I am interested in purchasing a diesel Subaru in the USA. Why is it that the Europeans get all the cool technology? There is a demand for diesel engines in the US. Has a firm date for the US release been announced? What does the rumor mill say?
Currently, the Subaru instructor says 2011 or 2012. As with anything, those dates change every year.
This is absolutely unusual, indeed. In most other cases, though, Europe lags at least 1/2 year behind. Many models of brands like Ford, Toyota, Honda etc never make it to Europe. Even german carmakers designed models for the american market, build it there and market there first.
In case of the diesel, there may be problems with emission standards in certain US states. So I think, they introduced the brand new engine in a diesel friendly market, where gas prices are higher as in the US and diesel emission regulations not as strong.
This is near to my understanding. basically, it was easier to meet European (and Aussie?) emissions standards - plus, diesel passenger vehicles are more popular in Europe so there was more financial incentive to release it ASAP. Why hold back for the US market if it can be sold immediately?
Isn't it that Subaru doesn't have the technology to meet tougher US emissions standards? The verty expensive urea, blue stuff, whatever they call it.
Two years ago there were hopes diesel would be popularized in US, as low sulphur fuel was made available, and mandatory in all 50 states (California being first in August 2006 I believe).
But soon after, lobbying (by GM, other big US manufacturers?) began for even more stringent diesel emissions standards, and to prevent diesel.
My guess is US will never see diesel, until GM/Chrysler,Ford have a competitive diesel powerplant.
Oligopolist games/power, is in essence what prevents diesel in US. or in other words US is not a free market for competitors to sell whatever they wish.
AS
I was driving by a gas station near my house today (San Fran. bay area): diesel is even slightly cheaper than regular 87 gasoline. Some german cars, including some SUVs, (sold in US) have the diesel option already: BMW X5, MB M-class, etc. - those companies must have mastered clean (good enough for US regulations) diesel technology.
When Subaru can afford to licence 'blue' urea technology from Mercedes, then you'll get a diesel option. This is unlikely to happen soon.
That's why you see only big car companies and luxury models with diesel. Volkswagen Jetta was cheapest with diesel and Volkswagen was subsidizing this endeavor heavily. The 2010 Golf for US, is supposed to have diesel option.
Google the topic, there are plenty of articles.
AS
Remember, also, that this was a brand new engine as it came to market last year. How many years will development have taken? Let's say, optimistically, first planning for a marketing concept started in
2005. What was the situation in 2005? Mercedes praised their diesels on every auto trade show, but US sales were like they'd tried to sell sour beer. So, for me, it's understandable that Subaru didn't plan to introduce the engine in the US.An additional problem may be that they don't have an automatic transmission to configure with this engine up to this very day. If you buy an Outback diesel you get manual transmission. Which is fine for Europeans, especially Germans, where the majority still regards AT as a superfluous luxury. (I for my part belong to the minority that loves AT, that's the reason I decided in favor of the 2.5i with AT.)
It remains to be said, that Subaru market policy is a mystery to me. For example, it's not possible to buy an Outback 2.5 XT in Europe. The Forrester 2.5 XT is on sale in Switzerland, but is not offered in Germany. However, it has "Betriebserlaubnis" (a permit by the authorities to operate this type of car), and the dealer said it's no problem to order one and get a license plate for it. Which is fine, but still strange, isn't it.
I would love to get a regular diesel Forester, perhaps even with a manual tranny, but I have given up on this dream a long time ago. (Lets see what Volkswagen gives America in 2010; it is supposed to be a Golf TDI with 2.0L diesel).
Here is a nice article about Forester diesel; they end summing up the American situation this way:
There's a particular segment of the American buying public that would run to buy the Forester diesel just as fast as their sensible shoes could carry them. But it seems problematic that Subaru will bring it over unless there's an emissions breakthrough that means the company wouldn't have to acquire an expensive license for an advanced "AdBlue" urea-injection system like Mercedes' BlueTec. What a pity, since the Forester's tailgate is big enough for an entire manifesto's worth of bumper stickers.
The below numbers speak for themselves:
Jetta TDI price is $5K above MSRP on this web-based car sales web site:
Jetta with gasoline engine (2.0T) price is at around MSRP (on same web site):
I can understand you, it's annoying to know there *is* the car you want, but you can't buy one. How about buying one, say, in Switzerland or Italy and importing it? But perhaps, european prices plus shipping plus duties and taxes is too expensive.
I'd rather walk. :)
The Jetta sport-wagon no doubt must be a great car especially in diesel form, ...but for that kind of money it makes little sense, at least for me.
If you want to popularize diesel you have to do it right, which means diesel engine must be an option in base models, ...cheap cars, not most expensive or luxury models.
Who the hell is going to buy a top of the line diesel Mercedes, and what for? If you have that kind of money what purpose does a diesel serve? To generate complaints about noise, smelly fumes, etc. ?
If you sell a diesel engine in a small economy car, say a Chevy Cobalt base model, then you'll get a tremendous following.
Thats how diesels became popular in Europe.
I myself, in 1985, bought a brand new, bare-bone, base model FIAT Regata 1.8L Diesel, for 6,250 USD. Driven very carefully on highway it would make 100km per 5-5.5 liters of diesel. This is more or less 43 miles per gallon!
Since the Big Three don't have a good small diesel engine, nor do they have a good small gasoline engine, they are just going to use their power to prevent the competition from entering US market, by lobbying for ever more stringent emmision requirements.
Juest a few years ago, the main obstacle was high sulphur americal fuel, now, that this has been cleared, its just power of the Big Three.
But if Volkswagen is willing to subsidize and sell the Golf TDI, in the US, it should make an impact, at least it should serve as an illustration of what is possible.
AS
The car must have a permit by Department of Transportation, or some other authority like that, to be allowed on US roads. US residents cannot import cars that do not possess such permit. Every manufacturer gets one for the cars they bring to America. So practically it is impossible to import foreign cars that do not pass US permit requirements.
If you are a tourist or visitor, then you can bring whatever you want with you. I have seen many Citroen in New Orleans Louisiana, ...belonging to French visitors.
AS
Ford's Fiesta ECOnetic gets excellent fuel economy with a U.S. highway mileage of 74 mpg (3.18 L/100 km), a city mileage of 51 mpg (4.61 L/100 km)... ... Ford is aiming for a release date of the 2009 Fiesta range to the United States for the end of 2009. Using engineering concepts derived from the Fiesta ECOnetic, they also have the potential to become the first car manufacturer to break the 100 mpg barrier for a gasoline powered car.
They DO have them. GM has (or at least had until very recently) two daughters, Opel in Germany and Saab in Sweden. Opel is the 2nd rank german mass producer for small and midsize cars after VW, and they sold lot's of diesel. Same for Saab, although their market share is rather tiny. Chrysler uses Mercedes engine, for example there was a Jeep Cherokee CRD with the 2.7l diesel. Ford's german branch also sells Focus and Mondeo with own diesel engines.
In Germany, Subaru promotes (and partly subsidizes) Forester and Outback models that run on gasoline and LPG (bivalent). The 60l LPG tank sits in the place of the reserve wheel. LPG has a lesser energy density than gas, so you need more liters LPG than gasoline per 100km. For technical reason, the tank may hold only
52 Liters LPG. Nevertheless, I can drive around 480km on LPG alone for about 30 EUR, which is around 50$. This is currently economical in germany, as LPG is exempted from fuel tax. It even beats diesel: with 6l/1000km, I'd need around 30l diesel for 480km, and diesel currently costs between 1,05 and 1,15. Plus, diesel cars are taxed heftily in comparision with gasoline cars.
In Germany, Subaru promotes (and partly subsidizes) Forester and Outback models that run on gasoline and LPG (bivalent). The 60l LPG tank sits in the place of the reserve wheel. LPG has a lesser energy density than gas, so you need more liters LPG than gasoline per 100km. For technical reason, the tank may hold only
52 Liters LPG. Nevertheless, I can drive around 480km on LPG alone for about 30 EUR, which is around 50$. This is currently economical in germany, as LPG is exempted from fuel tax. It even beats diesel: with 6l/1000km, I'd need around 30l diesel for 480km, and diesel currently costs between 1,05 and 1,15. Plus, diesel cars are taxed heftily in comparision with gasoline cars.In US there're also some autos that use natural gas fuel. In Utah natural gas fuel is subsidised - so it's very cheap; also some of gas stations there have it. So, cars with natural gas propulsion are very popular there, for example: Honda Civic GX. But, as you just mentioned, because density of (even compressed) natural gas is relatively low, Civic GX has range of only
200 miles.Boris
Boris
You have to read the C&D article on the refineries setup differences in the US and Europe. Basically it boils down to this: euro refineries output much more diesel than the us refineries do. The second issue is that european market is not as sensitive to the cost of new cars because the consumers do not have as much info to research the prices and models and piss poor folk don't go car shopping (I don't). The car makers get back to the us car buyers by offering crappier cars though at lower prices than in europe.
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