Exclusive EVWorld.Com Interview Reveals Ford's Quest for the World's Cleanest Diesel
Exclusive interview with three top Mercury Meta One Concept car program managers is this week's lead story on EVWorld.Com
(PRWEB) January 19, 2005 -- The Mercury Meta One Concept car, now being
showcased at the 2005 North American International Auto Show, is, like many
concept vehicles, a work-in-progress, but one with high aspirations, as EV
World's editor-in-chief learned during his exclusive interview with three key
project engineers.
According to Mercury Meta One program manager, David
Wagner, Ford sees the power plant under the hood -- and in the rear -- as the
bridge between today's internal combustion engine and the hydrogen fuel cell
cars of tomorrow. He noted that several studies suggest that very clean diesels
in combination with hybrid-electric drives can be nearly as energy efficient as
today's current crop of experimental fuel cell vehicles.
The Meta One
concept vehicle incorporates a number of advanced engine technologies including
a newly developed V6 diesel, a hybrid-electric drive system and
state-of-the-arts emission controls, including aqueous urea injection, just now
making its appearance on some truck engines in Europe.
The goal of the
program is to achieve a minimum reduction in emissions of at least ninety
percent, and work is ongoing at Ford labs to achieve what is the
gasoline-equivalent of a Partial Zero Emission Vehicle or PZEV rating in
California. While there are a number of PZEV gasoline cars on the market, there
are no comparable diesel vehicles. Ford aims to be the first, though it may be
in the next decade before a car like the Meta One arrives in the
showroom.
EV World was granted exclusive access to Wagner, Jim Baker and
Zafar Shaikh, the top engineering managers for the year-long project. The entire
38-minute interview is available to EV World subscribers in both text and MP3
audio format.
EV World (http://www.evworld.com) is the Internet's leading commercial
web portal to information about advanced vehicle technologies and related issues
from renewable energy to governmental policy. Its database currently archives
more than 7,200 news story abstracts and press releases relevant to sustainable
mobility technology. It also provides RSS feeds and streaming MP3 audio, plus a
number of electric vehicle user forums and the Internet's only "Real Time, Real
World" hybrid vehicle gas mileage chart.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/1/prweb198531.htm