relatively pricey trim level with an automatic.
Complicating matters further is GM’s cautious roll-out of the Cruze diesel, which Wards reports has involved low production and limited availability. While it’s prudent for GM to gauge interest before revving up the assembly lines, the automaker could be losing sales if there simply aren’t examples for customers to buy in some regions.
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