Not since GM’s diesel catastrophe of the ’70s has the outlook for the venerable diesel engine in U.S. passenger cars looked so glum.
By Michael Sheldrick, Senior Editor
Memories of those earlier diesels, plus other drawbacks like noise, starting delay, smoke, and smell, along with the fact that our gasoline prices, whatever they may be, are cheap compared to those in Europe.
VW may have hammered in the final nail by its egregious emission cheating scheme last year. In fact, the diesel may face a problematic outlook in Japan and China as well, according to Elmar Degenhart, the CEO of automotive supplier Continental. “The diesel passenger car could sooner or later disappear from these markets,” he said in an interview with the German newspaper Boersen-Zeitung last week. In all these markets, he pointed out that the penetration of diesel passenger cars ranges from 1% to 3%, compared to 55% in Europe.
If all this weren’t enough, some industry analysts think the very idea of a “Clean Diesel” may be chimerical. Writing in The New York Times, Canadian author Taras Grescoe maintains that “diesel exhaust is laden with insidious soot particles, the so-called PM 2.5 (particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns, or one-thirtieth the width of a human hair), which allow carcinogens to penetrate deep into tissues and organs. In other words, a driver who steps on the accelerator of a diesel car may be filling the lungs of nearby pedestrians, cyclists, infants in strollers and other drivers with potentially deadly particulate matter.” This bleak picture would not be the case for the newest diesel engines operating in compliance with U.S. emission standards, which are among the toughest in the world — the very regulations that VW flouted.
Even diesel’s higher efficiency works against it. NOX outputs three times higher than a gasoline engine. In Paris and London, there are proposals to encourage scrapping or even banning older diesels. This problem, as well as the particulates, could be mitigated with newer post-combustion technology, like selective catalytic reductions and highly effective particulate filters, but that increases the price and complexity of the engine. Says Degenhart, “We are convinced that it is only a matter of time before electromobility, and there I include hydrogen power in the long term, prevails.”
References articles:
Volkswagen scandal could kill US diesel car market, Continental CEO says
The Dirty Truth about ‘Clean Diesel’
