Toyota says no to diesel-electric hybrids
Back in August, just before we got word of the Citroen C-Metisse concept car, I was electronically chatting with my friend Bryan about diesels and hybrids when he said, "makes me wonder why no one is marketing a diesel-electric hybrid to consumers yet." Think of the high mileage, the minimal emissions and of course the monsterous low-end torque. If or when an automaker mates the two power plants successfully, it could be pure automotive nirvana. I'm sure most AutoblogGreen readers have at one point or another had the very same conversation. Unfortunately, most of them have probably ended on the same thought - cost. Diesels are simply more expensive to make than their gas-powered siblings. This Planet Ark article says it typically costs 10 percent more to manufacture a diesel than a comparable gas-fueled model, so you're really getting hit by two premiums when you conjure up notions of the diesel-electric hybrid instead of just one for the conventional gas-electric. Still, it probably wasn't too many years ago that the modern concept of the gas-electric hybrid was just a glimmer in an engineer's eye.
On Wednesday, Tadashi Arashima, chief executive of Toyota Motor Europe, squashed some of those hopes. He said that costs for a diesel-electric hybrid would be far beyond what consumers would tolerate. He told BBC News, "Already the diesel premium is quite high, then you'd have to pay a hybrid premium, so we're not seeing that there is a market."
Toyota's obviously not the only company out there who's capable of producing an exciting viable diesel-electric hybrid vehicle, however, they are undoubtedly the industry leader in hybrid power train technology. Anyway, at least we still have GM, Ford and Citroen working at it (though, it's been a while since we heard anything new from the domestics on the matter.)
[Source: BBC via Autopia]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
russell geister 10:11PM (9/29/2006)
of course the japan won't make hybrid diesels like the us manufactures anything without sparkplugs is way beyond thier tiny thought processes any way the jappaness don't invent anything they just steal it from somewhere else.
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borgie 2:27AM (10/01/2006)
@1
yeah, like your tiny little brain can't accept the concept of proper punctuation.
When writing racist crap, at least try to make good, sharp derogatory arguments. All you did was to make yourself lookinglike an uneducated skinhead who just got his ass kicked by a big black dude. Learn the proper way of spewing hate, please.
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Ted 2:03PM (10/02/2006)
Not only is the cost too high, but the benefit is too low. The diesel engine already operates very efficiently at part load and idle; there's little benefit gained from shutting it off at a light.
A turbo-diesel would probably benefit from a "mild" hybrid system to help smooth transient load spikes and reduce emissions though.
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