The United States has, up until this point, proven to be a tough market for diesel vehicles. Compared to the European market, which is widely diesel-centric, the only compression ignition vehicles that have historically sold well here are the largest of pickups. This may soon change with automakers beginning to roll out more quality choices which use diesel fuel... or may not due to the fact that diesel prices are rising even faster than gasoline prices. Regardless, it doesn't seem as if the U.S. will be passing Europe when it comes to diesel-powered vehicles, as April has set a new record for diesel penetration in the UK with 45.4 percent of all new registrations being oil-runners. The best seller of all remains the Ford Focus in both gas and diesel versions. For what it's worth, the year-to-date percentage of diesel vehicles sold in the UK stands at 42.7 percent. In related news, the mini car market also enjoyed a healthy bump in sales, up 43.7 percent. Forecasts indicate that diesel vehicles and small, fuel-efficient models will continue to gain market share as the price of fuel increases. As you can see here, SMMT has been covering this increase in sales for quite some time. The entire report of April sales in the UK is available here.
We recently told you that Audi has no electric car plans for the immediate future. We were right. Those plans seem to be some years away according to the CEO of Audi, Rupert Stadler. In an interview published yesterday by Welt am Sonntag, Stadler stated that diesel would hold the interest of the market for the next 5-10 years, but in that time electrics would become more generally accepted and Audi would then offer emission-free cars. Reminded that Mercedes and BMW already have high performance lithium ion batteries, the Audi boss was asked if he wasn't worried about lagging behind. Stadler seemed to shrug off the suggestion saying he wasn't concerned because their research capacity was larger than many of his competitors.
Earlier in the interview, at the end of a discussion about the merits of dieselsversushybrids, the CEO had this to say about hybrids, "Außerdem sehen wir den Hybrid langfristig lediglich als Durchgangsstation zum vollelektrischen Fahren." Which, according to the Babelfish (slightly cleaned up), translates as "In addition, we see the hybrid on a long-term basis only as stepping stone to all-electric driving." The bottom line here seems to be: more diesels for the immediate future with electric vehicles coming into play a few years down the road, by which time the 2006 R-Zero electric concept design (pictured above) will seem quaint.
According to an article in The New Economic Times, Fiat is planning to launch a new ethanol-powered engine for the Brazilian market. Ethanol is widely used for fuel in Brazil and half of the country's sugar cane crops are currently used for its production. Fiat intends the motor to be run on fuel that the ethanol producers create themselves, saving on taxes. What is most interesting about this story, though, is that it seems the new engine will be based on a current diesel block. In fact, a small amount of diesel fuel is required to run the engine.
"Use of additives (in ethanol) makes running (an engine) dangerous, subject to explosions," according to Fiat Powertrain Technologies product development engineer Joao Irineu Medeiros. "The diesel will be just enough for ignition and the ethanol will complete the combustion," he adds. It sounds like the new Fiat design will be a compression ignition engine running on e-diesel. Instead of being mixed at the pump, though, Fiat is planning to keep the fuels separate until injected into the engine. Proper tuning would be essential, which would explain why Fiat needs until 2010 to bring this engine to market.
It's Friday afternoon. There are a few minutes to go for all of you stuck in the office before the weekend hits. Why not enjoy a little laugh courtesy of the comic Diesel Sweeties. Diesel Sweeties is a strip that blends old school computer graphics with some eco-aware young people who like video games and robots who like cats. Diesel Sweeties was created by rstevens back in 2000 and is now syndicated in some newspapers.
We're not going to spoil the punchline to a recent comic that fits well with AutoblogGreen. Click here to read rstevens' genius idea to solve the four problems listed in by the robot in the image on the right. There are other green-transport-related strips here and here. In fact, go ahead and just click around the DS site for a while. Your boss won't mind, I'm sure, and this strip is quite genius. Thanks to Shawn for the tip!
Click the new Mercedes diesel for a high res gallery
Sure, diesels are already widely available all over the world. One reason is that diesel engines are simply more efficient than gasoline engines. Consider the fact that a diesel engine is capable of running on biodiesel and green-minded drivers can make a strong argument in diesel's favor. Perhaps what is most important, though, is that diesel vehicles would require no major changes to the current energy infrastructure, meaning that diesel-powered vehicles could be one of the simplest possible ways to reduce the amount of oil that the world consumes. Holding them back, though, are costly exhaust after-treatment technologies that are needed to put the clean into clean diesel. Since these systems are less expensive than some of the rest of the items on our list, diesel engines fall right in the middle of the pack.
Continuing demand for diesel engines has prompted Continental's Powertrain division to invest in the expansion of a Czech factory that produces diesel components. The plant in Trutnov, Czech Republic will add production of 900,000 pump cylinders and 2 million high pressure diesel injection pumps annually starting this summer. An investment of €18 million will also expand other parts of the facility between now and 2010.
Right now, each state in the U.S. has its own laws regarding diesel engine idling, and legislation can vary greatly from state-to-state. Pennsylvania is considering creating new standards and Senate Bill 295 is currently being discussed by the House. The Department of Environmental Protection has taken a long look at the Bill and is recommending that it be made tougher.
Thomas Fidler, Deputy Secretary for Waste, Air and Radiation Management says, "The Department of Environmental Protection fully supports the concept of statewide idling restrictions to limit emissions from diesel-powered commercial vehicles. However, the department cannot support SB 295 in its current form and recommends substantive amendments to bring this legislation in line with neighboring states and better protect the public's health."
There's an entire press release worth of changes requested by the DEP, and it's pasted after the break for your reading enjoyment.
Mercedes-Benz CEO Dieter Zetsche told Motor Trend this week that increased cost was not going to be an issue for his company to meet new fuel economy standards. Obviously getting improved efficiency out of powertrains would make them more expensive as they have to meet U.S. CAFE and European CO2 emissions limits. However, while U.S. executives like Bob Lutz are talking about adding $5,000 or more to the price to meet 35mpg standards, Zetsche looks at it differently. The use of clean diesels, HCCI DiesOtto engines, hybrids and fuel cells will raise prices. The higher initial purchase price will be offset for customers through reduced operating costs. According to Zetsche, if the cost premium can be recovered through fuel savings in the first 3-4 years of driving than customers will be satisfied. Mercedes also intends to protect their ten percent profit margins through increased efficiencies in other areas of the vehicle. That probably means that Mercedes owners will give up some features for improved efficiency. Of course for a premium brand like Mercedes, it's a lot easier to talk about protecting margins than it is for mainstream brands like GM and Ford. Being largely rid of the burden of Chrysler probably doesn't hurt either. Finally Zetsche says an S-Class diesel hybrid will debut in two years with DiesOtto engines about 3-5 years out.
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.
We last chatted with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers at the New York Auto Show. We heard then about the Alliance's safety and eco-related stances. On Monday, the Alliance will announce that 1.8 million alternative-fueled autos (diesels, hybrids and flex-fuel) were sold in the U.S. in 2007, up just a bit - 250,000 - from 2006. Both hybrids and flex-fuel vehicle sales climbed while diesels dipped. The Alliance believes that more than 2m alternative vehicles will be sold in America in 2008. The hurdles to wider acceptance are the same as we've heard before: high cost of diesels and a lack of E85 fueling stations (to say nothing of hydrogen). Still, 1.8m vehicles is not insignificant. These aren't perfect green rides - I'm looking at you, Escalade hybrid - but in the uphill battle to green up America's fleet of vehicles, it's a start. You can download a PDF that lists all of the Alliance members' 70+ alternative fuel vehicles here. More details after the jump.
We're getting close to the start of the 2008 Shell Eco-marathon Americas, and the list of 38 teams that will participate in the competition in some ways mimics real-world power train usage. The overwhelming majority (28) of the vehicles will use combustion engines to try and top last year's incredible 1902 mpg winning score. Alongside the gas engines will be six fuel cell, one LPG, one diesel, and two solar entrants. You can find a full list of the schools from five high schools and 24 universities that are participating - and the names of their vehicles - after the jump. The competition runs from April 10 to 12 at the California Speedway in Fontana, California. The goal is to go the furthest distance on the least amount of fuel. Based on the names alone, I like Peanut Butter and The Hot Pocket. Good luck to all the teams.
Peugeot may well be the first team to run a hybrid vehicle at Le Mans and it looks like it will be a diesel, too. New Peugeot CEO recently told the French paper L'Equipe that a diesel-hybrid prototype is currently under development and that it may make some trial runs as soon as this June at Le Mans. Collin also said the car would begin racing in 2009. Peugeot Sport team manager Serge Saulnier, however, is being a little more cautious, acknowledging that a diesel hybrid is in the works. However, Saulnier would not confirm when the car would appear in public. Peugeot has already shown several diesel hybrid concepts based on production 307s and 308s and has acknowledged that they are planning to introduce such a powertrain in the next few years. Toyota may also be making a return to Le Mans as soon as 2010 possibly with a gas-electric hybrid. Let's just hope they bring some of these cars over to the American Le Mans Series and really spice things up.
It's always interesting when non-automotive people decide to create a list of top cars in some category. In this case, the business and financial writers over at Forbes decided to pick ten technologically advanced green cars. Some of the selections - the Honda FCX Clarity and the Chevy Volt - seem obvious. The inclusion of four diesel vehicles among the ten is also an interesting choice. However, there are some some strange choices. Why is the Chrysler Aspen hybrid included instead of the Chevy Tahoe, considering that the latter is already in production. Although the new Lincoln MKS and the Hyundai Elantra Touring may be fine cars, there is nothing particularly exceptional about either one. Even the EcoBoost GTDI V-6 coming to the Lincoln in 2009 is not new technology, although Ford is trying to make it mainstream. The Elantra has nothing that any number of other cars already on the market also have. What cars would you include on the list and which would you drop?
Click the Jeep for a high-res gallery of the Jeep Grand Cherokee CRD
Currently, every Chrysler, Dodge or Jeep vehicle, with the exception of the Dodge Viper, is being sold in Europe with a diesel engine option. What's more, half of them are able to hit the 35 mile per gallon mark in combined driving. In what may seem like the ultimate slap in the face, they are all built right here in America, but we cannot buy them. All of this information is available here, which is a popular article circulating on Digg. The writer of the article makes the aforementioned points as an argument as to why Chrysler should be able to sell their diesel vehicles here in the states. At this time, only one of Chrysler's diesels, the Grand Cherokee, is being sold here.
One problem stands in the way of the rest of the diesels being sold stateside, and it's a big one: emissions. This is a much bigger problem than the article seems to contend. There is more to the greening of our fleet of vehicles than fuel mileage, and emissions are a very important part of the puzzle. Diesel engines can be made to meet the emissions requirements in the U.S., but they add to the cost of the vehicle. When we add in the rising price of diesel fuel, diesel vehicles can become a tough sell. In the coming years, it is likely that manufacturers will introduce more diesel engines here in the U.S., and the hope remains that as they do, the price of the technology will go down.
Daimler chairman Dieter Zetsche is bullish on the adoption of diesel in the United States. At the ECO:nomics conference, Zetsche told the Wall Street Journal that Daimler is very happy with its diesel accomplishments over the last two years (see video below the fold). According to Zetsche, in the states where they are currently available, Daimler's diesel SUVs are showing twenty percent take rates and diesel cars are showing twelve percent take rates. Zetsche is confident Daimler will see the same share when diesel is offered in all 50 states. While very popular in Europe (where around half the cars are oil burners), diesel has yet to take hold in America, where only 3.5 percent of new car sales are diesels.
In the video, Zetsche was also asked about the public's unwillingness to pay for higher fuel economy. Zetsche said he thinks the public is only willing to pay for fuel saving technology that can be paid back in a short time, three to four years at the most. On the economy, Zetsche said the slowdown has not had much impact on Daimler's business so far. This means that Daimler customers are not jumping on the subway, at least not the ones that sell real estate, he joked.
According to an article in 
Daimler chairman Dieter Zetsche is bullish on the adoption of diesel in the United States. At the ECO:nomics conference, Zetsche told the Wall Street Journal that Daimler is very happy with its diesel accomplishments over the last two years (see video below the fold). According to Zetsche, in the states where they are currently available, Daimler's diesel SUVs are showing twenty percent take rates and diesel cars are showing twelve percent take rates. Zetsche is confident Daimler will see the same share when diesel is offered in all 50 states. While very popular in Europe (where around half the cars are oil burners), diesel has yet to take hold in America, where only 
