Hybrids and Diesels as Engines of Change

Our transportation future is as wide open as it's ever been, with diverse vehicles, technologies, and strategies being discussed and developed. While it's impossible to look two decades down the road and know with any certainty what vehicles will be like, it's enlightening to examine the trends and strategies now at play to provide an all-important glimpse at what that future could bring. Some of these trends are very clear, like today's strong movement toward gasoline-electric hybrids and advanced diesel vehicles.

Hybrids now represent a small percentage of overall vehicle sales of about 0.5 percent, a number projected to reach 3.5 percent by 2012, according to a recent survey. Given the trending and the political/societal factors inextricably tied to the automobile - not the least of which are historically high fuel prices, our country's energy security, and imported oil's impact on the U.S. economy - it seems to Green Car Journal editors that current projections regarding future hybrid sales are quite conservative.

All-too-often, projections are predicated upon cost equations, in which direct comparisons are made between the higher cost of a hybrid vehicle compared to a more conventionally-powered counterpart, and how quickly gas savings would pay for the cost difference between the two. This does not accurately reflect how many, if not most, hybrid purchase decisions are made...a factor that could radically alter such projections.

Extensive analysis at Honda indicates that hybrid buyers are not comparison shopping between a Civic Hybrid and a Civic HX, for instance. They are in the market for a hybrid vehicle that makes more sense to them than the vehicle they're currently driving, with an eye toward substantially greater fuel economy and accompanying cost savings at the pump.

A growing consumer interest in diesel is underscored by a recent Kelley Blue Book/Harris Interactive poll that found nearly a third of the U.S. new car buyers surveyed saying they would be willing to consider a diesel vehicle as their next purchase. While this trailed significantly behind the two-thirds who said they would consider a gasoline-electric hybrid, it does represent a substantial increase in diesel interest on the part of American car buyers, who have traditionally looked at diesel as more of a European phenomenon. Since fuel prices are so high and diesel vehicles provide 30% better fuel economy than gasoline-fueled counterparts - with a corresponding decrease in greenhouse gas emissions - there's a lot of incentive here for both new car buyers, as well as the automakers looking to America as an expanding market for their diesel powered cars and light trucks.

Increasing interest in diesel vehicles can only be helped by the growing momentum of biodiesel, the renewable fuel created from various agricultural products. Since biodiesel can be used in various mixtures in existing diesel engines - from 100 percent pure biodiesel to popular blends that typically include up to 20 percent biodiesel with 80 percent petroleum diesel - there is enormous potential for this alternative fuel to make modern diesel vehicles a 'green' transportation alternative in this country.