Honda plans to sell diesel-powered cars in the US and Japan as soon as 2009, Dow Jones reported, citing a Japanese media report.
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Diesel versions of the Odyssey minivan and Acura MDX SUV are planned for US markets, Honda president Takeo Fukui was quoted as saying in an interview with the Yomiuri newspaper.
Dow Jones noted that Honda already sells diesel cars in Europe where its diesel-powered Accord was rated Europe’s most reliable car in a survey released in the past week.
It also noted that diesel engines often offer better fuel economy that petrol engines and that diesel is also cheaper, an important factor as petrol prices have risen sharply in the past year.
“Honda’s already in the business of diesel engines,” Kurt Sanger, senior analyst at Macquarie Research Equities in Tokyo, told the news agency. “They already have one of the world’s most efficient diesel engines on the market in Europe,” he added.
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By GlobalDataDow Jones also noted that Honda has had less success in the US marketing hybrid vehicles, which include the now-discontinued Insight, and a hybrid version of the Civic, than rival Toyota has enjoyed with the Prius.
Hybrid technology has proven best suited to smaller cars, while Honda’s new diesel vehicles will be focused on the opposite end of the market, the report added, noting that a possible stumbling block is diesel’s reputation in the US as a polluting, low-grade fuel.
“It hasn’t been marketed to Americans in quite some time,” said Sanger.
Detroit auto manufacturers tried offering quickly-developed diesel cars to consumers during the oil crises of several decades ago but the cars soon developed poor reputations for reliability, a lack of performance and high smoke emissions and US consumers still regard them as inferior, despite the emergence in Europe over the last decade of sophisticated, high-performance, low-emission diesel engines.
Sanger also told Dow Jones that the advanced diesel fuel that powers such cars in Europe is not widely available in the US yet.
