DaimlerChrysler sees huge potential for diesel-powered cars in the United States, the automaker told Reuters.

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“There are great, great opportunities,” Thomas Weber, the group’s head of research and technology and development head for Mercedes Car Group, said on Thursday, suggesting US diesel use could one day reach the 50% level now seen in Europe.


Weber reportedly said diesel motors’ performance, durability, and fuel efficiency could win converts from petrol engines, especially once low-sulphur diesel fuel becomes widely available in the United States next year.


Reducing the sulphur content in diesel fuel will allow advanced emission control technology in diesel engines and will substantially improve air quality, Reuters noted.


“Thus we will lead this technology to the extent that we have in Europe,” Weber told the news agency. He gave no time frame for this, but noted independent research groups forecast one in 10 US cars could soon be powered by diesel motors.

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According to Reuters, a study released last month by market research group JD Power-LMC Automotive Forecasting Services suggested US sales of diesels were set to grow from 3% market share in 2004 to 7.5% by 2012, given high petrol prices.


However, tighter US emissions standards and consumers’ perception of diesel engines as noisy and inefficient [due largely to lingering impressions of poor quality engines offered by the Big Three in the 1970s] will be a limiting factor in their popularity, the report noted.


Of the 221,000 Mercedes cars sold in the United States last year, only 4,500 E-class models were diesel powered, Reuters added.