Posted on Friday 8 February 2008
Upmarket Honda brand Acura believes that bigger still is better. Despite indications that the American public may be ready to move to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, the luxury brand intends to keep selling larger vehicles. More surprisingly, despite Lexus’ huge success in the area, Acura will not be selling any hybrid models any time soon, even though Honda is releasing its global hybrid powertrain this year. Instead a new diesel engine will be introduced into the range.
Dick Colliver, executive vice president of Acura, told AutoObserver that hybrids are not a good fit for Acura’s current and future lineup. When it comes to meeting future fuel economy standards with hybrid technology Colliver believes, “when you go into the bigger vehicles, it’s going to be very difficult. Our position is it’s better-suited for smaller cars.”
The diesel option Acura will be introducing will be a 2.2L 4-cylinder i-DTEC unit produced by Honda, possibly headed to the 2009 TSX compact sport sedan, although this has not been confirmed by Colliver. “We will have a diesel in the Acura lineup in the very near future,” is all he says.
Honda is also developing a new V6 diesel unit that could be used in the MDX. This would improve greatly on the car’s current figures of 15mpg in city driving and 20mpg on the highway.
Recent reports have suggested American consumers aren’t ready to embrace diesel powered cars as willingly as hybrids, which could result in Acura’s gamble being a huge loss for the company. We’ll have to wait for the sales figures to see if it pays off.
wow… a japanese luxury brand that thinks a new and sexy technology ISN’T going to sell in america?
i would imagine the people who are buying JAPANESE… LUXURY.. would EXPECT the best technology available. no.. lets put a diesel in the car.
i guarantee you that most of acura’s customers will look down on a diesel no matter what honda says about it.
I think it depends .. if the diesels can bring hybrid like mileage at less cost & more trunk space … they could sell. It may take a while to get rid of the bias of diesel being dirty but it could happen if the #s are right (mpg & price).
my point here is that acura drivers dont give a damn about mileage or price. they want to hug the planet. and in their minds, diesel isnt clean, no matter if you call it clean or blue or green or what ever the heck those germans are saying.
simply put, in the public mind, the best thing for the environment is hybrids. and lexus is selling over-hyped and expensive technology to people who have money. I’m surprised that more luxury brands havent jumped on the band wagon. i’d expect acura to be the next, seeing as they are from japan, the technology capital of the world.
[this article contains sarcasm and is supposed to highlight the view of the modern american]
I think this is a good idea.
Diesel is wherei it is at . If hybrid was the be all end all then the Germans would be all over it.
Someday hybrid tech may be use with other modalities, but diesel packs a huge power punch per weight of fuel. Honda is one of the premier engine builders in the world and I myself am glad they are persuing diesel developement.
Americans are stupid when it comes to cars and somebody needs to wake them up.
Looking forward to a diesel Ridgeline!
Acura is Planning to go global in the next 2 years. When you look at Global Hybrid sales, its a joke compared to diesel sales. Now with that in mind, tell me what makes more sense financialy for a company.
Regards,
[URA] Dirty Poop Tooth
Engines are the least of Acura’s problems. The lastest RL has very poor styling for a would be flagship. It is essentially an Accord with an overstated grille. People will continue to avoid this vehicle and Acura’s sales will plummet. Their race engine technology is some of the best in the world. Simply translate that knowledge into real-world use and hire a design dream team for the next RL and NSX.
They already did it w/ the Accord - could they not just offer it as an option for like the TL? Sure it will not sell in high #s but in the luxury market it’s all about bragging rights. Look how few hybrid GS sells but they still do it & constantly say they have the 1st RWD luxury hybrid sedan.
Does anyone here live in California?
Let’s face it, if it doesn’t sell here, it doesn’t sell (excessive arrogance maybe, but partly true).
Regular unleaded: $2.89
Premium unleaded (what Lexus’ run on): $3.19
Diesel: $3.89 and availabe at every 5th or 6th station, maybe.
There is simply no way that people will pay that much extra for a fuel that isn’t widely available and which is still unpopular from an old mindset.
In other words, Chris is right.
thanks gus. didnt know that diesel prices are that far out of wack. may just be cali, but in ontario diesel is the same price as regular unleaded. I’m just saying this based on the mind set, and the fact that most people are completely ignorant to this stuff and even worse they think they’re very knowledgeble.
if they really wanted to push it, they would go with a diesel turbine electric hybrid……….. honda doesnt make locomotives do they?
i dont have a problem with diesel but if you want to really sell the crap out of diesel,.. do a diesel electric hybrid. whats that one euro car… gets 70mpg… in concept form anyways.. citroen? i forget. C class hatch that gets 70mpg on what i’ve been told is a much cheaper fuel?
I’m just saying that diesel isnt luxury. not in USA. hybrid, electric, technology, computers… not stone age diesel grunt oil burning smog forming black soot spewing fuel. again… not my view. i’d be the first person to buy a diesel Focus.
Across most of the EU (600 million, twice as big as the US), diesel is considerably cheaper than regular gasoline. Smaller engines can power large cars thanks to the huge torque advantage that diesels usually have. The emissions are better on almost every level, except particulate matter, which has been postulated as a cause of asthma (although, what hasn’t?).
As to hybrids, have any of you actually driven one in the real world? They make sense in small cars, but they offer piffling advantages in large cars, except for the fact that they waste less energy during braking.
Bottom line: modern diesel engines are a different animal, with fewer weight and space penalties than hybrids, less complexity and fewer heavy metals to “recycle” when the vehicle is scrapped. If the exhaust is properly scrubbed, they might even be a better stopgap until we get to a decent sustainable mode of transportation (and I’m not talking about biofuel!!).
Sorry Gus and Chris but you guys are wrong. Diesels already are better than hybrids when it comes to mileage. It’s a 100 year old technology that defeats the new one. There are diesel engines that are super clean and get almost the 70mpg Chris is looking for.
The problem, as Gus puts it, is partly CA and MA, and NY and those other stupid States whose governments think that they know more than the average Joe and have decided that diesel = evil. The mindset in those States - and indeed accross much of the USA - may be that diesels are inferior.
The mindset is wrong.
The Prius is a statement of *hey, look at me, I’m better than you because I care about the environment, I’m hip, trendy… * and not so much a real car for the real world. The LS600h offers very few mpg over the regular LS600. I’m not saying hybrids are bad, I’m only saying diesels are better.
Trust me guys. I drove a Passat diesel from Luxembourg to Frankfurt doing over 90mph most of the way and spent only half a tank getting there and back and like Roy points out it was very cheap to do so.
I’m a diesel fan.
Nope, I’m afraid it’s Hector that’s wrong…
Hector, what I’m saying is exactly what you are saying. Diesels are WAY better than Hybrids, it’s just that they won’t sell here. That’s all I’m saying. Nothing more. Honest.
I used to own a 1982 300SD that went over 300,000 miles on one engine and despite it’s 3 ton wieght got almost 30mpg. I picked that one up in Germany with my parents, and it was much cheaper to drive than my grandmothers VW bug.
I am a fan of diesels as well, but not at the price it’s sold at in California.
For example, let’s say the Ford Explorer (which we’re looking at buying next year) came with a turbodiesel V6 that made decent power and gobs of torque, could pull the 5000 pounds I need to pull, and got 20% or better mileage than the V8 that had the same torque, and diesel were at the same price as regular, and the engine option only cost $500-$1000 more than the gas V6, or the same as the V8?
Sold.
Hybrid is not the solution in every application. Personally, I’d never by one because I do 80% highway driving and in that case a hybrid will use mostly the gas engine and the huge savings in that application won’t be seen. I’d buy a new clean diesel in a second.
The other thing with a diesel unlike a gas/hybrid engine, in the gas/hybrid, the more you load up the vehicle the more the gas numbers suffer. The diesel delivers the same mileage no matter what the load is. Think of a loaded Audi Q7, full of kids and baggage. In in a hybrid application it will suffer in the gas mileage while a diesel would not.
People will relearn the value of clean diesels just as people learn’t to come around and buy hybrids which initially saw low adoption rates.
You guys quoting 70mpg are not the same measurement of MPG used in the US. The 70 MPG you’re talking about is Imperial which is different to US. I’ve added a URL for an online conversion chart. Looking at Euro auto site the diesel aren’t quoting numbers that high.
70 MPG imperial is 56 MPG US.
http://www.tdiclub.com/misc/conversions.html
I’ve heard somewhere though that the VW Bluemotion Polo Diesel gets 70mpg US?