Volkswagen has announced a diesel engine for its T-Cross compact SUV, but it's not for SA.

When we drove the Volkswagen T-Cross at its international launch, powertrain options ranged from petrol and diesel. With the vehicle due to land in South Africa in September 2019we can confirm, thanks to a quick chat from someone in the Volkswagen SA communications office,that our market will only be getting petrol engines. These range from aturbocharged, 3-cylinder 1.0-litre petrol engine with 85 kW and 200 Nm of torque to arange-topping 1.5-litre turbopetrol engine with 110 kW. There's talk of a 70 kW version appearing later too.

However, the European market will be getting a new diesel-powered derivative along with the aforementioned petrol units. Packing 70 kW and 250 Nm from a 1.6-litre turbocharged diesel 4-cylinder engine, the oil-burning T-Cross is claimed to consume 5.3 L/100 km. In terms of acceleration, it'll hit 100 kph in 11.9 seconds for the manual-gearbox equipped T-Cross and 12.5 seconds for the 7-speed DSG derivative.

VW SA has only released indicative pricing and the good news is the T-Cross will be available from under R300 000.

Read the Volkswagen T-Cross International Launch Review

Further Reading

Volkswagen T-Cross (2019) Specs & Price

7 Rivals the VW T-Cross Has to Beat