March 3, 2005

Geneva, Switzerland - Diesels are popular in Europe and hybrids are gaining ground in North America and Japan. But these trends are only short-term, says Honda Motor Company product specialist Laurent Aebi.

"Diesel is popular in Europe, but it's a short-term trend," Aebi said. "I give it another 10 years maximum. After that it will be the hybrid car. But both the diesel car and hybrid car are a transition as we head to fuel cell cars or pure electric cars."

Honda was at the Geneva Auto Show displaying its new FCX fuel cell car, powered by an electric motor that uses hydrogen as its energy source.

Currently, gasoline accounts for 98 per cent of energy used in transport. The world consumes about 80 million barrels of oil a day; American consumption alone is expected to grow nearly 50 per cent over the next 20 years. Estimates vary on when oil production will begin to decline.

In Europe, diesel accounts for more than 50 per cent of cars sold. "There has been very rapid growth in the last 20 years," said Adriane Brown, president and CEO of Honeywell Transportation, which produces turbochargers for diesel and gasoline-powered engines. "We expect that to reach 56 per cent by 2010."

Yves Dubreil, vice president-deputy director of vehicle engineering at Renault, said diesel will not be as popular in the United States. "There has been a visceral rejection of diesel by baby boomers who were turned off by the bad performance of the first diesel cars. The high-tech X and Y generations will get attached to the hybrid idea, skipping diesel phase."

source : canadiandriver.com

 

There's a lot of talk of US buyers hating diesel, but if the E320CDi is any indication, there is a healthy market for it. Sure it would never reach the 50% of Europe, but with 16 mil cars sold in the US, even 1% would mean 160,000 cars.
Unless all of a sudden the world runs out of oil, I seriuously doubt there will be any huge change in car propulsion systems in 10 years.

 

the thing is, now with china recently becoming a very rapidly growing automobile market, that might happen sooner than we expected it

 

While I generally think that today's diesels are a better solution than hybrids, I'd like to see alcohol-fueled engines become popular....ethanol, IMO, is a better solution than either diesel or hybrids. Either way, with hybrids and diesels we are STILL dependent on crude oil, much of which is Middle-East sourced. Ethanol can be produced from a number of sources, including Midwestern corn right here at home. Ethanol is clean-burning, has extremely high octane, is much safer in an accident with ruptured tanks, and will help remove trouble-causing moisture from fuel systems. Its only real weakness is a low BTU content and a tendency to burn with a flame so clear that it is hard to tell if a fire breaks out.
Perhaps, best of all, alcohol-fueled engines and fuel systems can be produced MUCH cheaper and simpler than fuel-cell-hydrogen ones. Brazil.....the largest country in South America..... converted over to alcohol many years ago.

 

The next 10 years in the history of the automobile will be very interesting indeed! I am so glad I will (hopefully be alive) be able to see it!