Diesel Car Production in the US expected to increase.
Saturday, January 14th, 2006
Diesel cars are everywhere in Europe, but they’ve never gone mainstream in the United States.
After years of squabbling among automakers, oil companies and regulators, technology and the demand for better fuel economy have progressed enough to make diesels more attractive. Every major automaker is committed to build more diesel-powered models or is studying their feasibility for the United States. A few hinted at future plans during the Detroit auto show.
Toyota Motor Corp. is considering a diesel option for its new full-size pickup to launch later this year, said Jim Press, president and chief operating officer of Toyota’s U.S. sales arm.
“Eventually, if you look far enough out in the crystal ball, we’ll have a lot of diesels in the United States, to try and cope with the environment and fuel costs issues,” Press said.
Outside of some large pickups and SUVs, diesels are a flyspeck on U.S. vehicle sales, accounting for less than 1% of new cars last year. Five states essentially bar sales of light-duty diesels, including California, the nation’s largest market.
Yet several experts estimate diesel sales could account for about 15% of new cars and trucks annually by 2015, or about 2.6 million vehicles at current sales rates.
While some U.S. consumers — and many automotive executives — still remember the smoke-belching diesels of the 1980s, their modern descendents can run nearly as clean as gasoline engines. Diesels are typically 20% to 40% more fuel efficient than a similar gas engine, and produce more torque, giving drivers better acceleration.
Volkswagen AG has been one of the few automakers to stick with diesels in the United States; enjoying an 8.7% sales increase last year even as its overall sales fell 12.5%. VW Chief Executive Bernd Pischetsrieder said, excluding the five states where it cannot sell diesel versions of the VW Jetta, such models accounted for 30% of sales last year, and could have been higher.
For larger vehicles, “diesels will be the choice, for the simple reason you don’t need high revs and high performance, you need high torque,” he said in an interview.
Other automakers known to be studying diesels include General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., for both cars and trucks. All sell diesels in Europe, where customer demand for fuel economy, favorable tax treatments and durability cause automakers to put diesel engines in half of all vehicles sold.
In the United States, stricter air pollution regulation has severely limited how many diesels manufacturers can sell. The major barrier to cleaner-running diesels has been the amount of sulfur in diesel fuel, which plays havoc with emissions systems. New federal rules drastically cutting sulfur in fuels go into effect later this year, and most fuel companies are expected to have low-sulfur diesel on the market in a matter of months.
DaimlerChrysler AG unveiled a new line of diesel engines at the Detroit auto show that it said would meet all current emissions standards, allowing it to sell them in all 50 states by late this year. The engines will power a number of Mercedes models, and Chrysler will likely add more diesels to its lineup as well.
Those diesel engines also could qualify for a new set of tax credits aimed at high-mileage vehicles such as hybrids. But those credits start to phase out for automakers that sell 60,000 qualifying vehicles, and automakers say diesels will have to prove their worth on their merits.
“People get used to high-torque engines,” said Pischetsrieder. “If any country requires desperately high torque because of the driving conditions, it’s the U.S. market.”
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March 29th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
I would like to know what states in the northeast permit the sale of VW Jettas diesel cars. Thank you.
Del