Plug in electrics won't solve anything. We'll use less gasoline but burn a lot more coal and oil, and it will be less efficient because you lose a lot of electricity between the power plant and your home. All plug in cars do is shift the pollution to somebody else's backyard and guarantee more of it.
About Mercedes' pledge? Believe it when you see it. Biodiesel engines can run on petro-diesel seamlessly, and that's what most of the 2015 Merc diesels will use because it will still be the only option in most parts of the world. We are nowhere close to being able to take even five percent of the global fleet off of petro-fuels. I can almost guarantee that if enough buyers are still willing to scratch a six-figure check for a gasoline-powered Merc in 2015, the only thing Mercedes will say is, "What color would you like?"
I wouldn't write off gasoline-fueled engines yet, either. The same technologies that allowed the massive increases in power over the last 20 years can also be used to increase efficiency. A well designed direct-injection gas engine can increase fuel economy by 30% without sacrificing power. If you want to start tuning for economy from the beginning, you can get to a 50% increase. Ford's been doing some great work in this area. They have a new, full-size SUV (the Flex) that uses a direct-injection V6 and gets better fuel economy than GM's Tahoe Hybrid.
No Smart models are currently electric or hybrid powered. There are diesel Smart models in some markets that get better fuel economy, but this car was never intended to be a MPG champion. The Smart was designed exclusively to be as small as possible for driving in cities like Rome and London. The tall profile for its size makes it possible to make the Smart as short and narrower than anything else, but it also gives it the aerodynamics of a three bedroom ranch. That's why it only gets 40mpg highway even though it is so light and has such a small engine.
The future isn't going to be plugged into a wall, and it probably won't be a hybrid. Its going to be shaped like a Prius and use a small, ultra-efficient turbodiesel. Honda has a new
Civic diesel for Europe that gets
56mpg on in real-world use. (Try to get great mileage and you might see 70mpg.) VW has a
diesel hybrid Golf in the works that will get almost 70mpg highway, and Ford has a
European Fiesta that gets 63mpg without a hybrid system.
Maybe the only good news about our car market and oil consumption is that we're so bad at both that even a modest increase will have huge effects. Raise the fleet average fuel economy in the US to 30mpg - an entirely achievable goal - and you'll cut the amount of vehicle fuel we're using by more than 50% and reduce our total oil consumption by about 40%. Get these diesels into service in smaller, lighter and more aerodynamic platforms and a fleet average of 30mpg will be a walk in the park.
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