Here is an article from businesswire published on June 6th of this year. So before posting that "First off, the "Lion" diesel was not ever being developed by International/Navistar because it is already being made by the European division of Ford" check your facts first.
As for " The electric car is one of the least feasible options for clean energy out there" I wonder why Toyota is coming up with the plug in hybrid (over 100 MPG). Some engineers in Cal are already modifying their hybrids for a cost of $12000 per hybrid. The law of economics of scale will drop the cost eventually, if there is a mass market for the customization.

Greg Hanssen has a company already making such modifications into the plug in hybrids. Another engineer Andrew Frank of UC Davis has been active in the development of hybrid technology for 30 years. Currently, he converted a modified Ford explorer into a plug-in hybrid. He dropped the engine size down from 3.5 liter to 1.9 liter without losing any speed. The modified SUV is faster than a non-hybridized Explorer. Frank even gave a Mercury sedan a similar makeover and now the car gets 200 mpg. A sedan with an 200 MPG fuel efficiency is not an option for clean energy


Article about the litigation
WARRENVILLE, Ill., Jun 06, 2007 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Navistar International Corporation (Other OTC: NAVZ) announced today that it has filed a lawsuit against Ford Motor Company for breach of contract relating to a diesel engine contract involving the Ford F-150 pickup truck and is seeking damages. The suit, filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill., seeks "at least hundreds of millions of dollars."

Navistar believes that Ford intends to introduce a new diesel engine that actually was designed by International Truck and Engine Corporation, Navistar's principal operating company.

According to the lawsuit, Ford is developing a 4.4 liter diesel engine for production in North America by late 2009 or 2010 or possibly earlier and intends to produce the engine itself for use in the F-150, and possibly other vehicles. The lawsuit states that Ford cannot do that without violating its contract with Navistar. Reportedly, Ford is considering producing V8 diesel engines at a Ford facility in Chihuahua, Mexico.

The lawsuit states that International spent millions of dollars and devoted years of its employees' time to develop a next generation diesel engine named "Lion" for use in vehicles including the F-150 pickup trucks in which Ford had not previously offered diesel engines. Ford agreed that International, which has been the exclusive diesel engine supplier for Ford's heavy-duty pickup trucks since 1979, would manufacture the new diesel engines for Ford in North America. ....

News release about the plans for the Ford escape
The 2008 Escape Hybrid will serve as the base for the PHEV conversions.

Ford Motor Company CEO Alan Mulally and Edison International CEO John Bryson announced today that Ford is partnering with Edison subsidiary Southern
California Edison in a multi-year, multimillion dollar project to, in Mulally’s words, “investigate and figure out how to commercialize plug-in hybrids.”

Ford will supply twenty stock Escape hybrid SUVs to Southern California Edison, to be placed with “average consumers.” After real-world baseline data is collected from the vehicles, Ford will convert the Escapes to plug-in hybrids with lithium-ion battery packs from an unnamed battery supplier, then return them to consumers for comparison testing.



http://www.edrivesystems.com/
http://www.team-fate.net/

 

The key words are 'clean' and 'efficient', not just fuel efficient. When you are talking about electric cars, you can't use mpg as a way to measure the efficiency because you are using more than just gas to power the car. My point was not that electric cars don't reduce the amount of petroleum fuel being burned. My point was that electricity is not clean energy as most of it comes from burning coal which is a VERY inefficient source of energy.

Think in terms of BTUs when it comes to measuring the amount of energy required to power your electric car rather than in mpg. The electricity used to power your car is most likely coming from a power plant that is using steam to drive a turbine which is connected to a big electric generator. If you were to calculate the amount of energy required to convert the steam to electricity, you'd be in the ball-park of 25% efficient when the electricity leaves the plant. If you account for losses and power transmission and the losses in charging the battery and in the electric motor itself, you find that you are much less than 20% efficient before the power ever even gets to the wheels.

Compared to the internal combustion engine which operates 30-35% efficiency, the electric cars are actually using more energy and only displacing the pollution to the nearest power-plant. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the electric powered car because in reality it only reduces the amount of oil being burned. It doesn't reduce energy consumption and does little to reduce pollution. Toyota and Ford are both capitalizing on the 'clean energy' image that electric cars carry. I don't blame them a bit for marketing the cars to all of the celebrity's in California that think they are saving the world by driving a hybrid - BUT it sounds like a successful business strategy to me, not a solution to an energy crisis.

As for the other article you posted, I appreciate the information. I was not aware that International was involved in the development of the Lion diesel. It will be interesting to see what happens with the suite as Ford has been using this motor in Europe for a couple of years now in the Land Rover Range Rover and International is just now claiming they designed the engine when Ford starts talking about putting it in their half ton trucks!?!? Sounds to me like International is getting a little nervous that they are about to be dropped as a supplier to Ford when the contract is up.

 

Excellent point, At least for now it applies to the American market (France derives 75 per cent of its electricity from nuclear energy) . I just read "Where Have All the Leaders Gone?" by Lee Iaccoca former Ford President and former Chrysler CEO. Lee advocates the use of Nuclear energy to power electricity plants considering how safe they have become with the new available technology. But the US is slow to catch up with the rest of the world, We americans like to play it safe. Just expect to see a debate in the US in the coming years, if it is safe to start building nuclear power electricity plants.