Honda has made a name for itself with cleaner emission cars. It was the first to meet the stricter U.S. emissions standards of the 1970s, without using a catalytic converter. But this was on gasoline engines. It needed a diesel for Europe, so it reinvented the engine again with the i-DTEC clean diesel engine for the European Accord.

It's a great history lesson, but the real point of telling that was to get up to speed with the last New York Auto Show. There Honda CEO Takeo Fukui announced that 2009 would see Honda's first clean diesel engine to be sold in the U.S. The car of choice would be the 2009 Acura TSX - not surprising considering that the TSX is basically the European Accord.

Less than a year later it seems the guys over at Temple of VTEC got the scoop from a tipster that the U.S. diesel has been "delayed indefinitely". The reason: emissions certification failure (really, Honda?)

It's reported that the manual transmission version of the i-DTEC TSX cleared emissions certification, but the automatic-equipped version has been unable to pass certification. Acura believes that the lazy americans will likely not go for a diesel if they have to go the row-your-own route. In its place Acura will likely drop a V6 into the TSX.

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