"TOKYO — Following Toyota's announcement that it will buy a 5.9 percent stake in Isuzu, the companies announced that they will pursue a joint diesel development strategy.
"Our belief is that the demand for diesel engines will increase globally," said Steven Curtis, media and investor relations national manager for Toyota. That marks a change for the company that has pioneered development of gasoline-electric hybrid powertrains in search of maximum efficiency.
In the Toyota/Isuzu partnership, Isuzu will take the lead in the areas of research and development for diesel engine production and for emissions-control technologies. Toyota, meanwhile, will concentrate on "environmental technologies, including basic engine and other technologies and other technologies related to alternative fuels," Curtis explained.
If that sounds like Toyota will integrate a diesel engine into its Synergy hybrid drivetrain, you are right, according to Jim Press, president of Toyota Motor North America.
"It is too early to tell where the Isuzu relationship will go," he said, "but eventually we will have hybrids on diesel, biodiesel, ethanol — the whole gamut."
The modularity of the hybrid system makes it applicable to a range of power plants and fuel sources, he added. "It is the same hybrid system that works with all of those."
The previously opposed hybrid-versus-diesel camps seem to realize that combining the technologies is the fastest route to fuel-efficient vehicles with existing technologies and fuels. Detroit's Big Three demonstrated this with their concept cars developed under the Partnership for the Next Generation of Vehicles program under the Clinton administration. All three companies produced diesel-electric hybrids in pursuit of an 80 mpg family sedan. A Prius with a diesel engine would closely resemble those concept vehicles, both in appearance and fuel economy.
What this means to you: Before your neighbors finish paying off their Hummer H2 (or its gas bill), you might be able to buy a super-efficient family sedan that was a futuristic concept car not long ago."
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