Diesel-electric hybrids could move from cost-stunted concept to hot-selling technology in Europe if the European Union decides to tax cars based on carbon dioxide emissions. Some manufacturers already plan to sell diesel hybrids soon.
A change in EU legislative sentiment is not certain. What is clear is that if reducing CO2 moves from voluntary to mandatory, automakers will need more than conventional and gasoline hybrid technologies.
Diesel account for half of all new-car sales in the EU. In typical use cycles, diesel are about 30 percent more fuel efficient than gasoline models, so their growing popularity has been a major factor in the overall EU fuel economy gains.
With the popularity of already fuel-efficient diesel vehicles in Europe, manufacturers like PSA/Peugeot-Citroen don’t believe there is a market for gasoline-hybrids. “We don’t believe the business case for gasoline hybrids in Europe,” says Robert Peugeot, PSA’s vice president for innovation and quality. “The cost is high, and if the CO2 is the same as our (diesel), why do it?”
But diesel hybrids would work, he says. “It’s a practical technical solution…This is the breakthrough we need if we are to take care of CO2 emissions in the medium term.”
via::AutoWeek
[Ed. Note:]
Meanwhile, in the US, some manufacturers like Toyota and Ford are shunning diesels as new emissions standards are making compliance expensive, choosing to instead focus on gasoline-electric hybrids. Although Europe has long had the Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) fuel just now becoming the norm in the US, the EU’s emissions standards for diesel vehicles are not as strict as the new American Tier 2 Bin 5/CA LEV II regulations. VW, Audi, and Daimler-Chrysler, which are all part of the joint BLUETEC initiative, plan on bringing new ‘clean diesels’ to the US. Honda has also announced plans to bring a diesel to the American market, with an emissions control technology many see as superior to the SCR-Urea BLUETEC system.