Toyota May Buy Diesel Engines

Toyota Motor Corp said on Wednesday it is studying the possibility of procuring diesel engines from a European carmaker for its cars to be sold in Europe. We have not decided yet but are considering whether to buy diesel engines from a European carmaker, or to use our own diesel engines for cars to be sold in Europe in the future, a Toyota spokesman said without elaborating. In Europe, Toyota sells cars, equipped with its own Japanese-made two-litre diesel engines for British-made Carine and Japanese-made Corolla models. But the portion of diesel-engined cars in our European sales is not big yet. When you look at the production cost, it (European-made engines) might be an advantageous, the spokesman said. Toyota earlier said it aimed to sell 600,000 cars in Europe in 2000 against an actual 420,000 in Europe in calendar 1996. Toyota has no plans at the moment to use diesel engines for its Corolla model which will be produced from next year at its plant in Derbyshire, Britain, he added. Reuter

In Europe, Honda Motor Co Ltd has been buying diesel engines from Rover Group, the British car unit of Bayerische Motoren-Werke AG (BMW) , for Hondas British-unit made cars since March 1996.

Demand for diesel engine vehicles now stands at about 20 percent of overall vehicle demand in Europe and is expected to grow to at least one-third of the total in the future because of concerns of global warming, industry sources said.

Carbon dioxide released by consumption of fossil fuels like coal and oil is believed a cause of global warming.