Okay, we're a couple of days late with this story, but we think chuckgoolsbee would approve anyway. Finally, a high-school class with real-world implications from KPRC: the students in a chemistry class at Dobie High School in Houston, TX are spending their spare time turning donated vegetable oil into biodiesel. Sure, the students could have purchased a biodiesel reactor (processor). But as reporter Courtney Zavala points out "that wouldn't be very much fun." So, they built their own, "piece by piece." Senior Russell Zuber says it's, like, pretty cool stuff: "It's fun. It's interesting. We're working with our hands, learning a lot of advanced science and a lot of like, getting ahead." And according to junior Jennifer Linares, "you get to learn a lot and it also helps you for future careers if you're interested in engineering or the oil industry." The students' goal is to operate a diesel car for one year with the biodiesel they're making in class. Of course not everyone "gets it" when it comes to home-brewing biodiesel. Near the end of TV's station's story, one of the female news anchors turns to her colleague and says: "It strikes me a lot like the airplane, Dominique: over my head." Why are we not surprised?

Automotive News [sub] reports that Chinese-owned Korean automaker Ssangyong has announced plans to offer the first production diesel-hybrid powertrain on the market come 2010. The hybrid technology was developed in Korea, and will be mated to a Mercedes-sourced 2.7 liter diesel engine and offered in the Merc ML-based Rexton SUV. We reported earlier that European manufacturers were the first to show near-production diesel-hybrids, but the Asian upstart looks set to beat them to the market. Of course these plans don't preclude a Citroen-like reversal, but then Ssangyong isn't dependent on government development funds. Don't expect the powertrain to appear stateside though, as Ssangyong tells Reuters that it has no plans to bring any of its vehicles to the United States. The firm is focusing on the European, Korean and Chinese markets, blaming "market conditions" (read: sagging demand and a weakening dollar) for preventing it from becoming the first firm to offer Chinese-built cars in the states.

Volkswagen has three major products to show at the New York Auto show. First is the Passat CC (which doesn't mean coupe-convertible as in Europe, but just indicates a four-door low-profile sedan like the Mercedes CLS). It's great looking in person and beats the heck out of the dowdy regular Passat sedan. But it's Audi A4 money (high twenties into the forties in price), and anyone over 5'8" is going to have a heavy metal head-banging time in the back seat. Lovely car, but how does this fit with VW's mainstream image? I dunno. The Tiguan crossover is also on display, and it's coming to dealers in May. It's poorly packaged – despite loads of headroom, I'd reckon it has comparable cargo space to a 5-door Grabbit (Golf/Rabbit). Finally, I cornered VW PR Manager Keith Price and fired off questions about diesels. The plans are to have the 2.0 liter, 50-state diesel (no urea to refill) Jetta sedan and wagon in dealers during the summer. Mileage will be over 40 city, over 50 highway. The engine thumps up an impressive 236 lb ft of torque and will be available with this writer's all-time favorite transmission, the DSG. No plans for a diesel Rabbit in America, which I think is a mistake. VW of America wants to put the 2.0 liter diesel in the Tiguan as well, but the European market's demands are taking all the capacity for it, and the US is not as high a priority for oil burners. In spite of that, the Touareg gets a 3.0 liter diesel V6 next year.

Click model name for Pixamo galleries of Passat and Tiguan

The Times pits a BMW 520d with Efficient Dynamics against a Toyota Prius to see which one gets better mileage. After a bit of Hollywood hybrid-bashing, the Times sets the stage for their battle of the fuel misers (meisters?). "To find out [which one gets better mileage] we set a challenge: to drive a Prius [and BMW 320d] to Geneva using motorways and town driving. The direct route is 460 miles but we drove almost 100 miles further to give the Prius the advantage of running in urban conditions where its petrol-electric drivetrain comes into its own." Strangely, the article doesn't follow the headline writer's "take no prisoners" style– "Toyota Prius proves a gas guzzler in a race with the BMW 520d." In fact, the authors don't pronounce a winner. But the chart at the bottom tells the tale. BMW 520d: 10.84 gallons (50.3mpg); Toyota Prius: 11.34 gallons (48.1mpg).   

In recent years, Jeep, Mercedes and Volkswagen have all offered U.S. customers diesel-powered products. However, they have not done so in California or any of the other 15 states that have adopted The Golden State's air pollution regs (Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington). Today, Mercedes has announced that they'll equip the ML, R, and GL-Series with a 50-state-compliant Bluetec V6 diesel engine. (The oil-burning E-Class awaits the '09 model year model changeover). The 3.0-liter V6 diesel uses urea injection to eliminate NOx emissions and particulate filters to "almost eliminate" soot. The powerplant makes 210 horses and a whopping 398 lb ft of torque. In the ML and R, it should deliver 18 mpg city and 24 highway (an improvement of 3 city/4 highway over the V6 ML350) In the plenty porky GL, expect about 17/23 mpg. Now, finally, we'll get to see if there's a market for "clean diesels" in the U.S.– at the top end of the market.

In an interview with Auto Motor und Sport, GM Car Czar Bob Lutz said proposed California tailpipe regulations are "an absolute mistake" that would be "impossible to meet." And yet, Maximum Bob predicted that The Golden State is likely to win the court battle over the stricter standards. "The judges aren't scientists," Lutz said. Maximum Bob warned that diesels would not be an easy route to clean air compliance. "We can currently meet 50-state Bin 5 standards, which is six times stricter than the Euro 5 norms, with our existing particulate-catalyzing systems. But these new California standards are not achievable in my opinion." GM's Veep of Global Product Development said that high diesel fuel prices and the $2k premium for oil burning engines made diesel-powered passenger cars unpalatable to American consumers. In other words, diesels and California regulations are a crock of shit. 

Today is not diesel's day. Not only is the stuff expensive, it's bad for you, too. The Motor Authority reports that Dutch scientists have discovered that diesel fumes stress the brain. The boffins have (apparently) known for some time that teeny-tiny particles of diesel soot can go up your nose and lodge in your brain. (I will go on the record saying I did not know that.) Though our scientists friends were aware of the itty-bitty petrochemical chunks getting crammed in our noggins, no one had figured out whether it was bad or meh (you know it ain't good). So they stuck ten volunteers in a room filled with diesel fumes and monitored their crania. After 30 minutes, the volunteers' brains displayed signs of "stress." What does that mean? “It is conceivable that the long-term effects of exposure to traffic nanoparticles may interfere with normal brain function and information processing.” Yeah, so says… hang on, what were we talking about?

According to the American Automobile Association [via The New York Times], the average nationwide price for diesel has set records 18 of the past 19 days. It's currently sitting at $3.83 a gallon. (New York, California, Pennsylvania and Vermont averaged over $4 a gallon.)  The effects are being felt throughout industry. On the positive side, trucking companies are buying more fuel-efficient equipment, using electronic devices to slow driving speeds and installing auxiliary power units so truckers can sleep in their cabs without idling their rig's engine. Larger companies are looking to hybrid diesel-electric powerplants and better aerodynamics for fuel savings. On the negative side, paying for the new equipment could lead to layoffs. Smaller trucking firms and independents are putting off maintenance and generally struggling to make ends meet. “It’s killing us,” said Chad Beachler, co-owner of nine-truck Beachler Trucking. “Every day, I come in here and wonder if I have enough money to buy fuel.” 

Nobody can accuse Daimler of ignoring the green marketing craze that is sweeping the industry. They've shown high-tech lithium-ion-based diesel and mild hybrid concepts in near-production models (in contrast to other automakers' futuristic flights of fancy). A "BlueEfficiency" package will be available across its Mercedes-Benz model line by year's end, bringing lower weights, reduced rolling resistance and 10 percent better efficiency. None of these efforts will be particularly profitable, but unlike other companies, Daimler is willing to admit it. According to Automotive News [sub], Daimler research chief Thomas Weber says the company isn't expecting its green initiatives to make it any money. "We have to make sure that we keep an eye on the profit situation," said Weber. "Our strategic goal is not to make a lot of money with this, but also not to lose a lot of money with this." What, no mention of how eco-oriented vehicles help the German automaker bank the bucks by meeting new Euro and U.S. CO2/mpg regs, so they can sell high-profit gas guzzlers? Hey, glasnost only goes so far.

Attention car companies who desperately want to beat Toyota at the green car game: start building diesel hybrids now. Accordingt to Automotive News [sub], Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe says his company has no plans to build a hybrid diesel car. Toyota leads worldwide sales of gas – electric hybrids, plans to offer diesels on the Tundra/Sequoia platform and sells a truck in Japan with a hybrid diesel powertrain. So what's the issue? Unlike other companies we could mention (cough, GM, cough), Toyota doesn't see the value in rushing prohibitively expensive green technology to market. "A diesel hybrid car would cost more than a gasoline hybrid," explains Watanabe, reminding the greenrush crowd that the car business is still a business. So what of diesel hybrid concepts from Mercedes and Volkswagen? We can only assume that consumers have long become accustomed to overpaying for German offerings. 

In spite of the fact that BMW's eliminating jobs around the world, the German automaker is expanding their Spartanburg, South Carolina plant. The Spartanburg Herald-Journal reports the transplant aims to churn-out 240k vehicles per year by 2012. That's well up from the approximate 160k Bimmer's NA plant currently produces. At the moment, Bimmer builds the Z4 roadster and X5 sports utility activity vehicle in the Palmetto State. Later this year, they'll add the X6 sports whatever-it-is. In 2009, Spartenburg will produce a diesel version of the X5 and a hybrid version X6 for the U.S. market. The following year, BMW plans to emigrate Z4 production to Germany and immigrate the next-gen X3 from Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria. What if the weak dollar strengthens? As they say in S.C., dum spiro spero.

Carnegie Mellon University's National Robotics Engineering Center is proud to present (in that deep voice radio promo ad sort of way) Crusher. As you can see (especially if you're a professional weight guesser), it's a 6.5-ton, six-wheeled, armor-clad robot designed to eliminate 1998 American cars to protect Mexican car dealers. Crusher has no human operator (always a mistake in sci-fi flicks). Instead, it uses a program called UPI to defeat obstacles, advance through enemy defenses, wield weapons and (if UPI includes a couple of Asimov's three laws of robotics) protect human troops. As reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Crusher is a turbo-diesel/electric hybrid whose batteries power motors in each wheel. Individual wheel suspension allows Crusher to roll up to 26 mph over rough terrain, successfully traversing large ditches, man-made barriers or crappy used cars. In a recent demonstration at Fort Bliss, DARPA's Stephen Welby raved about the future Army recruiting star for career-challenged fans of monster truck jams. "To understand how fast it operated in this environment, you have to understand that we were bouncing around [in a vehicle following Crusher], and I could barely walk afterwards with pain in my kidneys." (One surmounts stones, the other causes them.) CMU's NREC director of acronyms Steve Di Antonio thinks the vehicle and software have potential applications in construction, farming and mining. We're waiting for its first rap video appearance and the inevitable stretch Crusher limo.

Mercedes has announced another new vehicle for the Geneva auto show. Since they're too cool for the word "concept," it's called the "Vision GLK BLUETEC HYBRID." In caps lock. So remember it. It's a diesel electric hybrid, pairing Benz's well-reviewed 2.2-liter straight four oil burner with an electric motor. The numbers we care about: 224, 400, 40 and 7.3. That's horses, ft.-lbs. of torque, miles per gallon and 0 – 60. All in all, them's some impressive stats– especially when you consider that this is a big, heavy, boxy SUV (it's also noxiously fugly). The powertrain might yield truly earth shattering data in the C-Class sedan, but hey, this hybrid SUV doubles the mileage of the equivalent gas-fed V6, without any impact on performance. Diesel electric is also a nice idea because it minimizes particulate emissions when you start the car and while driving at slow speeds around town. The GLK goes on sale here in 2008. As for the powertrain, Benz specifically mentions that it meets America's "stringent" BIN5 standard. But not, perhaps, our aesthetic sensibilities…

[View the GLK BLUETEC HYBRID Pixamo Gallery here.] 

I live in a town of around 8,000 people. Yesterday afternoon, I happened to be driving to the gym at the same time as middle school let out. Some shop teacher stopped traffic while four dozen hulking Bluebirds (company owned by Cerberus BTW) poured out of the school's driveway, each of them carrying perhaps FIVE KIDS. The noise and pollution and tsuris was the equivalent of a thousand-plane raid on Hamburg. Meanwhile, the same thing was happening at the high school and elementary school. Our town must put 150 dieseling buses out onto the road every afternoon, assuring that no tyke will have to spend more than 15 minutes en route. To say nothing of the traffic backup behind each yellow monster while they disgorge their cute little backpackers. I'm the treasurer of our local volunteer ambulance corps. I'm always amused by how municipal-supplier vendors work everything out to round numbers. "You want some EMS unifoms? How's $10k sound?" "You want a fleet of school buses to pick up your kids? That'll be $10m a year." (If you want to get rich quick, contract with municipalities: nobody gives a shit what you charge.) I'm going to take this up with the school board, but the spectacle of this Eighth Air Force-size fleet of big yellow smoke-spewers thundering north, south, east and west just stunned me.

Channel4 reports that VW is set to unveil a "near-production" diesel-electric Golf at The Geneva International Auto Show. The battery-assisted oil-burner caims 70mpg while passing 50-state Tier-2 BIN 5 emissions standards. Not to be outgreened, Wired reports that BMW will ta-da its Vision EfficientDynamics Concept. The modded next gen X5 sports a 36mpg twin turbo diesel-electric drivetrain hooked-up to an eight-speed ZF autobox. (The Bimmer concept also boasts photovoltaic panels on the moonroof to preheat the transmission fluid and wheels that require one less horsepower to maintain 100mph than "standard" wheels.) As previously editorialized, the new diesel hybrids signal the end of German automakers' participation in the two-mode hybrid technology jointly developed with Chrysler and GM. Bottom line: BMW's hybrid diesel sips half the gas of a 3.0-liter X5; the Yukon Tahoe hybrid offers a 25 percent mpg gain.