The paradox of this whole thing is that the economic downturn which is supposed to make these fuel efficient cars a bigger market share could very well turn out to be their downfall! Firstly because diesel cars are more expensive to buy and secondly because the downturn is affecting the inflated oil prices... gasoline haven't been cheaper here in europe for almost two years than right now.But the goal here shouldn't be to get more diesel cars on the road, the goal should be to get less fuel out of the gas stations in the first place. And as of right now, this means driving a diesel... And with the recent advances in diesel hybrids, diesels will probably be the most fuel efficient cars for some time to come. And lets not forget the fact that diesel is an easier fuel to substitute than gasoline. Companies are now producing eco-friendly biodiesel from everything from rapeseeds, over seaweed to organic household wastes... ethanol (which you can't buurn without fossil gasoline mixed in yet) could, in the long run be a better alternative than bio-diesel, given it's cleaner burn, but we have yet to demonstrate large scale viable production methods which doesn't involve using potential food sources... But when we get to a point where algae or wood based ethanol can be produced efficiently and in an economically viable way, diesel is out for good.And please don't start about fuel cells... I am writing a master project on fuel cells for large scale applications, and even in those applications where size and weight isn't a problem, the massive cooling systems, the hydrogen storage, problems with contaminations and not least fuel cell hydration (or lack thereof) means that we are looking at 15-20 years before the technology is mature... And yes, I am aware of the FCX, but I'd like to know what Honda actually threw after each of those 'production' models (I bet the production costs of the Veyron are just pennies compared to those)...