Funny how this showed up in the front page of the WSJ just today!
I was going to ask for nhmikes permission to post, but figured who cares anyhow ...
Europe's embrace of diesel-powered cars is helping to fuel America's sport-utility vehicles.
The drive to diesel -- in everything from big Mercedes-Benz sedans to tiny Smart cars -- has left Europe with a glut of gasoline, and refiners there are routinely unloading much of that excess across the Atlantic. European gasoline exports to the U.S. have shot up 82% since 2000, helping to keep U.S. gasoline prices steady even as prices for crude oil -- from which gasoline is refined -- have bounced around in response to world events.
"We have become the dumping ground for surplus gasoline from Europe," said Larry Goldstein, president of Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, a New York-based energy consulting firm. "Europe is no longer just a marginal supplier to the U.S."
European refiners say the U.S., where consumers have failed to accept diesel with the same enthusiasm as the French, Italians and Germans, is the only market that can handle the quantities of excess gasoline that Europe produces.
Indeed, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Americans are traveling more by car and less by air, and the popularity of gas-guzzling SUVs continues almost unabated. Even the most fuel-efficient gasoline car sold in the U.S., the subcompact Honda Civic HX, which gets 44 miles to the gallon on the highway, can't quite muster the 50 miles per gallon of the diesel engine in the heavier and roomier VW Jetta Wagon, which is available in the U.S.
