Posted on 12/30/2007 8:51:21 AM PST by saganite
Merging with northbound traffic on Interstate 75 just outside Auburn Hills, Mich., I punch the accelerator, quickly swing left into the passing lane and pull forcefully ahead of the cars around me. In any other ride, on any other gray morning, it’d be just another Interstate moment. But this rush hour, I’m behind the wheel of a preproduction 2009 Volkswagen Jetta, which is powered by a 2.0-liter turbo-charged, direct-injected diesel engine that, even as I leave the speed limit in tatters, is averaging nearly 50 mpg. Equally important, what’s coming out of the tailpipe is no dirtier than the emissions from the 35-mpg econoboxes I can now see in my rearview mirror. Speed, fuel efficiency and minimal emissions? These aren’t characteristics usually associated with diesel-powered vehicles. But they will be.
Most Americans have a bad impression of diesel cars. We think of them as loud, hard to start and foul-smelling. We sneer at them for lacking the get-up-and-go of their gasoline-powered cousins. And we dislike them for their perceived environmental sins, chiefly the polluting brew of sulfur and nitrogen compounds that they emit into the atmosphere. All those complaints were fair a generation ago, when the twin energy crises of the 1970s propelled diesels into national popularity and kept them there for a decade. Back then, many drivers ignored diesel’s faults, or were unaware of them, because diesel cars ran 30 percent farther on a gallon of fuel than similar gasoline-powered cars. It felt savvy to buy a diesel, even daring. Then fuel prices dropped in the mid-1980s, and drivers abandoned their clattering, odoriferous fuel sippers. They went back to gasoline.
Today, diesel powertrains are on the map again, for both car manufacturers and efficiency-minded drivers. The technology could be here to stay, even if fuel prices (improbably) decline. .
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
Does the above explanation cover why the majority of fighter aircraft* (running water cooled engines) used the V-12?
*Not to mention the UK bombers using the Merlin V-12 series.
It does have something to do with it. Vibration in aircraft is a prelude to serious problems, because aluminum work hardens pretty quickly under vibration modes and this causes cracking and structural failure.
The more telling metric for our application under discussion (diesels in autos) is how many of the finest autos in the world use V-12’s. Think Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maybach, Jag, et al. Very, very smooth engines.
The original point was about diesels in cars. One of the knocks against diesels in the past (esp. I-4 diesels) is that they had more vibration vs. gas engines of the day. It certainly is possible to build a reasonably smooth I-4, but it is far easier to deliver a good diesel in I-6 and V-12 configurations, as is evidenced by how the Germans (who, after all, created and perfected the diesel engine) are using this configuration in high-end cars. The BMW 5-series uses a lot of I-6’s in both gasoline and diesels. Mercedes is using V-12’s in their highest-end autos.
The US auto manufactures are at a point where I’d like to tell them “OK, look, you’re past the point where you’re going to win back market share with innovation, because the US consumer has had 20 years of your ‘innovation’ and how it doesn’t pan out. So just copy the Japanese and Germans, do it cheaper and better and work at just surviving until you can get rid of the UAW liabilities and get back to being a car company instead of a HMO that makes cars.”
Actually spend money on Quality Assurance vs. Marketing?
Hmmmm
Might work.
interesting comments
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