Let’s see if my Facebook posting rights get pulled by an advertiser there.   I just posted the following comment on the Mercedes USA page, to a photo of their brand new GLK BlueTEC SUV, driving through the wild wide open wilderness…

“When you sell these, do your dealers tell their customers that diesel fuel that satisfies the warranty on the engine, fuel and emissions systems (no greater than B5 bio content) is getting very hard to find in some states, and the problem is getting worse, not better? I mean…that photo looks like you’re saying enjoy the wide open spaces in your GLK BlueTEC because it’ll go just about anywhere, and it will, but only where B15-B20 isn’t all you can find. Like, so I hear, Illinois, Minnesota… “

I mean…what is this ad photo telling you… That the car is made to go Everywhere…

But no…it isn’t.   It’s made to go only where you can find diesel fuel with no greater than B5 biodiesel content.   And that’s getting to be a problem in the mid-west, and that situation is getting worse and worse.   For a year and a half after I bought Spirit I never saw Any bio diesel on I-95 between Baltimore and Key West.   This summer when I went to Disney World first time I stopped for fuel on the way home I was confronted by B20, and then again at the next place I tried.   Third time I stopped I was able to get fuel that met the factory specs.

It’s one thing for Daimler to point their fingers at the states and the biofuels industry, and I’d be 100 percent on their side in that, but for the fact that they don’t seem to be telling their customers at the point of sale that they’re buying cars they may not be able to get fuel for later on, or if they go traveling. You have to figure that’s because they know they won’t sell diesels if they do. But it isn’t like they don’t have the engineering talent to make their cars compatible with B20 if they wanted to.   It looks to me like they are just digging in their heels and hoping biodiesel goes away or remains a small niche market.   But that isn’t going to happen if I know my country’s agribusiness lobbyists.

This is a problem that is going to blow up in their faces eventually if they keep ignoring it.