The San Francisco Chronicle has posted a poorly researched story called “62 mpg being talked about as new standard for 2025“. It gives a very one-sided perspective:

The government already has said automakers’ fleets must average 35.5 miles per gallon of gas by 2016 – up from 27.3 right now – but 62 would change everything. Two-thirds of U.S. cars would have to be electric or gas-electric hybrids, says Gloria Bergquist of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. And it would cost consumers more than $3,000 per new vehicle, at least twice as much as it would for a standard of 47 mpg, according to one analysis. The good news: Net savings over a lifetime could be $5,700 to $7,380.

Let’s face it, Bergquist is known for having her head and heels dug into the sand, as you can see in an LA Times quote last year:

One of the factors that should be assessed is affordability of technology because if consumers don’t buy that technology, we’re not going to achieve those results. We also don’t know the future state of the electric infrastructure or consumers’ ability to find clean diesel.

It’s not really about affordability. A clean diesel that exceeds the 2016 35.5mpg standard is available today. I drive a 2004 diesel engine that the EPA rates at 38mpg. That car was less expensive than the gasoline option for the same car when I bought it. Better mpg, less cost…if it was only about affordability why did anyone buy the gasoline option in 2004?

It also is not about the ability to find clean diesel. Diesel comes from virtually every form of oil. That was the inventors intention. Fish, cattle, plants, even waste oil otherwise headed to a landfill…everything with oil can fuel diesel engines. Compare that with the highly-centralized and prohibitively expensive petroleum exploration and drilling model of supply; Bergquist obviously has her models mixed up.

Despite the above two factors, manufacturers still say they would rather sell gasoline models. Take, for example, Honda has been very slowly considering whether to enter the American market (remember how they introduced their SUV just as the SUV demand started to crash?) with an Accord that gets more than 60 mpg. They have the technology now, but they’re afraid to introduce it:

Honda expects to bring the clean-diesel car to the U.S. by 2010. It gets 62.8 miles a gallon on the highway, but otherwise looks and feels like a regular Accord. At that mileage level, the car is about as “clean” as a new Toyota Prius. But if you run it on biodiesel, a form of diesel made from vegetable oil or animal fat, it would be even cleaner than a Prius (Priuses get 60 in the city).

Subaru is the same. The Wall Street Journal predicted dozens of clean diesels in America by 2008, but most automobile manufacturers proved them wrong by sitting on the fence.

VW has the guts, as everyone knows from its history of innovation and design awards in America, to lead. It delivered a clean diesel Jetta as well as the Golf to America, both with 60 mpg, three years ago:

Dubbed BlueTDI, the engine produces 138 horsepower and 236 pound-feet of torque. It’s good for 60 mpg on the highway, a 12-percent improvement over the 2006 Jetta TDI. And thanks to some emissions tweaks – an engine-management system that mitigates toxic nitrogen oxide production by limiting combustion temperatures, and a maintenance-free trap that converts the remaining NOx to nitrogen and water – the Jetta BlueTDI meets the EPA’s Bin 5/LEV 2 emissions standards. That means it’s 50-state legal without the need for urea injection. Even Californians get one.

…and sales have been phenomenal. Even more interesting is that the Audi A3 version of the clean diesel has boosted Audi sales in America.

Stop for a minute and ask yourself why someone would buy an Audi when they could buy a VW for far less money? Why? Even more to the point, why would someone buy a Hummer when they never drive off-road? What about the simple math of spending the least amount of money possible on an automobile? What happened to affordability?

The fact is, many consumers spend money on fancy spoilers, roof-racks, non-aerodynamic bodies and heavy alloy wheels all that actually lower their mpg…because of style, status and social factors. All the evidence of the American automobile experience points away from affordability as a primary concern.

Agree? Now read this lame analysis from Popular Mechanics:

I’m glad VW is going to have a clean-diesel Jetta in 2008. But I won’t buy one. For me, the numbers just don’t work: It’s a $25,000 car that gets 45 mpg. I can buy a Toyota Corolla for $10,000 less and still get 38 mpg—a price difference that would take the Jetta 66 years to overcome, assuming $3 gas/diesel. That’s not to say the Jetta isn’t a great car, and I would much rather drive it than a Corolla. But it just doesn’t make economic sense, and as a writer pulling down a modest income, it’s all about economics.

If it were all about economics the American roads would look completely different than they do today. The sparkling clean Toyota Tundras with 30″ wheels and the Ford Expeditions with only a driver inside would be gone.

Although I sympathize with those who struggle to buy a new $25K car, I do not believe for one minute that the obstacle to diesel adoption is affordability. It is not about the R&D or pump prices any more than it is about the cost of floor mats, as I have argued before.

Even if it were just an issue of getting a loan to cover the extra $1000 for a diesel engine (introduced when manufacturers realized diesel enthusiasts would pay more), my experience has been that American diesel vehicles actually appreciated in value over time while the gasoline variants rapidly declined.

The problem is thus much more simple than the Chronicle would have you believe: it is marketing. Mainstream consumers in America are highly influenced by perceived status and style. Vehicles are sold with a Marlboro Man or a Crocodile Dundee, rather than with a calculator.

Alas, most American auto marketing is stuck in the past with a CYA approach to risk. They seem only to want to follow well-beaten paths (re-introduce old models and brands) rather than approach the new trails; they claim to be oblivious to the obvious signs of rising global consumer demand for clean diesel.

People forget that it was just one adventurous and independent executive at Toyota who fought to bring America the Prius.

Gloria Bergquist will say “the future is uncertain” because she represents an industry stuck looking only in the rear view mirror; it’s an unsafe way to drive the industry unless she is trying to go backwards.

VW’s diesel cars not only already meet the 2025 standards but their plan for 2013 is a car that gets over 260 mpg. Very cool. Speaking of cool, if smaller cars continue to be popular, American drivers might even start looking more seriously at the GX3 concept.

A group of security experts recently mentioned to me that the Oil-producing countries are all well-aware that their resources are limited. They explained this in terms of Iran’s urge to develop nuclear power.

Whether or not you accept that argument, it makes a fitting backdrop to VW’s decision to announce a super-efficient fuel-economy concept car at the Qatar Auto Show.

Take half a regular TDI engine, reduce the body weight about half, and sprinkle in some high tech bits and you get the XL1:

Now, Piech’s Volkswagen has combined state-of-the-art technology, from common rail diesel-supplemented plug-in hybrid power to carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer lightweight body material, to create the XL1. The concept consumes 0.9 liters of diesel fuel per 100 kilometers, the automaker says, which translates to an EPA fuel mileage figure of 261.3 mpg. That mileage equals 24 grams of CO2 per kilometer, VW says. Our CO2 converter converts 261.3 mpg to 0.30 pounds per mile. VW chose to unveil this car as part of an auto show in Qatar, the one part of the world where fuel efficiency isn’t much of an issue.

The successful launch of a Delta IV Heavy configuration from America’s West Coast means the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) payload L-49 is on its way into orbit.

Delta 352’s payload is officially classified; however it is widely believed to be a KH-11 “Improved Crystal” electro-optical reconnaissance satellite. The KH-11 first flew in the late 1970s, replacing earlier film-return imaging satellites like the KH-9 Hexagon. Instead of returning images by film, KH-11 satellites transmit them electronically. Four separate generations of KH-11 satellites have been identified, with the later two unofficially referred to as KH-11B or KH-12.

KH-11 satellites are designed to produce high-resolution images, which are then relayed to the ground via Satellite Data System (SDS) spacecraft in molniya and geosynchronous orbits. They are reported to resemble the Hubble Space Telescope.

[…]

The launch of NRO L-49 came amid a period of increased activity in terms of NRO launches. One Medium and one Heavy payload were launched during the last four months of last year, and in the next year two heavy, two medium and one light payload are scheduled to fly. Two NRO CubeSats, QbX-1 and QbX-2, were also launched in December aboard a Falcon 9.

I noticed an amusing comparison on pickuptrucks.com of the Dodge Ram 3500 Heavy Duty Diesel to the NASA rocket.

Delta IV Heavy:
Max payload 28,650 lbs
51,000,000hp
0.00087mpg
$600,000 to fill up
0-60mph in 15 seconds

Dodge Ram 3500 HD:
Max payload 25,400 lbs
350hp
11.8mpg
$118.65 to fill up
0-60mph in 10.4 seconds

The rocket mpg calculation seems off, since it’s calculating only the first stage and not the total distance traveled after liftoff. More to the point, it is hard to believe that a 2011 Dodge pickup still only gets 11.8mpg.