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Issues concerning the adoption of Diesel Cars in the USA
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Honda CEO says clean diesel cars to be profitable
By Chang-Ran Kim, Asia auto correspondent
DETROIT, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The head of Honda Motor Co (7267.T: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Sunday that the Japanese automaker's yet-to-be released clean diesel cars will be profitable immediately, unlike expensive gasoline-electric hybrid cars that still yield little or no profit after a decade on the market.
"Our diesel cars are going to have an appropriate level of profit from the start," Chief Executive Takeo Fukui told a small group of reporters in an interview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
He said Honda's clean diesel cars, to be launched in the United States next year, will not require a urea tank as most European systems do.
Japan's second-biggest automaker is set to announce later this afternoon the launch of its first ultra-clean diesel car in the United States in 2009, as planned.
Honda's premium Acura brand will be the first to get the four-cylinder diesel engine, Fukui said. Models fueled by V6 diesel engines will follow after 2010, he added.
Diesel cars now make up more than half of Europe's new cars but have a poor image among consumers in the United States, as well as Japan, as being both loud and dirty.
But Fukui said he expected Honda's sale of four-cylinder diesel cars to reach about 150,000 vehicles globally by around 2010 with the planned roll-out in the United States and Japan.
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Posted: 10:48 PM, Jan. 15, 2008 |
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