Ever since Volkswagen was caught cheating on its diesel emission outputs, the US Environmental Protection Agency has been enforcing stricter standards for diesel engines. These stringent EPA regulations have delayed the arrival of several diesel models in the US. Mercedes has had difficultly even getting approval for its diesel models, and Autoblog now reports that the company will give up on diesel cars in the US entirely. This is sad news for a company that once pioneered luxury diesel models.

Ola Källenius, Head of R&D for Mercedes Car Group, said that "the diesel doesn't fit into our portfolio in the U.S." and diesel models only accounted for 3% of all brand sales. Back in 2016, Mercedes had to delay its plans to sell diesel versions of the C-Class and GLC after the EPA wouldn't certify the diesel engines. After an entire year, Mercedes still wasn't given the green light for its diesel models, so it just gave up all together. Mercedes decided that the effort to achieve compliance would simply cost too much to justify only 3% of sales.

Mercedes will continue to sell diesel versions of the Sprinter van, but its passenger cars will no longer be available with diesel engines. Diesel is definitely declining in sales in Europe, but it is clearly dying much faster in the US.