I read this this morning and was absolutely appalled.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/b4099060491065.htm?chan=autos_autos+–+lifestyle+subindex+page_top+stories
Ford, an American auto company who has been taking an absolute beating from companies like Toyota and Honda in the fuel efficient vehicle market, has a nice looking 5 passenger car that gets 65 mpg. However, they are not planning to sell it in the US. The reason:
“”We know it’s an awesome vehicle,” says Ford America President Mark Fields. “But there are business reasons why we can’t sell it in the U.S.” The main one: The Fiesta ECOnetic runs on diesel.”
WTF?!?!?!
Am I the only one who finds this statement to be completely absurd? We have the technology *today* to produce diesel fuel *directly* from algae in a very clean space efficient system. There is no refinement other than squeezing the oil out of the little buggers. No drilling, no big ugly tankers.
So… what’s the problem?!?!?
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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.