Why are auto companies reluctant to offer “clean diesel” vehicles in the US?
as I am sure you are aware, Americans base their lives on their emotions, and most Americans’ emotional reactions to the word “diesel” include things like, “sluggish, smelly, stinky, rod-knocker, noisy, clattery, slow, truck, $5.00 a gallon” and other unflattering bits of opinion. sometimes marketing analysts are wrong, but in this case, I would say Ford is considering that diesel powered small cars do not get a very warm reception here in America – and every merchant knows that it does no good to maintain inventory that is not going to sell.
It’s not so much that it runs on diesel fuel, but that Americans have stayed away from diesels in droves. Plus they’d have to build a $300 million engine factory which would be underutilized. And it’s not clear yet whether algae farming is going to work or be economical enough. Those companies doing the development are not going to give it away, they’ll probably price it 15% below prevailing rates. So no panacea there.
Volkswagen’s new diesel meets the standards, but I am not sure it is authorized to go beyond 5% biodiesel, and lots of people want 35%. They had to buy technology from Mercedes to get the engine clean enough. The injector is a new special high pressure model with up to 5 injections per stroke. I believe it is difficult to design and certify diesel engines to the new standards. It will be interesting to see the percentage of small vw’s sold as diesels. Predictions two years ago were about 12%. Europe is almost 50%. I haven’t seen ads pushing the diesel yet, but it should be in production now.
