Re: hybrid boats?
IMHO, diesels are going to make a comeback in the US. Just ask our friends from the UK. They get diesels in cars that are smaller than a Golf.<br /><br />In Europe they consider their cars are "greener" because they have better overall efficiency (many diesels) and laugh at us for our stupidity. In the US, we are often told that diesels are killing us and in fact they cannot even be sold in CA.<br /><br />I call it the emissions du jour syndrome. NOx is still the main issue that we track here and diesels have high NOx. In Europe they are more concerned with hydrocarbon emissions (Greenhouse gasses, CO2 etc.) which are very low from diesels if compared to gasoline . . . Good luck sorting it out if you care. Probably the overall cleanest, fairly normal car avalable is the Honda Civic GX. It burns natural gas and will soon (any day now) be available with a little compressor for your garage that fills the vehicle tank from your house natural gas supply. Depending on the state etc. this can be low cost AND low emission (NOx and hydrocarbons). The recently signed Highway Bill will make it even better starting in 2006.
). With the RIB in tow we still get 38mpg-but with gas prices hitting the eqivalent of $8.50/gal and diesel at the eqivalent of $9/gal we need them.Dual-fuel diesels are starting to appear over here now (diesel+lpg at the same time)<br /><br />We do however get red (untaxed) diesel for use in boats and agri vehicles which works out at about $3.50-$4 per gallon-but as a consequence any boat with a diesel engine is so darn expensive to buy that I can't afford to buy it and marinisation parts for diesels are excessively overpriced.It's the equivalent of $2400 for the marinisation parts for a Ford 1.8 litre turbodiesel... Hell, if gas prices were the same as in the USA I could afford to run an IL6 every day.
