And the winner is...diesel?
Is diesel the answer to more stringent emission standards?
Apparently it is, at least from the perspective of automakers.
Ford India announced Wednesday that it is launching a diesel version of the Ford Fiesta, the latest in a string of similar announcements in the industry.
"(This car) will dramatically change customers' perceptions about the traditional diesel vehicle. The car is designed to deliver responsive acceleration, outstanding fuel economy, and reduced emissions consistent with future norms," Scott McCormack, vice president of Ford India, said in a statement.
While environmentalists, consumers and politicians continued to discuss ethanol, hydrogen and electricity, the auto industry, it seems, had already decided and has been making plans for its short-term answer to the energy problem.
It's been sitting under our noses at the highway pump the whole time.
In the past month, several major car companies have announced that they are either beefing up their diesel-engine lines or partnering on technology to develop better diesel engines for both commercial trucks and cars. Some are even thinking diesel-electric hybrids.
Honda announced an Accord that will get 62.8 miles per gallon for the U.S. market by 2010. Peugeot announced earlier this month that it has a hybrid diesel-electric car in the works that should get about 70 mpg, according to reports.
Toyota has said that it will make an announcement this July concerning its much-anticipated collaboration on diesel technology with Isuzu.
DaimlerChrysler is partnering with Fiat to improve its diesel engines for light-duty commercial trucks, and then possibly move on to low-emission diesel vehicles for cars.
Audi has said it hopes its win with a diesel-powered race car at Le Mans, will help change the perception of diesel among consumers, especially in the U.S. where old diesel engines fell out of favor as emissions standards rose.
With an infrastructure already in place due to commercial trucks never leaving the diesel fold, diesel seems like an obvious solution to help fulfill automakers' immediate needs--to sell more vehicles while meeting emissions standards and consumer demand to save on fuel.
Today's diesel engines and diesel fuel itself have come a long way. Advances in turbocharging and fuel injection have boosted performance. New kinds of particle traps and low sulfur diesel fuel have reduced the emissions and soot-producing byproducts.
Whether car companies will be able to overcome the association with diesel as the sooty diesel engine trucks and cars of the 1970s and 1980s is another matter.
Candace Lombardi is a staff writer at CNET News.com
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therefore a proper noun.
But what the hell. She's only the automotive writer for C|net.
My dog needs a job - maybe he should apply at C|net as a pet food
correspondent.
It's a simplistic look at Diesel tech, but there's really no excuse for
not doing the basic research - which should include the fact that
Rudolph Diesel developed the compression ignition engine that still
bears his name.
They manage to get Internet right....
This year the rules were changed to shrink the Diesel-powered
cars' fuel tanks to offset their greater fuel economy, and the cars
still finished 1-2.
From within this story, I linked to my earlier blog on this very topic.
You can find it here:
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9730782-7.html
Thanks,
Candace
places like Europe, emisson standards are high if not higer than
our own? so why have half of the cars (in some areas) been
powered by Diesel engines? The problems with Diesels in the US
lays solely with the big three-Their Diesel engines were AWLFUL
JUNK! In cases like GM they retrofitted gas engines to make
Diesel ones-so prone to failure they replaced then with gas
engines in some models. They did not put the time and energy
into developing proper Diesel engines and doomed their
popularity for the next two decades. Even when the big three
started to make full sized Diesel pick ups available as in recent
years, they rightly went outside their own companies to source
the required engines and expertise (i.e. Cummins). Emissions
were not the problem-building junk was!
gases than the Prius, maybe now the self-proclaimed
'E'nviromentalists (capital E) will be forced to consider an auto
with even lower emmisions.
And with the bogus nature of man-made global warming being
slowly revealed - see article in this months Discover magazine -
perhaps the righteous reasons of simply cleaner air and saving
money in this era of rising oil costs will be enough.
Isn't it strange that after 3-4 decades of realizing that oil prices
would continue to increase, we've finally come to the long
predicted crossover point where the increased cost of efficiency
technology will pay off in the wallet.
Those that fell hook, line and sinker for the religeous tenents of
an Environmental religion may at some point be willing to see
themselves as dupes. And as such may not have the ability to
critically think well enough to participate in political movements
and elections.
But some nuts are hard to crack.
I'm just hoping the hydraulic hybrid works out. Link it to a
diesel and we could really save some money without high tech
eldectronics as a requirement.
Working toward simplicity.
As they said in the movie...FREEDOM!
hardheads on the man-made global warming issue. In the future
when they express an opinion, on anything, remind them of what
they once believed in.
Another must-see link...
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/
story.html?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4&p=4