Commercial Issues Put the Acura Diesel on Hold

The plan Honda to introduce a 'green' diesel in the American market from 2009 is suffering from delays related to commercial issues and not technical as it was initially rumored.

“The program is in 'wait and see' mode and the delay is due to commercial, not technical, reasons. A combination of factors, including continuing high prices for diesel fuel and the general collapse of car sales in recent months," Sage Marie, Honda spokeswoman for the American market, told AutoblogGreen

The 2.2 liter engine, which is already available in the European market, will be fitted on the Acura TSX. Honda reported that they encountered some issues passing the emissions with the automatic transmission (because they burn more fuel) model of the TSX, a problem that some of us might have already heard earlier in the year.

Considering that most of the American population can't and will not drive manual transmissions, without an automatic transmission the whole program could be canceled.

So now, due to business issues, the debut of the diesel engine announced at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show will have to be put on hold. Although Honda engineers have been talking about this urea-free NOx catalyst that is going to be implemented in the new diesel engine for more than two years it would now seem they've hit a number of speed bumps.