Cost Conundrum Holds Up Diesel Hybrid Cars

From the Boston Globe:

Standard diesel engines burn less fuel than petrol engines. Hybrid technology makes them even more frugal by letting cars run on stored electricity captured during braking and coasting.

But this lands a double whammy on costs. A diesel engine typically costs around 10 percent more than its petrol-driven cousin of similar power, even without the cost of adding an electric motor, batteries and the electronics to run them.

A Toyota diesel hybrid truck that went on sale in November 2003, for instance, costs around $10,000 more than its diesel-only version, a third more.

Whether consumers are ready to pay that kind of premium for super-efficient cars remains open. Toyota doesn't produce a passenger-car version of the diesel hybrid.

Note that they are talking about European and Japanese markets, not the U.S. market.