Just recently it got to my knowledge that in the first months of the Mercedes E-class diesel availability in the United States, 12% of the cars sold were of the diesel version. That's a great number, particularly considering the total lack of momentum from previous diesel offers at Mercedes. This reminded me of a text on auto-future from September 2006 where the issue of diesel in America was discussed. Revisiting the text let's remember that a boom in diesel sales in the USA can be linked to the availability of diesel versions from European luxury brands (BMW and Mercedes) instead of the second rate "Mexican-made ratlleboxes", European-brand available previously... Next step is the mainstream-diesel from Honda that Americans can buy shortly in the Accord. However, diesel engines will face stiff competition from hybrids, particularly since GM and Ford will have new models available. Remembering the article from 2006 it seems the only thing that missed the target was related to Chrysler since Mercedes got rid of this manufacturer so now Chrysler will have a difficult time finding good diesel engines for their cars.
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