I read an article called "The Axis of Diesel" in Fortune about efforts to revive the diesel vehicle. When I think of diesel automobiles, I mainly think of those old Mercedes diesel cars. I really thought the popularity of diesel for anything other than trucks and commercial vehicles had come and gone. I was apparently wrong, as a new type of diesel vehicle is in production now. According to the article, at least six automobile manufacturers are launching a new breed of diesel vehicle, Mercedes being one of them. The appeal is that fuel efficiency will be increased by 25-40%, with a great deal of power in the vehicles. The downside is that the first models won't meet air quality standards in five states. Although diesel vehicles produce less in the way of greenhouse gases per the article, they produce "more smog-forming pollutants." The EPA even considered banning diesel vehicles about ten years ago. The way to combat the pollution problems has been to come forward with a very low sulfur diesel. There are strategies being discussed now regarding the reduction of other pollutants. The Mercedes model already comes with a device to combat nitrogen oxide and a filter for particulate matter. The EPA is apparently supportive of Mercedes' anti-pollution devices on these vehicles, althought it "has been leery of emissions systems that require maintenance...." Other manufacturers have not gotten as far as Mercedes yet on these systems.

The problem I see is that instead of finding a true alternative to foreign oil with these vehicles, we are simply making them more fuel efficient. Diesel fuel is still very polluting, which is especially evident given that this new breed of diesel vehicles can only be sold in 45 states. No matter what the controls are to limit the emissions, aren't these systems only as good as the owner's commitment to maintaining the same? How are the emissions checks going to be performed on these vehicles to make sure the controls are not faulty and are not emitting too much nitrogen oxide or particulate matter? To me, all of this seems like a waste of resources and a sign that consumers really don't want to sacrifice anything, even temporarily, in terms of the power of their vehicles or the V8 engines. I have heard that hybrids sometimes lack some of the power of their non-hybrid counterparts, but won't that be an improvement that comes with time? I don't really understand why we are wasting research and development time and money to create a better diesel vehicle when we could be perfecting a vehicle that runs on ethanol or at least, biodiesel. No matter how you depict them, diesel vehicles still don't seem like the answer we are looking for. They seem to me like one more way to keep us dependent on foreign oil.