Honda promises clean diesel for US

Automotive News reports Honda Motor Co. will have a four-cylinder diesel engine ready for the North American market within three years. The engine will meet the very stringent Tier 2 Bin 5 emission standards, which are being phased in from 2004 through the 2009 model years. A V6 engine is also under development, but no timeline for that engine was given. While no details were given on how Honda plans to meet the emission standards, they do not plan to use urea injection into the exhaust, an approach currently being pursued by DaimlerChrysler and others. While Honda has been a leader in gasoline engine development, it is relatively new to diesel engines. Their first fully in-house developed diesel engine, available in Europe, was released in 2003. Kenichi Nagahiro, the company's chief engine designer and inventor of the celebrated VTEC engine, hated diesel engines, hated how noisy, smelly and dirty they were. When he was asked to design Honda's first diesel he flatly refused - unless he was allowed to start completely from scratch, which resulted in one of the cleanest, most refined diesel engines of the time.
[Source: Automotive News]