Diesels Fueling Renewed Interest
To most people, diesels conjure up images of big, clattering stinkpots. But Lola Whitehead says hers is nothing like that.
As a human relations analyst for the California Judicial Council, Whitehead drives all over the upper half of the state in a diesel-powered 2002 Volkswagen New Beetle. Her vehicle is quiet, almost smoke-free and very thrifty, she said. Whitehead averages 46 miles per gallon around town and about 51 mpg on trips.
“And I cruise at 70,” said the Sacramento area resident, who also rides a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and considers herself a motoring enthusiast, not an environmental wonk.
The auto industry will need a lot of Lolas to realize its hopes of a big diesel comeback in the United States.
Two decades after the technology flopped in the marketplace, automakers are gearing up to launch a new fleet of diesel vehicles. Facing growing attacks on their popular but mostly gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles and large pickup trucks, they are looking at fuel-efficient diesels as a potential savior for the industry.
But automakers must contend with several obstacles, including tough fuel quality and emissions standards, particularly in California, and the tarnished image left by a previous generation of diesels. The oil shortages and gasoline price increases of the 1970s helped diesel cars to flourish briefly, but sales plummeted when consumers found them to be unreliable, underpowered, noisy and smelly. Diesels accounted for less than 1% of passenger car sales in the U.S. last year.
Car manufacturers in Europe, however, continued to develop the technology. Clean, quiet and powerful diesel vehicles are speeding out of dealers’ showrooms and have captured a 40% share of the European market. Demand is so great that Chrysler Group’s diesel-powered PT Cruisers and Jeep Liberty SUVs made in North America are shipped overseas.
It is these sophisticated, relatively clean diesels, offering 30% to 40% better fuel mileage than gasoline engines, that carmakers plan to introduce to the United States.
Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz, both owned by DaimlerChrysler, plan to roll out several new diesel models, including a U.S. version of the Liberty late this year and a $50,000 Mercedes E-Class diesel sedan in most parts of the country in 2004.
The Liberty probably will cost about $2,000 more than the gasoline model, which lists from about $17,000 to $25,000. But at an average of 25 mpg -- compared with 18 for its gas-powered counterpart -- the diesel Liberty could pay for that difference in cost in about five years, based on current fuel prices.
Among Daimler’s German rivals, Volkswagen wants to add two models to the three it already sells here, and BMW plans to bring new diesel products to the States within a few years. Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. likewise hope to add to their lineups.
“The diesel engine is a valid choice in Europe, and it ought to be even more so in the U.S.,” said Chrysler Group Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche.
With present federal rules requiring automakers to meet fleet fuel consumption averages of 27.5 mpg for all cars and 20.7 mpg for SUVs and pickups, Chrysler could offset the 8- and 10-mpg fuel ratings of some of its big pickups and monster cars such as the Dodge Viper by selling diesel-powered Libertys.
Even once-fierce diesel critics, such as Alan Lloyd, chairman of the California Air Resources Board, say that if Americans are exposed to new diesel models, there should be plenty of converts. Lloyd said his own impressions were changed by technical advances and by what he saw on the road on recent trips to Europe.
Automakers, as well as some environmentalists and regulators, like diesels because the fuel savings can mean a big reduction in emissions of “greenhouse gases” linked to global warming.
One big obstacle, however, is that both the federal and California governments are stiffening emissions requirements for gasoline- as well as diesel- powered vehicles.
Resistance in U.S.
With diesels, the auto industry also has image problems to overcome. Although diesel car sales hit a high of 12% of the U.S. market in 1984, poor quality soured consumers on the technology. A prime example was GM’s ill-advised conversion of an Oldsmobile V-8 to diesel.
Last year, 31,220 diesel- powered passenger cars were sold in the United States, up about 35% from 2001 but still representing just one of every 250 sales. All were Volkswagens. Americans bought a lot more diesel pickups made by GM, Ford and Dodge; about 10% of the 2.1 million full-size trucks sold last year were diesels.
Now many in the industry are hoping that the combination of diesels with better fuel economy and quick acceleration will boost interest and sales, particularly in areas such as Southern California, where many people make long drives and are obsessed with their driving machines.
“There’s always a bit of buzz about diesel because of all the people who live in Arrowhead and Big Bear and drive up and down mountains or commute into L.A.,” said Dante Day, sales manager at Exclusively Volkswagen in Ontario. Those drivers “want the mileage and the power” of diesels, he said.
Day’s dealership sells about 600 VWs a year, but it gets only about 30 diesels from the factory. “We usually don’t have enough diesels in inventory” to satisfy demand, he said.
VW sells three diesel-powered passenger cars -- the Beetle, Golf and Jetta -- and plans to add the Passat to its lineup next year. The company will bring out a V-10 diesel version of its Touareg SUV as soon as it can figure out how to get the big engine to pass federal and California emissions standards.
In fact, the diesel campaign in the U.S. is part of an intense competition within the auto industry to develop an alternative engine that will catch on with consumers while reducing oil dependency and satisfying increasingly strict pollution requirements.
Fuel-efficient hybrids, which use both gasoline engines and electric motors, are emerging in the market. Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. sold 35,000 hybrid cars last year. Ford plans to introduce a hybrid SUV next year, and others are in the pipeline.
Another possibility is hydrogen power. President Bush recently proposed a $1.2-billion federal program to help develop hydrogen fuels, but analysts and environmentalists point out that it will be decades before such vehicles are ready for the market.
For diesel enthusiasts, an immediate barrier is that California and four Eastern states have adopted emissions standards that have pollution requirements that are tougher than the federal government’s. And next year, California will stiffen its rules, further reducing permissible amounts of all types of tailpipe emissions.
As a result, Volkswagen now says it won’t offer diesels in California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut or Vermont in the 2004 and ’05 model years. And Mercedes-Benz is unsure whether it will be able to sell its diesel E-Class sedan in those five states next year.
“We have the same standard for diesel as gasoline, and there will be no compromise” to make it easier for diesels to be sold in California, said Lloyd, the air board’s chairman.
Most carmakers with diesels still expect to be able to sell them in all 50 states after 2006, when federally mandated cleaner diesel fuel hits the market along with improved emissions technologies.
“I’m pretty confident that we can offer filter systems by then” so diesels can meet California’s 2006 emissions standards, said Gerhard Schmidt, Ford Motor’s vice president of research and advance engineering.
A Long Heritage
Diesels date to the earliest days of the auto industry. The first engine was patented in 1893 by Bavarian engineer Rudolph Diesel.
The modern version of his design is an internal-combustion engine that works by injecting fuel under tremendous pressure directly into cylinders already filled with highly compressed air. No spark plug is needed, because the air is hotter than the fuel and ignites it on contact. Diesel fuel packs greater explosive power than gasoline -- hence the clatter -- and the highly pressurized air-fuel mixture drives the pistons with more force than in a gasoline engine, thus requiring less fuel.
In addition to fuel economy, a diesel’s key advantage is great power, or torque, at relatively low speeds. It is torque, the measure of an engine’s pulling power, that snaps your head back when you punch the accelerator on a powerful car. So a turbo-diesel VW Beetle or PT Cruiser feels as forceful as a gas-gulping muscle car.
Because of their sophisticated fuel-injection systems and beefier engine blocks, diesel passenger vehicles can cost as much as $4,000 more than gasoline counterparts. Because that could dissuade buyers, Rep. John D. Dingell of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has promised to make a push this year for a tax break for those who buy diesels that use low-sulfur fuel.
Cleaner diesel fuel is crucial to meeting future pollution standards because most of a diesel vehicle’s exhaust smoke comes from the sulfur content in fuel, which turns to soot inside the engine.
Clean Fuel Advances
In most states today, the sulfur in diesel fuel is about 330 parts per million. In California, where air quality regulations have prompted refiners to work harder, the average is 125 ppm. BP has moved several steps further and now turns out diesel in California, sold in its Arco stations, with sulfur content at 10 to 15 ppm.
That has helped even old smoky diesel cars to come clean, as Orange residents Conrad and Beverly Byars have discovered with the diesel 1981 Mercedes-Benz they bought in 1988 and have driven about 150,000 miles.
Conrad Byars, a retired title insurance executive, said the turbocharged diesel has been relatively problem-free. And he has noticed that the car has been running cleaner, not dirtier, as it ages, with smoke from the tailpipe diminishing.
Federal and state rules call for at least 80% of diesel fuel for on-road vehicles to have sulfur content of just 15 ppm by 2006, with 100% compliance by 2010. The cost of extracting additional sulfur from crude oil should add an extra nickel a gallon to the price of diesel, analysts said. Most of that will be passed on to consumers, who already pay a few cents a gallon more for diesel than for regular-grade gasoline.
Some analysts worry that the price disparity will hurt diesel sales, and they note that diesel fuel is available in only about 30% of service stations.
Still, diesel loyalists say that shouldn’t be a big deterrent. Whitehead, the Sacramento-area resident who drives a diesel VW, points out that at 50 mpg, a 12-gallon tank gives her a good 600 miles. That’s the distance from her home to San Diego and then some -- more than enough, she said, to find a diesel station.
