I’m writing this from my hotel room in Sacramento, Ca. See, Gale and I were invited to participate in an event Bosch is putting on here at the state’s capital called California Diesel Days. The intention of this outing is to raise the awareness of the legislative group in the toughest and most mandated “Green” state in the Union. Here, there are many on Capitol Hill who only believe in electric and plug-ins or hybrids as the only path to the future, and that diesel technology is where it was 20 or more years ago. The only thought of clean diesel here is when a trash truck or a school bus doesn’t have the engine running. Here the notion about diesel performance is totally preposterous, because a diesel vehicle can’t get out of its own way. That’s why Bosch, Audi, Mercedes, BMW, VW… and Banks are here to talk about just what makes today’s diesel a clean, environmentally (and peppy I might add) alternative to what’s accepted as the standard. Diesel needs to be a part of a level regulatory playing field for all technologies that reduce CO2 emissions, and not excluded. To this end there have been visits to various Congress folk already and a series of roundtable talks planned. Gale, in addition to being a part of the group that visited and made the case for diesel, is the moderator for one of the events planned.

We talk about Clean Diesel, but exactly does that mean? Well, aside from the stance that we at Banks make about black plumes of smoke bellowing out of an exhaust pipe is nothing to be proud of, and foolish I might add, there is another part to the clean diesel story. Clean Diesel refers to the fact that diesel engines are cleaner than ever before due to today’s advancements in fuel delivery and the fuel itself.

The engines of today are vastly superior to what we had just years ago, and go far beyond what old man Rudy Diesel ever thought of. In fact if he were here today he’d say something like “Nargh… eragh… brains” because he’d be a zombie. Aside from that little “undead” fact I frankly think he’d be blown away at how far his invention has progressed. What started out as a little motor that ran on peanut oil powers most of industry today. Think about it: nothing in your possession made it to your hands without it being trucked. Even a Prius car was delivered to the dealer by a big rig. But I’m getting off the subject a bit. Zombies just have that effect on me.

The diesel engine of today is one of the world’s most efficient internal combustion engines, period. Today’s technology equipped diesel engines use precision electronics, common-rail fuel injection systems, VVT, advanced VG turbos. The result is a quiet, efficient, clean powerful engine that returns excellent fuel economy. How much MPG you ask… try about 30% or more than traditional means. With today’s diesel engines and today’s ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel a reduction in harmful CO2 emissions by 25% + can be achieved.

Today is going to be a pretty jam packed day of meetings, but it should prove to be a worthy effort. We’re on a mission, but need to be polite about it. Some of these folks just don’t know the facts, and that’s why we’re going to go over them today. There should be some great things coming out of today’s meeting, and I’ll have photos and links to post soon. Stay tuned… there’s more to come.

Same Bat-time… same Bat-channel!