The long running Automotive news television new magazine Motorweek covered the annual Diesel Engine-Efficiency and Emissions Research Conference (DEER)  which is the Department of Energy's industry wide exchange of research and development  program. The vehicles were primarily European but might give us a primer on what Americans could expect to see in 'diesel' vehicles in the next year or so. There were interesting luxury vehicles as well as small diesel powered Smart cars ... a long with the more common Mercedes CDI and Volkswagen TDI vehicles. (Quicktime clip below)

The U.S. DOE's Brad Barton commented "A diesel engine is inherently 30% more efficient than a gasoline engine and with ultra low sulfur diesel, the new fuel you've eliminated the SOX issues. And we've got tons of emission control devices that can eliminate a lot of the NOX issues. And we can also get almost the same kind of power and performance out of a diesel as we can out of a gasoline engine. And that gets people interested which is exciting."

The highlight of the DEER event was a Diesel Ride and Drive.

Format: mov
Duration: 2 min 35 sec