Diesels Offer Alternative to Hybrids
Mercedes-Benz put the diesel version of its E-Class through a 100,000-mile test.
Automobile executives who come to the United States from Europe invariably wonder, with diesel-powered vehicles making up as much as half the new-car fleet in some countries, why diesels represent far less than 1 percent of the U.S. market.
“It’s frustrating,” said Nick Scheele, a native of England who recently retired as president of Ford Motor Co. in the United States. “I’m not sure what it will take to put diesels on the American map.”
Part of the problem is that gasoline prices have remained relatively low in the United States, and still are, compared with European prices. Many automotive analysts are convinced that hydrogen fuel cells will ultimately wean America off foreign oil, but that technology is years away.
Until then, the two leading candidates for relief are gasoline/electric hybrids and diesels. That diesel stigma remains, however: We tend to think of diesels as noisy, smoky and slow, and that diesel fuel is available only at truck stops.
That could change soon. At a 5-mile test track in Laredo, Texas, in April, Mercedes-Benz ran three E320 diesel sedans non-stop for 100,000 miles. The cars averaged more than 139 mph, and nearly 18 mpg at that breakneck speed. At the end of the record-setting event, you could run your finger inside the tailpipe of the three cars and find not a trace of soot. I know, because I did it.
Two advances made this possible: Mercedes has a new six-cylinder diesel engine that, with a turbocharger, pumps out 224 horsepower. Mated to a seven-speed-automatic transmission, acceleration is excellent, and the car will top 160 mph. Again, I know, as I drove one of the test cars that fast on the Laredo track.
The other advance is that Mercedes was running not on regular diesel fuel available in the United States, but rather on new diesel fuel that will go on sale in the United States, per government mandate, by September 2006. The fuel is similar to the diesel fuel offered in Europe and, according to a spokesman for the Diesel Technology Forum, will be “a few cents more” per gallon than current diesel fuel. It’s much, much cleaner burning.
Mercedes says that with the new engine and new fuel, its cars will be legal to run in all 50 states. Presently, five states — California, Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont — essentially ban the sales of new diesel cars. You can imagine how hard it is for manufacturers to justify building or importing diesel cars now, given the fact that those cars couldn’t even be sold in two of the largest states.
This is the central reason there are so few diesel engines offered now in vehicles smaller than industrial-sized pickup trucks. Besides Mercedes, only Volkswagen and Jeep have diesels in their U.S. lineups — VW offers the Golf, Jetta, New Beetle, Passat and, if you can find one, the Touareg sport utility vehicle, and Jeep has a diesel-powered Liberty SUV. Even though that Jeep diesel is a rather crude little engine built in Italy, sales of the diesel Liberty “have been above expectations,” said James Kenyon, Jeep’s public relations director.
The Volkswagen Golf gets up to 46 mpg on the highway in diesel form.
Clearly, the mileage possibilities rival those of hybrid cars. The Golf diesel equipped with a manual transmission is EPA-rated at 28 mpg in the city and 46 mpg on the highway, and owners say those figures are typically achievable in the real world, unlike many hybrid vehicle mileage ratings.
While diesels are undeniably more fuel-efficient than comparable gas engines, and certainly cleaner and more reliable than ever, they don’t satisfy the same “feel-good factor” that appeals to many hybrid car owners. To these early adaptors, the reduction in pollutants from hybrid engines — which are cleaner than the new, clean diesels — is as much a selling point as fuel mileage.
Still, diesels shouldn’t be discounted. Michael Kramer, head of passenger car development at Mercedes, says that if the proportion of diesel-powered cars in the United States increased to 50 percent, as it is in Western Europe, we’d save 2.3 million barrels of crude oil per day. “Up until now,” he said, “people in the United States just haven’t been aware of the advantages of today’s diesel engines.”
By Steven Cole Smith, cars.com
Posted on 6/20/05
