Premature end of the Citroën Berlingo and SpaceTourer gasoline and diesel

 

Almost all manufacturers have announced deadlines for transitioning to electric propulsion. We'll be selling only electric cars by... 2028 or 2030. So in several years, we didn't really believe it, we thought we had time to come and see... Wrong. The change is today. The Citroën Berlingo and SpaceTourer, as well as their counterparts at Peugeot, the Rifter and Traveller, and at Opel, the Combo and Zafira, were available with gasoline, diesel and electric engines. The gasoline and diesel versions have just been discontinued. Just like that, from one day to the next, without any notice. In almost all of Europe. The Citroën Berlingo with internal combustion engine has been removed from the online configurator on the Citroën France website, and the internal combustion versions of the Opel Combo and Peugeot Rifter have been removed from the configurators on their manufacturers' German websites. Only the electric versions remain available.

This decision is a first because of its violence, and also because of its totally unexpected character. Out of respect for customers, we would have appreciated a bit of sensitivity, with a press release to warn that the internal combustion engines of these different models would no longer be available from the next six months. Of course, we would have understood if these models were no longer sold, but this is not the case. A diesel Citroën Berlingo is still selling very well in several European countries, including France and England.

So it's not the lack of customers that motivated this stop, and it's not the French malus either, since this concerns almost all of Europe (the diesel Berlingo is still available in European countries that are not part of the EU, like Serbia). So is Brussels to blame? It is indeed the European Union that has set CO2 quotas that must not be exceeded, and Stellantis' strategists must have calculated that they would not be able to meet them with the current range. There is no other possible explanation.

And if, from a strictly ecological point of view, we have to be happy about the disappearance of these models, the fact remains that in its current state, an electric Berlingo, which is a rather heavy vehicle, often loaded, and with a large frontal area, is far from offering the performance of a diesel Berlingo. There will be people who will regret this... The time it takes for a new generation of electric vehicles with a range of over 500 km to arrive.