Better Fuel Efficiency for Europe

Despite the skyrocketing cost of gas, highly fuel efficient diesel automobiles that are widely available in Europe are rarely marketed in the United States. Jeep, a subsidy of Daimler, has recently run commercials in New York featuring ‘Dr. Z,’ proclaiming a new, cleaner fleet of Jeeps, and heralds the coming of a 26 mpg diesel-powered Jeep Commander. But Jeep already sells a 26 mpg diesel Jeep Cherokee Limited in the United Kingdom. The high gas mileage of diesel cars, along with their lower emission of carbon dioxide, is the reason behind diesel’s popularity in Europe. But the Daimler says that more stringent U.S. emissions standards regarding other pollutants have made it difficult to engineer diesels for the U.S. market.  Others, however, say the car companies’ lack of long-term vision has created a "technology gap" in the U.S. Research Director David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists says a "short-sighted business plan that focuses on bean counting instead of technology" has caused the dearth of efficient vehicles on this side of the pond. Friedman believes that low gas prices in the United States in the past didn’t force car companies’ hands like high prices did in Europe. He cited an overall decline in fuel efficiency over the last 20 years in the U.S. as proof that car companies have not invested in technology "because it doesn’t pay for itself for five or 10 years, and companies are more interested in quarterly profits," he said. Dianna Gutierrez, a Jeep representative at Daimler said that emissions standards play a role in which cars are marketed where. She cited tougher emissions standards in 2007 as the reason why Jeep will discontinue the Liberty diesel. She said that re-engineering Liberty under the tighter emissions standards "would not be a good business decision." Simon Godwin, the Manager for Regulatory Affairs at Daimler-Mercedes said that the image of diesel vehicles in the United States is still the dirty lumbering rust bucket of the 1970′s and 1980′s and has stifled development in the United States. But pursuit of diesel engineering has produced marketable, clean vehicles that occupy almost 50 percent of the European market. Gasoline is almost three times as expensive in the United Kingdom than the U.S. Godwin and spokesman for Daimler, Nick Cappa, agreed that higher gas prices in Europe spurred development of automobiles with better gas mileage while low U.S. prices did not spur any such research or development in American car markets.