Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.......
If you want on or off the DIESEL "KNOCK" LIST just FReepmail me........
This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days......
Posted on 12/12/2006 6:20:40 AM PST by Red Badger
Honda's Alabama-built vehicles could be among the first to get a new "clean" V-6 diesel engine the Japanese automaker is developing.
Honda CEO Takeo Fukui told the Automotive News trade journal that the new diesel engine should go in the company's light truck models, which include the Odyssey minivan and Pilot sport utility vehicle assembled at the Lincoln plant.
The Honda Ridgeline pickup and Acura MDX SUV could also be candidates, according to Automotive News' Dec. 4 issue. Fukui said the light trucks are "the Honda products that would need this kind of technology."
The engine is expected to follow the four-cylinder clean diesel engine set for release in 2009.
Honda is spending $40 million to expand its Lincoln engine plant, which makes the motors for all of the factory's vehicles. A plant spokesman declined to speculate on Fukui's comments. Michael Tomberlin --
Rest In Peace, old friend, your work is finished.......
If you want on or off the DIESEL "KNOCK" LIST just FReepmail me........
This is a fairly HIGH VOLUME ping list on some days......
*Sigh* WTH is wrong with our big three? If they can't see the writing on the wall they deserve what they are going to get.
don't worry, they sell plenty in Europe (where 40-50% of new vehicles are diesels), but Honda have only introduced them in the last couple of years.
The problem with diesel in the US was the emmissions laws, which would have been solved by cleaning up the fuel. Now Big Oil has finally gone Ultra Low Sulfur (10 years after Europe) there could be a market for the vehicles. Ford & GM have some quite nice diesel engines (the Land Rover V6 diesel for one!)
Honda has been selling diesel Accords in Europe for at least 3 years. We won't see "clean" diesels over here until all the "dirty" diesel is out of the commercial pipeline. Stop in and chat with your local VW dealer.
Would a diesel engine ridgeline have measurably better fuel economy?
We should be already there.
Has anyone checked the price of diesel recently? A few years back it was less the regular and now it's about 20 cents a gallon more than premium.
Hey, if the union boys in Detroit don't want to get their hands dirty building new diesels, then our open shops down here in Alabama will be glad to do it for them.
We keep building more and more cars each year down here. I wonder if Michigan can say the same thing?
"Hey, if the union boys in Detroit don't want to get their hands dirty building new diesels, then our open shops down here in Alabama will be glad to do it for them.
We keep building more and more cars each year down here. I wonder if Michigan can say the same thing?"
Hehe. Open shops in MS building cars as well. :)
"Ford & GM have some quite nice diesel engines (the Land Rover V6 diesel for one!)"
Dodge's High Output Cummins ain't no slouch either.
Back about 1960 I took an engineering lab course in which we tested the efficiency of research engines in which we could vary compression ratio and other parameters. The best the gasoline engine would do was about 30% thermal efficiency. The best the diesel would do was about 40%.So IMHO until/unless you start using fuel cells, if you don't use diesel you aren't serious about fuel economy. I marvel that the hybrid vehicles don't use diesel instead of gasoline, since decoupling engine speed from car speed (which hybrids do far better than mechanical transmissions do) is even more important for a diesel than for a gasoline engine.
How well, I know.... My vessel holds 506 gal. of diesel. A shock to the wallet, during fill-up. The marina went to ultra low sulfur fuel. Fortunately, I can still get high sulfur at the supplier and $0.20/gal cheaper.
The big shock is fuel in the Bahamas.... $5.00/gal. Only one trip, this past summer.
$2.76 a gallon for diesel in Danville, WV over the weekend..
the transmission I am waiting for is the one Land Rover talked about 12 months ago, where they would add a sort of hybrid element with brake-force charging independent electric motors on each wheel that would assist in moving the car for zero to cruising speed. They claimed it could give up to 50 miles per gallon (I guess that's an Imperial gallon of 4.5 litres, rather than the US one?)
"A few years back it was less the regular and now it's about 20 cents a gallon more than premium"
In the erly 70s we were paying 12.9 cents for diesel and 26.9 cents for regular gas.
Holy Cow! And I was crying because my motorhome holds 100 gallons and gets about 8 MPG. Now I feel better (I think?).
The reason they don't usually combine diesel & hybrid drives is the weight factor. The diesel engine block is solid steel (due to the compression rates needed for diesel combustion).
The extra weight of the engine + the hybrid battery pack would eliminate most of the fuel economy saving. Diesels also usually attract an additional $1-3,000 premium (smaller production volumes + steel costs). Add the premium for hybrid drive as well and you loose the benefit of the fuel saving over the life of the vehicle (average 3 years ownership?)
the only place diesel-hybrids make sense is on things like buses or commercial vehicles where they are only produced as diesels.
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