The cost of Volkswagen’s diesel scandal has claimed another victim.
According to a recent report from , the German automaker has officially killed off its 400-horsepower, four-cylinder EA888 engine because it would cost too much to produce. The news comes from Stephan Reil, the engineering boss of Audi’s Quattro GmbH division.
The engine was first shown in the 2014 Audi TT Quattro Sport Concept, sporting 420 hp from a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. The same powerplant arguably became more famous when it was used to power the Golf R 400, which recently got axed as a result of dieselgate.
SEE ALSO: Volkswagen Kills the Golf R 400, You Can Blame Dieselgate
Conceived and developed by Friedrich Eichler, the same man behind AMG’s powerful 2.0-liter four-cylinder mill, the EA888 engine was developed to drop into the automaker’s MQB architecture. That meant the powerful engine could be used on various models that needed a boost in performance.
But since then, Audi has focused on its five-cylinder engine that is used in the TT RS. While the four-cylinder motor provided 420 hp and 332 pound-feet of torque in the TT Quattro Sport Concept, the production TT RS generates 400 hp and 354 lb-ft of torque. “If we go for the four, to have that specific power output from a 2.0-liter, the engine is unbelievably expensive and then we still have only a four-cylinder engine,” said Reil.
