A report published by Automotive Industry Data (AID) claims Americans will join the diesel revolution as new techniques transform traditionally noisy and dirty oil-burning engines into economic, high technology machines. The report, Schmidt’s Diesel Car Prospects, says that Americans, by 2010, will buy more than 2,000,000 diesel powered sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks and 400,000 diesel-powered passenger cars a year. This will be up from 230,000 or so diesel-powered SUVs and other light trucks, and roughly 50,000 cars a year in 2006. Currently, diesel powered cars and light trucks account for only 0.2 percent of United States sales. But, according to AID, this will become a market share of around 16 percent for diesels in 2010. AID managing director, and report author Peter Schmidt, said Americans have been immune to the appeal of the high fuel economy promised by diesel, put off by unattractive engine clatter and worries about pollution. The factors are in place for a diesel revolution, according to AID. “While, in Europe at least, diesel technology is a trend from which there will be no turning back, AID believes that a similar transformation, still dismissed as unthinkable and implausible little more than 12 months ago, could conceivably be repeated on the other side of the Atlantic,” AID said. “If it turns out that way, and for some the writing is already on the wall, Europe's carmakers, by virtue of being on the cutting edge of fast-moving diesel technology, stand to gain untold commercial rewards from the biggest diesel sales bonanza carmakers have ever seen,” AID claimed.
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