British environmental site Clean Green Cars announced a report that says that buying a hybrid does not have significant CO₂ advantage over an equivalent diesel. The report doesn't mention other tailpipe pollutants and doesn't say that hybrids are a bad thing themselves because they do lower gasoline consumption. It's just that hybrids are more appropriate for the U. S., where diesels are virtually unknown, than in the UK. Clean Green Cars also says that we have to wait for lithium-ion and plug-in hybrids to get real benefits, since it is these two improvements that will allow more drive time on electric power alone and will increase mileage, compared to modern hybrids which can barely move on electric power alone.

Clean Green Cars came to their results by performing a test that compared three hybrids with three similar diesel cars. The six cars performed a test that involved a round trip from central London to Brighton, which involved a mix of urban, dual carriageway and motorway driving. Their recommendation: Just buy an economical conventional engine. Find the results after the jump.

During a panel discussion at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress in Detroit today, a group of industry executives projected that diesel engines with grab 20 percent market share in the US by the end of the next decade. BorgWarner CEO Tim Manganello also projected that hybrid powertrains would grab about ten percent of total sales in that same time frame. Toyota Engineering VP Ed Mantey and Ford Product Development VP Derrick Kuzak were were in agreement with those numbers. At their current rate, Toyota alone might be selling a pretty large percentage of those hybrids. While diesel engines are less expensive to produce than hybrids diesel, fuel prices are currently quite a bit higher than gasoline in the U.S. Increased availability of biodiesel in the coming decade may alleviate that problem. It's not clear what percentage of vehicles will end up in both categories as the 35mpg US CAFE standard approaches.

[Source: AutoWeek]

A new study by J.D. Power and associates is projecting that the combined market share of diesel and hybrid power-trains will hit seventeen percent in the U.S. by the middle of the next decade. The analysis also projects that smaller displacement four cylinder and flex-fuel engines will take a much larger share than they do today as demand wanes for more powerful engines. Between the diesels and hybrids, the former are expected to take a significantly larger share due to lower cost. The cost premium for hybrids is expected to remain higher going forward. This extra cost will drive more adoption of technologies like direct fuel injection and turbocharging of smaller displacement gas engines going forward since the cost is a lot lower.

Power is projecting that the cost premium for automakers to achieve the 35mpg standard will be $4,000-5,000 even though cars in Europe already meet that threshold. The study apparently presumes that American car buyers won't be willing to shift to the smaller, lower powered cars that dominate the European market. If U.S. car buyers insist on continuing to drive larger cars and trunks while trying to achieve those higher mileage numbers, it will be costly to make the upgrades. If on the other hand they are willing to change their buying habits, the premium could be a lot smaller. Pure battery electrics and fuel cells will probably both remain a negligible part of the market primarily due to high cost.

[Source: Detroit News]

When it comes to getting great fuel economy, there is definitely more than one way to skin a cat. The Prius may be thrifty but it certainly isn't the be all and end all. Just to demonstrate that the Times of London decided to go for a little a road trip with a Prius and a BMW 520d. While the 535d that we tried out a couple of months ago is a mighty machine, it's only the tip of the iceberg for 5-series diesels. Starting things off is the 520d with a 2.0L four cylinder diesel with 177hp. In a large sedan the size of a 5-series that may not seem like much but the diesel torque still manages to get it to 62mph in a respectable 8.3 sec. That's more than enough to easily merge onto highways without feeling like you're about to get run down by that oncoming truck. That's also about 2.7 seconds faster than a Prius. But of course the Prius is specifically designed to have a minimal thirst for fuel. So how did they do? On a jaunt from London to Geneva, that specifically included an extra 100 miles of city driving just to let the Prius shine, the Prius managed 40 mpg (U.S.). The 520d on the other hand managed 41.9 mpg, all in real world driving conditions. So who says GM has to cancel all their rear wheel drive programs to meet the 35 mpg standard?

[Source: The Times of London, TTAC]

Audi has followed their Volkswagen stablemates and added some special "e" series models to the their lineup in recent months. The "e" models are similar to VW's Bluemotion models in that they are specifically optimized for ultra-low CO₂ emissions. Currently, the smallest such vehicle is the A3 TDI e equipped with a 1.9L diesel. The TDI e has modified gear ratios and engine calibrations along with the low rolling resistance tires. The A3 is rated at 52mpg (U.S.) on the EU combined cycle with CO₂ emissions of just 120g/km, low enough to avoid London's congestion charge. Motor Trend had a chance to put some miles on a A3 TDI e over in the UK and managed to achieve 44.3 mpg in a mix of fairly quick driving over 500 miles. They managed 50.5mpg over 50 miles on a very congested M25 motorway around London, topping the best they ever achieved with a Prius (47mpg). They also found the little German far more entertaining to drive than the Prius.

[Source: Motor Trend, via GermanCarBlog, thanks to Christian for the tip]

Not long after Toyota took up the stake in Subaru that was formerly owned by General Motors, the two companies agreed to work together to add hybrid power-trains to the all-wheel-drive specialist's lineup. The problem is that the unique layout of the Subarus precludes just dropping in the hybrid synergy drive. That means that while Toyota's technology can be used it has to be repackaged. In the meantime Subaru was already working on a new flat four-cylinder diesel engine which was unveiled at last spring's Geneva Motor Show. That diesel will begin appearing in Subarus in the European market after the 2008 Geneva show.

Work continues on the hybrids although Subaru won't say what the timeline is. Fuji Heavy Industries (Subaru's parent company) has said that they won't build hybrids until lithium ion batteries are available. Given Subaru's association with Toyota and their battery problems, it may be a while before we get any Subaru hybrids.

[Source: Left Lane News]