Mitsubishi Motors of America is reported to be debating the future of their Normal, IL production plant. The plant once shared with Chrysler is virtually a ghost town, making just under 20,000 cars last year due to lack of sales. Considering the plant once churned out over 200,000 cars a year not long ago, Mitsubishi is at a cross-roads.
While much of the Mitsubishi brand luster has been lost in the past decade, many might remember that their entry into our market was strong on small compact trucks and SUV’s. We are hearing that one of their ponderances for the Illinois plant is bringing their Triton compact truck production stateside for sales in the North American market.
In Asia Pacific markets, the newest version of the Mitsubishi Triton has a new 2.5 liter HPD (High Performance Diesel) inline four-cylinder turbo diesel engine that churns out a healthy 175hp at 4000rpm and 295 ft. pounds of torque at 2000rpm for the manual version
Mitsubishi like so many automakers would likely balk at the idea of offering a diesel option in the U.S. but we would suggest that it might be the one thing that makes this product stand out in our market. With Mahindra coming to market later this year with their diesel powered third-world chicken hauler, Mitsubishi would offer a very credible if not far more attractive competitor.
In fact we believe that a diesel powered Mitsubishi Triton pickup line could very well be the one thing that powers Mitsubishi out of the ditch in the American market.
“We both like the truck,” says John Koenig, executive vice president-MMNA.. ““If we (produce) it here, we’ve got to build a volume of at least 50,000 or 60,000 units a year to make it profitable. And that’s our sticking point. Can we do that?”
Our answer? Yes you can if you push diesel power!
But lets not hold our breath. Automakers, seemingly the ones failing the most, continue to believe diesel doesn’t sell in America. Meanwhile Volkswagen is growing to be the largest automaker in the world, selling……………you guessed it…………diesel.
Sales of the Smart ForTwo in the U.S. plunged 41% to 14,600 cars last year. Starting off with huge backlogs of reservations in late 2008, the cute little ForTwo has seemed to lose its steam in America. While parent company Daimler and U.S. importer Penske Auto Group seem to be looking for ways to remarket and reboot sales of the demure little commuter car, we have a suggestion.
Diesel.
One of the biggest problems with the Smart ForTwo as sold in America is that it barely gets better fuel efficiency than many “normal” cars that have a back seat and cost the same or less. Struggling to get 40 mpg, Smart chose to outfit U.S. bound cars with the largest and least fuel efficient powerplant they have. In Europe, you can get much more miserly gasoline and diesel powered models that exceed 80 mpg!
According to the Smart UK website, the Smart ForTwo CDI achieves 83.1 mpg and CO2 emissions of just 89g/km. That makes the Smart ForTwo CDI the world’s most fuel efficient and lowest CO2 emitting combustion drive production car.
Granted the Smart ForTwo is trendy and cool, but that only lasts so long in a rough marketplace. For this car to ever rise above boutique status, it needs to give you something substantial in exchange for the compromises in size and safety. We suggest that if the $15,000 Smart ForTwo was offering buyers 80mpg through diesel power, their coffers might not be plunging 41%.
Without such a hook, why the hell would you buy one when you can get a Toyota Yaris or Ford Fiesta for similar money, get similar mpg, and you get a real car with a real back seat. Smart needs to get smart if they intend to stay in America.
At the moment, there is only one automaker in the world that has production plans for a car with a diesel hybrid powertrain: Peugeot. But that could change in the near future with news that General Motors is now working on its own version of the super efficient drivetrain.
General Motors is said to be working on a whole range of diesel-electric powertrains, with ongoing engineering development work currently underway at GM’s diesel engine headquarters in Turin. The diesel-electric powertrain is tentatively scheduled to enter production by the middle of this decade, around 2014 - 2016.
Most of the engineering development work General Motors’s is carrying out on the new diesel-electric system is centered on the company’s new 1.6L diesel engine. At the moment, The General is working on multiple hybrid systems, rather than concentrating on just a single given layout. The automaker’s engineering staff is experimenting with everything from mild hybrid systems to diesel versions of the Voltec system that will be used in the Chevrolet Volt and Opel Ampera.
A diesel-electric hybrid system is the way to go according to Maurizio Cisternino, GM Europe’s advanced technology chief engineer, “If you want the best fuel consumption, you have to go with the diesel-electric hybrid.” And I’m not going to argue with him, because the engineering facts are there. Although a diesel-electric hybrid system is expensive, it is the powertrain that holds the most promise for both range and overall efficiency. Running on batteries/hybrid in the city is the most efficient use of that end of the drivetrain, and the diesel is best adapted to highway cruising.
General Motors hopes to have some form of a diesel hybrid auto in production within the next 5 years, but as with everything GM, that will depend on the cost of the technology. Since GM has been run from the accounting department for time immemorial, they are sweating the cost numbers as much as they are working through the engineering R & D. They are hoping to hold the added premium of going with a diesel hybrid drivetrain to around $1,400 over a gas-electric hybrid vehicle, but at the moment, those numbers are not there.
At the moment, the oil burning/ hybrid tech is being developed for GM’s Opel and Vauxhall brands, brands that are only sold in Europe. Of course General Motors could bring the technology over to The States, but if they do, it will several years behind the technology’s European launch.
Source: Left Lane News
