Posted on 12/01/2006 5:49:41 AM PST by Red Badger
Toyota Motor Corp. has developed an ultra-clean diesel engine designed to clear stricter emissions standards to be introduced in Japan, the United States and the European Union in the coming years, sources said.
The company plans to install the engine in its European models in the latter half of 2008, and in so doing aims to become the world's first automaker to commercialize a next-generation diesel engine, the sources said.
Germany's BMW AG has said it will roll out a diesel model with comparable emissions levels in 2008 in the United States. Honda Motor Co. announced a plan to introduce a similar model in 2009 in the U.S. market.
In 2005, diesel engine models accounted for 40 percent of Toyota's parent-only unit sales in Europe. With the new engine, the company aims to increase the ratio to more than 50 percent by 2010.
Diesel engines are more fuel-efficient than gasoline engines, but they emit more particulates and nitrogen oxides.
The United States is scheduled to implement diesel-emissions regulations from vehicles marketed as 2007 models. Japan and the EU are considering introducing their new standards in 2009 and 2010, respectively.
Under the three standards, the ceiling for particulate matter will be about 0.005 grams per kilometer of driving for passenger cars.
The figure will be less than a third of the amount allowed under the current regulations in Japan and a fifth of that in Europe.
The U.S. standards will be particularly stringent on nitrogen oxides, while the European rules will call for lower emissions of carbon monoxide than the other two.
Industry officials said regulators in Japan, the United States and Europe are expected to prohibit sales of vehicles if they fail to meet their standards.
Toyota has succeeded in raising the efficiency of fuel combustion through improvements in diesel-injection nozzles, the sources said.
The company has also improved a catalytic converter that reduces both particulates and nitrogen oxides in emissions, the sources said.(IHT/Asahi: December 1,2006)
Source please........
I like'em with a little meat on their bones!............That "ultra-model waif chic look" is like skeletons walking........
GM only produced lousy diesel passenger cars. They put a very robust Detroit Diesel engine in their trucks. Mine has over 200k miles and should easily last 100k more.
bump
Yes, lubrication oil tends to get dirtier, faster in diesel engines. But newer filtering technologies are coming that will help to equalize that differential. And I'm sure that the re-cycling of crankase oils will be mandated fairly soon, at any retailer that sells oil. Oil never wears out, it just gets dirty and loses its additives. You may, in the future, be able to recycle your own oils in a home cleaner unit in your garage.......
| Top 10 Corporate R&D spenders in the world,in millions 2005 | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford | $8,000 |
| 2 | Pfizer | $7,442 |
| 3 | Toyota | $7,178 |
| 4 | DaimlerChrysler | $7,019 |
| 5 | GM | $6,700 |
| 6 | Siemens | $6,546 |
| 7 | Johnson & Johnson | $6,312 |
| 8 | Microsoft | $6,184 |
| 9 | IBM | $5,842 |
| 10 | GlaxoSmithKline | $5,700 |
I love the cr*p dealers try to tell people.... :)
>>>...and FOOD channel. I'm in love with Rachel Ray!..............
What about Giada, Sandra Lee, and Ellie Krieger? Inspirations for impure thought for me :)
Microsoft engineering producing the zune may illustrate a difference between budget and results.
Very true...
Spending does not equal results. But it does refute the false assertion that the Big 3 don't spend money on R&D and engineering.
"Poor Rachel, have you seen her expanding proportions?"
I'm pretty sure I know the reason for that. That lady just loves everything she eats. She must be a pothead. If you ever watch that show where she travels around trying to spend no more than $40 a day eating out every meal at different restaurants around the country you'll notice that everything that woman puts in her mouth is just the the yummiest morsel she's ever tasted. You will never see her push something away and say it's not for her, or that something is too salty, too hot, whatever. She'll just moan about how delicious everything she shoves in her mouth is. No wonder she's turning into a cow. That woman will eat anything and love it. I kind of have to wonder if these restaurants aren't paying her to hype their food.
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html#ascend
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1745979/posts
There's two ways an engineer would answer that question:
1. The textbook, test-stand measurements of fuel consumed to produce "X" horsepower for an hour.
2. Actual driving fuel mileage.
Here's a good overview of an answer to #1:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_fuel_consumption
As to #2: It is important that you understand that what diesel engines like doing best is running at their optimum RPM under load for a long time. They don't like jackrabbit starts, zooming from lane to lane in traffic. For example, living in Nevada is an ideal application for a diesel engine: long period of time spent at one RPM, locked in on the cruise control. Let's say 70 MPH, which is a bit over 2,100 RPM on the tach. This is a higher RPM than optimum on the Navistar 7.3L diesel engine's fuel curve. Optimum would be about 1,850 RPM.
In this type of driving, our F-350 (which is 7,700+ lbs empty) gets about 19 to 20 MPG. Standard transmission, 3.73:1 rear end, FWIW.
The same model truck with a manual transmission, V-10 gasoline engine, same rear end, but not the same driver, but also here in Nevada gets about 14 to 15 MPG at 70 MPH.
Now, the diesel pickup could be made more efficient by the addition of another gear to the transmission. The fuel consumption curves for diesel engines show that when you go higher in RPM over the "sweet spot" on the fuel curve (which, for most medium-speed diesels -- ie, 700 to 2700 RPM diesels), occurs at about 1700 to 1800 RPM. Detroit, in their blinkered stupidity, cannot fathom why anyone would want to cruise down the road at 75 MPH. In the West, there are lots of roads where I'll be toodling along at 75 MPG for hours on end. I want that engine to be doing no more than 1800 RPM at 75 MPH. If my calculations are correct, I reckon that if I could get my way on the gearing, I could make a 4-ton pickup truck get 22 MPG at 75 MPH with a diesel.
There is no way you'll get more than about 16 to 18 MPG out of a gasoline engine unless you could substantially increase the compression ratio from about 9.5:1 up to 12 to 14:1. That will not happen in a gasoline engine without some seriously finicky engineering -- like water or methanol injection. Gasoline engines are up against something engineers informally call "the knock limit" -- the maximum compression ratio they can engineer into a gasoline engine on the fuel the oil companies are providing.
Diesel engine compression ratios are anywhere from 17.5:1 up to over 20:1 -- before blowers/turbo boosting.
The other reason why diesels get so much more out of their fuel is that they're using only the fuel needed for the load put upon them. The air:fuel ratio in a gasoline engine is fixed at about 14.7:1 (by mass). If the mixture gets too lean or too rich, the engine starts exhibiting problem behavior.
In a diesel, your air:fuel ratio varies wildly. At idle, a diesel might be seeing air:fuel ratios over 60:1 -- in some engines, as high as 100:1.
Diesel engines are simply more efficient all the way around -- in fuel consumption and engine lifespan.
The other thing that is wonderful about diesels is that you can engineer one engine that covers a wide span of horsepower ratings. Go into a Peterbilt dealership sometime and ask for the engine brochures for the various engines that can go into trucks. You'll see that the same engine displacement can have a wide range of possible horsepower ratings. To do this, all that is changed is the fuel system -- the injection pump, possibly the injectors, and the fuel metering system. To burn more fuel, the engine manufacture will re-tune the turbo or blower system. Then when the engines are being pushed to the higher HP ratings, the manufactures will often start using "air-air" intercoolers to cool the charge air going into the engine, and they'll have to put on a larger radiator.
I have two older Deere tractors on this farm -- one is a "4440" -- rated as 135HP (at the PTO) and the other a "4640" -- rated as 157HP at the PTO. They're the exact same engine -- the inline 6-cylinder 466 cu. in. engine. The differences are:
- different fuel pump
- different injectors
- bigger radiator
And on top of that, the 4640 was "turned up" to 180 HP. There was one tractor larger in this series of tractors, the 4840, which was rated as 179HP (PTO) at the factory. This 4640 has had the injection pump "turned up" to deliver more fuel to the engine to get the last 20 HP increase out of it. So, the same I6, 466-in engine covers from 135 to 180 PTO HP. Newer diesels in tractors will typically run from 140 to 240 PTO HP. All just by changing the fueling and cooling systems.
You can do that with diesels, and on modern diesels, you can do this all with a change in software programming in the fuel injection control computer.
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