The Economist in 2011 made a salient point about the future of gasoline vehicles:

For Toyota, taking BMW’s diesel engines is a tacit admission that its hybrid strategy does not cut it in Europe.

That means a gasoline-hybrid strategy is failing. A diesel-hybrid strategy, however, would have worked.

Two years later, today, the Economist admits the race is over. Diesel has won. Gasoline is dying.

The Toyota Prius hybrid? A lowly twentieth on the league table of the most economical fuel-sippers, with 4.2 litres/100km, along with higher emissions of carbon dioxide. The 19 cars having better fuel economy than the Prius hybrid are all clean diesels.

It really makes you wonder why we don’t have a hybid-diesel option instead of a hybrid-gasoline in America. At least GM has finally taken the lead domestically by releasing a passenger-car diesel option. It’s not the car they talked about in 2008, but it’s a start.

The Economist, however, is still thinking about the past. Instead of pointing out modern diesels already are available in America, they tell us diesels are on their way and Mazda is “leading”. This sounds like nonsense to me:

Later this year, Americans will get their first chance to experience what a really advanced diesel is like—and why Europeans opt for diesels over hybrids, plug-in electrics and even petrol-powered cars. [Mazda’s] diesel has 30% better fuel economy and provides oodles more pulling power. Good as the petrol version is, motorists who choose it over the diesel will miss out on a lot.

I’ll tell you why their “first chance” talk is nonsense. Look at the Economist analysis of what has changed.

“What marks this latest generation of diesel engines from even their ‘common-rail’ predecessors of the late 1990s…”

That’s a 20-year old reference — too far back to talk about predecessors. Several major generations of engine have hit American shores in-between the “late 1990s” and today. Why not compare current engines with those Americans have been driving in the 2000s?

Most notably was a major shift in 2004 when California regulated small passenger diesels out of the state (politics prevented regulation of the larger engines until later). Another major point was in 2008 when they re-appeared. This was no secret to the Economist. They wrote about it in an article called “Diesel’s second coming.”

America’s first chance to experience new diesel engine technology was around 2005 (when new VW TDIs were introduced) and then again in 2008 (when VW’s diesel won car of the year). I would call 2004 and 2008 models the predecessors, taking us into the late-2013 technology.

So much for America’s “first chance”.

Perhaps it is fair to say some people haven’t really been excited by diesel engines since the 1990s (the Economist gave Fiat Research an award) but who cares if those people have been asleep at their wheel since then. The Economist is not excused from doing research on the past decade of innovation.

It has been clear over the past ten years that diesel has achieved a pole position for increasing mpg while reducing emissions and providing performance and power. Combined with an electric motor, we’re talking over 100 mpg and a fun driving experience. Volvo sold-out every diesel-hybrid targeted for France before they even left the factory.

Still, some are confused. Editors at Forbes offer us this non-prediction:

…it’s not yet obvious whether electric vehicles, diesels, or even compressed natural gas vehicles (there are millions in countries such as Iran and Brazil) will ultimately take the checkered flag in the race for efficiency

Millions in Iran? Never thought I would hear Forbes suggest Iran as a model of efficiency. Experts on Iran seem to paint it in the opposite light, a study of waste and unsustainable inefficiency:

…poor resource management have contributed to rapidly growing energy consumption and high energy intensity for the past decades.

What Forbes is really saying is “let’s study engines in countries with domestic natural resources”. This is NOT a good equation. No wonder Forbes is confused.

To me there is no question. The race for efficiency is really a race for freedom from resource dependence, related to national security. Diesel = winning.

The answer is obviously diesel-hybrid, given American driver habits/needs. No other engine competes when it comes to sustainability. As I have written here since 2005, it is the safest, easiest to deploy, most-resilient and yet best performing of all. It is no coincidence the military prefers diesel.

Natural gas presents an interesting alternative to the pollution of coal plants but, as the Economist itself has written in the past, it fails miserably with a car engine. It gets about the same mpg as gasoline with far less performance. Same problem as ethanol. That means a significant cost added to manufacturing with marginal benefits.

Electric vehicles are great performers, perfect for urbanites, yet they lack range and cost far too much to enter the market at a broad base. They also have major additional costs to factor such as battery maintenance and replacement, not to mention the occasional unexplained explosion and fire (e.g. even Boeing claimed they didn’t see it coming).

Both natural gas and electric also require an overhaul to American infrastructure to enable vehicles with special engines. That’s a pipe-dream (pun intended) and about as likely as hydrogen. When you think about how long broadband has taken to be upgraded in America, and how inexpensive that infrastructure is compared to fuel lines…

I wouldn’t bet against diesel-hybrid.

You may have noticed I’m fond of comparing highly-efficient diesel engines to sports cars. Two years ago I was writing comments on security blogs

I mean a four-door all-wheel-drive station wagon made by Volvo is expected to be available next year that delivers better horsepower than a Ferrari 308 and a Camaro Z28, yet will also provide 100 mpg. That should have been an American made vehicle.

And I was shamelessly plugging the same example into my security presentations (red cars at the bottom are the Ferrari and the Camaro)

In short, it seemed pretty cool to me that a modern Volvo diesel station wagon could get over 100mpg yet give better performance than a Camaro Z/28.

I see now that GM has actually delivered on this performance level themselves with their new Cruze Diesel. GM announced it as Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel Delivers Classic Muscle Car Torque.

Similarly, Jalopnik has run the headline “New Chevy Cruze Diesel And ‘72 Camaro Z/28 Are Basically The Same Car”

…better than a 350z, an Esprit Turbo (but not an Esprit V8) and a Ferrari F355. And it gets better fuel economy!

Cruze’n on a Tractor

That’s what I’m talking about! No, wait. Cruze beats the Z/28. What do they mean same? A Z/28 would spend way more dollars and hours at a pump. In any race over distance Cruze wins.

258 ft-lb torque, 46 mpg, 717 miles/tank
(horsepower is dead)

Jalopnik is being facetious. I’m not. If Cruze was a diesel-electric hybrid, like the Volvo, it would beat the Z/28 on 0-60 also.

That shadow image comes from GM…dislike. The shadow should be a bald eagle flying, a running wolf, something that shows American freedom and performance. The shadow is meant to look like “classic muscle” but instead looks to me like a dirty, smelly tractor. And that would be exactly the wrong image to sell a diesel sportscar. Classic muscle? It doesn’t even sound good.

Incidentally, if you get the gasoline version of the same car they’ll tell you it can get almost 40 mpg. You have to search the fine-print to find that gasoline gets 100 ft-lb less torque. NO thanks on the gasoline engine.

Engine:	Diesel	Gas
Torque	258	148
MPG	46	36
Cost	$25K	$18K

 

The Cruze site points out that it outperforms the VW, which (surprise) is priced the same. Makes sense they’re going head-to-head with another diesel in the market and price-matching but here too, dislike.

Instead they should have a number of vehicles to compare against. Where’s my selector so I can do head-to-head with Ford, Kia, Toyota, Subaru…?

And let’s see an ad with a Cruze Diesel versus a Prius pulling five people plus bags off the line. THAT would be funny.

Or GM could poke a little fun at itself and show a race between a Cruze and a Z/28 that includes fuel stops.

Or they could FOCUS on hitting Ford hard (pathetic 36 mpg max, no diesel option) and they could put up a fleet vehicle calculation engine that shows how you can save $20 million.

I mean let’s talk about an easy buy decision. Do you want 46 mpg in a hotrod turbocharged clean diesel from GM versus a slow and thirsty Ford? BOOM, done. Do you want your city to save millions every year in staff time and cost, and reduce pollution? BOOM, done.

Going in a stock white sock up against a sexy dark grey VW with a long-standing following…mmm, not such a good idea.