Nissan Leads The Way With Clean Diesel Engine In Japan
Posted on: Thursday, 4 September 2008, 16:53 CDT
After six years without a single new diesel vehicle being released in Japan, Nissan unveiled its X-Trail 20GT sport utility vehicle, the world’s first “clean” diesel car to meet Japan’s strict emissions standards, which go into effect October 2009.
In the late 1990s, Japan was spurred to call for a decrease in diesel cars and trucks after Tokyo’s popular governor declared they were smelly, noisy and polluting.
The X-Trail will be available only in manual transmission. Priced just under 3 million yen ($27,710), Nissan said it hoped to sell about 100 units a month.
"For a long time, we had no diesel cars in Japan," Nissan Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga told a news conference. "I'm not sure how much it would spread in the market now, but if it does well we will consider broadening the line-up."
Daimler AG owns the only other diesel car available in Japan – the Mercedes-Benz E320 CDI sedan.
Other carmakers, including Volkswagen Honda Motor Co, Mitsubishi Motors Corp and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd have projects underway to create their own cleaner diesel cars.
Toyota Motor Corp has announced no future plans to enter the clean diesel engine market. Toyota has 45 percent of the local car market, offers a range of diesel cars to compete in Europe but has preferred to promote hybrid technology, pulling the plug on the last remaining diesel car in Japan, the Land Cruiser Prado, in July 2007.
With the stricter regulations in place, diesel cars would be almost as clean as comparable gasoline vehicles, with the added benefit of cheaper fuel.
Nissan said the 2.0-litre X-Trail 20GT, which goes on sale on September 18, gets 30 percent more mileage than a 2.5-litre gasoline engine version with the same power output.
The price difference with the gasoline version can be offset by driving an average 10,000 km (6,200 miles) a year for three years, it said.
Prices of Toyota's and Honda's hybrid cars, meanwhile, are set to fall dramatically next year, although the Japanese government's incentives for gasoline-engine cars have ended.
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Source: redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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