I'm not so sure I will trade in my 98 E300 TD.....but I might. If I do, does anyone know when, approximately, will MB accept an order for a 2004 E320CDI.

Also...any word on an S class diesel....this I WOULD buy absolutely if available.

They are already accepting orders. At least one of our forum members received a call from his dealer several weeks ago asking if he wanted to order one. There are rumors about the S400, but so far only the E320 is a definite. When we get low sulphur fuel in 2006 they should bring a few more over here. Missing 5 states including CA and NY makes it tough. I read somewhere that CA is 20% of their business over here.

__________________
Rick Miley
2014 Tesla Model S
2018 Tesla Model 3
2017 Nissan LEAF
Former MB: 99 E300, 86 190E 2.3, 87 300E, 80 240D, 82 204D Euro
Chain Elongation References

That's doubly sad because I've been told that CA is Volkswagen's largest market for the TDi engine...

IT WOULD BE NICE IF THE CARB BECAME MORE DIESEL-FRIENDLY!!

__________________
2001 VW Jetta TDI, 5 speed, daily driver
1991 Ford F-350, work in progress
1984 Ford F-250 4x4, 6.9l turbo diesel, 5 speed manual
Previous oilburners: 1980 IH Scout, 1984 E-350, 1985 M-B 300D, 1979 M-B 300SD, 1983 M-B 300D
Spark-free since 1999

They are - it just takes a while for a massive bureaucracy to shift policy and viewpoints.
=====================

FROM THE ARCHIVES: October 24, 2002

Clean-Air Czar of California Shifts to Accept Diesel Engines

In Controversial Turn-Around, Regulator Sees Diesel as Alternative in Global-Warming Fight

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1035412833468232231.djm,00.html

By JEFFREY BALL
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


For years, Alan Lloyd has regarded diesel as a dirty word, synonymous with brown haze and cancer-causing black soot. It's a view he has shared with environmental activists across the U.S.

But in a striking change of heart that could alter the kinds of cars and trucks Americans drive, the chairman of the powerful California Air Resources Board is taking a new look at diesel vehicles. He thinks they're poised to emerge as part of the solution to a different environmental problem that's gaining more attention in the U.S.: global warming.

Coming from the head of California's famously pugnacious clean-air agency, that amounts to environmental apostasy. In the decades following World War II, California was a main instigator of the world's fight against smog, and it has waged that battle aggressively ever since. CARB's mandates for pollution cuts in everything from gas cans to lawnmowers to 18-wheelers have been celebrated by environmentalists, criticized by industry and mimicked by national governments from Washington to Europe.



"Ten years ago, I wouldn't have believed what I'm telling you now," says Dr. Lloyd, who in the past several weeks has begun a series of closed-door meetings with auto-industry officials to discuss several clean-car technologies. "However, we have confidence that, given past history, the auto industry will rise to the challenge, and we will have light-duty diesel in the U.S. and California."



Now CARB is on the defensive. The most famous part of its antismog effort, its "zero emission vehicle" mandate, written in 1990, is floundering. Battery-powered cars haven't electrified consumers, and fuel-cell-powered vehicles in significant numbers remain at least a couple of decades away. Auto makers already have sued to block the zero-emission-vehicle mandate, and they're threatening a similar suit against the greenhouse-gas law.

In this changed climate, Dr. Lloyd is signaling support for the auto industry's diesel push. He vows he won't relax the impending antismog rules to let in diesel engines that aren't as clean as gasoline versions, which some auto makers have advocated. What he will do, he says, is publicly resist calls by some environmentalists to make those rules more severe than he believes public health demands.



Industry researchers are working on two main technologies. One is a "trap" to catch more soot particles before they're sent out the tailpipe. Another is a "catalyst" to collect nitrogen oxide and then break up most of it into components that would be released harmlessly. A big hurdle is that the nitrogen-oxide device won't work reliably with today's U.S. diesel fuel, which contains a lot more sulfur than European diesel does. New EPA rules lowering the sulfur content of U.S. diesel to levels the auto industry says are acceptable aren't scheduled to take effect until 2006.

Dr. Lloyd has his own incentive to resolve the fight: guarding California's ability to keep pushing the environmental envelope, which would be threatened if auto makers win the legal and political argument that California's regulations are too extreme. "There will be some people on the environmental side who will be unhappy," the CARB chief says. "I'm getting older -- I hope wiser -- in some of these cases. I realize you have limited time as you try to work things out. And trying to waste energy with hot rhetoric, it's not worth the time."