- Award for Audi TDI Power
- 650 hp diesel engine impresses expert panel
- Ulrich Baretzky “Design Engineer of the Year”

Audi yet again proved “Vorsprung durch Technik” on the race track by taking the first victory for a diesel powered sportscar at the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours. The revolutionary diesel technology has now also triumphed in competition with Formula 1 and other motorsport categories: A panel of experts from the British specialist magazine “Race Engine Technology” voted the 650 hp V12 TDI engine from the Audi R10 TDI as “Race Engine of the Year 2006″ and “Alternative Race Engine of the Year”.

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Anyone else getting tired of hearing what anyone reading this probably already knows? Yes, at one point diesels were not well made, and maybe this is from watching that Honda commercial too many times, but it’s time for people to free their mind. Forget about what diesel once was and look at what it is now.

From autonews.com

We’ve been shown the future, and it’s not bad at all.

As of now, however, the future does not apply in California or four heavily populated northeastern states. And those of us in the other 45 might reasonably ask: If this car represents the future, why aren’t there more like it?

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This looks like the commercial they were using to promote the new Honda diesel engine. Like I said in the previous post, Honda’s new diesel was built by someone who hates diesel. This is why Honda believes their diesel is the best.

It’s just weird.

Mahindra & Mahindra is India’s leading SUV maker and they’re looking to bring an affordable diesel-hybrid to the States. Global Vehicles U.S.A, is set to be the American distributor for the Indian company. They will start out by selling pickups and SUV’s. The diesel-hybrid SUV won’t be out initially but is planned to debut soon after.

The ironic thing is all the other manufacturer’s are racing to get into India with it’s 1.1 billion population, and it’s budding market. All India’s manufacturers want to do is get out of India especially to the United States, currently the largest car market in the world. Most like Mahindra & Mahindra are desperate just for a tiny fraction of the market.
Source: NYTimes

This is actually a little more infomative of what happened over the journey, and has stats.

The longest diesel marathon of all times ended successfully in Beijing today. The 36 Mercedes-Benz E-Class cars, which left Paris on 21 October on a transcontinental rally covering about 14,000 kilometres, arrived safe and sound in the Chinese capital after traversing Europe and Asia. Through this endurance test under extreme conditions Mercedes-Benz has once again demonstrated the outstanding performance of its modern diesel engines in terms of emissions, fuel economy and reliability. Proof of this is also the fuel consumption of the victorious “eBay” team which won the fuel economy contest with an average of 7.19 l/100 km diesel. The best result on a daily leg was as low as 5.5 l/100 km.

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Here’s a summary story I found on the Paris-Beijing Rally from motors-meyerside.co.uk.

MERCEDES-BENZ has put the E Class saloon to the ultimate test by driving a fleet of its latest diesel cars half way around the world.

And as part of the greatest automotive marathon on earth, I have just driven one of the cars to the Great Wall of China.

Driving an everyday version of the E320 CDi, the 2,000 mile journey from Almaty in Kazakhstan to Lanzhou in the heart of China’s Gansu province took in everything from motorway work to crossing the second largest sand desert on the planet.

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Automotive News reports Mitsubishi is developing a four-cylinder turbo diesel, but only for the European market. It will, however, be watching Honda closely for its U.S. diesel launch sometime in 2008-2009. Should things pan out it will easily be able to bring the diesel option stateside.

Mitsubishi, whose recent struggles are fairly well known, does have plans to sell an electric car in the future. They have also been considering using vehicles that can be ethanol powered.

I wish Mitsubishi would bring their diesel over here, but I’m only saying that because I think it would help diesel across the board. If anyone could go into a Mitsubishi, Honda, and VW dealership, and hear about all the different diesel offerings that’s a greater chance they may buy one. If they go into all those dealerships and only one offers a diesel it will probably remain an anomaly and they won’t give it a second thought. Right now you pretty much have to know you want a diesel car to find your (few) options.

Well since we will hopefully be getting a 335d available to us I thought I’d post that too. Here’s what a 335d (same engine as the 535d) sounds like as it’s going 260km/h. For us Americans I’ll translate that for you. That’s almost 162mph. Just another day on the Autobahn.

Acceleration barely sounds like a diesel.