jim beam wrote:
| jajabinks wrote:
| <snip>
||
|| I agree that diesel cars have an ecological advantage over hybrids,
|| and have lower cost of ownership. They key, as you also mentioned,
|| is that diesel is unfortunately not widely available in the United
|| States--the oil consumption capitol of the world. We can only
|| compare to what's currently available for sale in the U.S. A
|| comparison of a regular civic vs. civic hybrid vs. civic diesel
|| (yeah right) is a pipe dream for now.
|
| istr isuzu being players in the eurodiesel engine market. aren't
| honda & isuzu partners? wouldn't that be a pathway towards a diesel
| civic?

You better check out the UK site of Honda, then... http://www.honda.co.uk
To save you some digging, here's a 3 door Civic with 1.7L turbo-diesel:
http://tinyurl.com/67f53 (make sure the drop-down box says 1.7 CTDi)

(before you get way too excited about the mileage, remember that it's not US
gallons that they're quoting... if I'm not wrong, you'll have to multiply
them by 0.83267248, which would give you 37.3 mpg (US) in town, 53.5 mpg
(US) outside of the town, and 47.0 mpg (US) mixed usage.

Now, to combine that with a hybrid... store brake energy to make the car get
back up to speed again after a stop, and your in-town figure would increase
drastically...

Also, check out the diesel Accord, and if you think this diesel crap is for
buses and trucks and lowly 3 door accords, check out the BMW diesel cars -
http://tinyurl.com/5cldh for example. Did you ever think a heavy 5 series
beamer with a 3 liter V6 engine would have a mileage > 40 mpg? No? Think
again:
city: 24.8 mpg (US)
highway: 42.8 mpg (US)
combined: 34.1 mpg (US)

Tell you, gas needs to become a bit more expensive before this wave catches
on... but it'd be good for all of us (except those running oil companies)