Diesel Advocates Want Incentive Equality
By Danny King November 10, 2011
A paper written by former U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and published by diesel-vehicle advocacy group argues that the federal government needs to take a more equitable approach in its manufacturing and purchasing incentives for advanced-technology vehicles. Development and sales of vehicles with clean-diesel and smaller, turbocharged gasoline engines should get the same incentives as electric-drive vehicles, the 19-page paper insists. The paper, published by the U.S. Coalition for Advanced Diesel Cars and titled "The Case for Technology Neutral Public Policy in Fuel Economy Debate: Allowing Performance To Determine Solutions," also states that diesel- and turbo-powered cars are likely a more effective way to meet progressively more stringent U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions standards than backing the production and purchases of electric-drive vehicles.
By enacting incentives like the $7,500 federal tax credits for buyers of electric-drive vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt while doing something similar for other forms of fuel-saving powertrains, government may actually hinder automakers' attempts to meet new emissions standards, the diesel group maintains. President Obama in late July reached a tentative agreement with the major automakers that would establish a 54.5 mile-per-gallon CAFE standard for passenger vehicles in 2025. That would be equal to an EPA "window sticker" fuel economy rating of about 40 mpg, or about an 80 percent jump from last year's EPA-rated fleetwide fuel economy. "To spur broad innovation, public policies and incentive plans must be technology neutral. Government should set the goals -- even aggressive goals -- that inspire the freedom to innovate, and then get out of the way," Mineta wrote in the paper. "State and federal public officials should resist the temptation to pick winners and losers, to let politics and fads enter the debate, or to engage in centralized planning in a highly complex industry."
Choice Favors Diesel
Despite such incentives for electric-drive vehicles, consumers are already favoring diesels as a way to increase their fuel economy, the paper argues. Mineta points out that sales data shows that for models that offer both clean-diesel and conventional gas versions, such as the Audi A3 hatchback (top) and Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen Diesel, almost 40 percent of customers are choosing diesel. In contrast, he argued, only 5 percent of customers for vehicles that offer both hybrid and conventional versions -- models such as the Ford Escape or the Toyota Camry -- are choosing the hybrid.
Price is likely the primary factor, as diesels tend to cost about $2,000 more than comparable gasoline models, compared to the $4,000 hybrid premium and the $8,000-$10,000 premium for electric vehicles. Citing a "well to wheel" analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the paper says that the production and use of each next-generation diesel vehicle produces just 10 percent more greenhouse-gas emissions than a battery-electric vehicle and that next-generation turbocharged vehicles produce 20 percent more emissions that electric vehicles and those numbers don’t reflect significant differences, Mineta wrote in the paper.
The U.S. light-duty diesel industry in recent years has been limited largely to U.S.-made pickups and SUVs and German-made vehicles such as the A3 TDI, Volkswagen Touareg Diesel and Mercedes-Benz M-Class Diesel. That may change soon as General Motors said in July that it plans to offer a diesel version of its popular Chevrolet Cruze compact starting in 2013. GM hasn't sold diesel-powered cars in the U.S. since it offered the powertrain on some of its Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Buick sedans in the 1980s. Kaushik Madhavan, global program manager for the research firm Frost & Sullivan's automotive and transportation practice, told AutoObserver earlier this year that North American passenger-car diesel sales will jump from the approximately 100,000-unit level now to as many as 700,000 vehicles by 2018, and those numbers don't factor in the Cruze Diesel.
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