Christ, here we go with the media sucking Honda's ***** again. Diesels were the equivalent of Satan at Carrie's prom, especially with Californians and ecoweenies and the press, and now all of a sudden Japan Inc is gearing up the PR machine so that when Honda says they have a diesel, it will all of a sudden be Jesus Christ on a stick.
Toyota has to have the hybrids now so Japan Inc said to Honda 'you are diesels now'. Start the PR machine now so all the US housewives and tree huggers will think diesel is a new technology to save the day that only a Japanese company can provide.
Once CR gets a hold of this, diesel will become golden and another thing the press will take potshots at Ford and GM for.
So how is it diesel will all of a sudden become OK? because the H is on the grille.
Knowing Honda though, the damn things will still lack torque. They'll probably have a 'V-Tec diesel' you gotta get 80% to redline to get any power out of.
No way I trust a Japanese diesel other than Isuzu until it's been on the road awhile. Same thing with Honda's turbos, no way I trust a Honda turbo until it's been tested 100k miles. I would most certaintly trust a VW diesel. I would trust a Mercedes or BMW diesel. I hope Honda has done their homework, they usually do....but then look at Tundra camshafts and Camry sludge, etc. Sometimes the Asian brands try so hard to optimaize their engineering they actually under engineer things. I sure hope they don't make flimsy headbolts, for example.