And what are they going to do to get more diesel pumps around the good old US of A? And the perception of diesel as dirty in the good old US of A? And why does it seem like there's an unwritten law that any sufficiently fuel efficient car has to look like a robot turd?
> And why does it seem like there's an unwritten law that any sufficiently fuel efficient car has to look like a robot turd?
Concept cars have always looked like that. Even before the 'concept' was a fuel-efficient one. I remember going to autoshows (living in the Detroit-area the International Auto Show is just downtown every January) in the 90's and seeing sketches of cars that looked like that (style-wise), and sometimes prototypes on display as well. I think that it's more of an auto-industry thing.
People keep bringing this up. Is it really an issue across the US? Every gas station I go to has at least one diesel pump in each row of gasoline pumps (Minnesota/Wisconsin/Iowa). Finding diesel, at least around here, is no more difficult than findng gasoline. My wife tends to prefer driving her big diesel pickup, so if she were having trouble finding diesel, I'd certainly have heard about it by now.
Diesels are already popular in Europe, so there's no problems there. I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but I suspect diesel is popular in most places outside the US. The US is the place built around cars, the US is the place that spends the most on oil, and the US is the place with an atypical dislike for diesel and a lack of diesel pumps. Thus for this car to make the biggest difference it has to become popular in the US. And while anyone who can read English can read Wired on the Internet, Wired is a US publication.
But other then that no, nothing US specific about this.
Here in Canada I see diesel nearly everywhere (certainly not compared to the UK and Europe where 3 or 4 fuel prices are listed on a sign, I have no clue why they don't do the same here besides corporations being as smart as a thanksgiving turkey), certainly in the GTA it's at every pumping station.
I've seen a fair amount of Jetta's around where I live carrying the TDI symbol, so diesels are definitely selling. I believe info about biodiesel is helping promote this, but I believe it will still be considerable time before the NA market is as accepting of diesel as the European market, which I find seriously disturbing due to the fact that southern US has been perfect for diesels since their invention (high temperatures meant starting was never an issue in winter, and the higher fuel density meant that you didn't lose as much fuel to evaporation, but then fuel-efficiency is still a near alien word to many in NA).
