By 2012, Nissan Motor Co. may make their diesel vehicles be widely available in US as the Japanese automaker is looking to add fuel-efficient vehicles that will emit less carbon dioxide, according to the US product development chief of Nissan.

Earlier this month, Nissan said that it developed ways to treat diesel exhaust and be able to meet the standard emission in California and the other states of US that now have excluded them because of emissions. In 2012, the largest market foe diesel vehicles, Europe, will be adopting the rules that are closer to California’s. Nissan’s Larry Dominic said that this makes enough time to launch such vehicles in the US.

He said, “That’s when it becomes more compelling, in terms of cost, to bring diesel to the U.S.

Nissan is Japan’s third biggest automaker and it is the latest to diesel to technologies that are expected to meet the stricter environmental rules and fuel economy of the United States. California actually has the strictest emission standards. General Motors Corp., Volkswagen Ag, and Honda Motor Corp. all said that they will introduce diesel vehicles that are clean enough to reach the standards set forth by California.

California has banned present diesels because of the fact that they emit too much particulate matter, or soot, or gases that are connected to heart and lung disease. In Europe, the diesel vehicles rival the sales of the petrol engines, where the fuel is cheaper, offers around 30 percent fuel-economy increase and helps meet the regional restrictions on emissions of carbon dioxide.

Titan made Diesel

The Vice President of product planning for Nashville, Tennessee-based Nissan North America, Dominique, informed that the automaker is continuing its study on whether to produce a diesel version of the Titan large pickup truck.

He said, “It’s an important issue for us, but we’re still considering the business case.”

This Japanese automaker is already just a year or two away from the production of a US program to evaluate plug-in electric hybrid vehicles, according to Dominique. General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. are already working on those type of vehicles. This type of vehicle can be recharged through a home outlet and then be able to travel for a distance powered alone by their batteries. This year, Toyota is beginning its road tests on such vehicles, and in 2008, GM will start theirs.

Dominique said, “We are looking at plug-ins, but at this point it’s still a laboratory study program.”

This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2007 at 9:29 pm and is filed under nissan news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.