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 ...
Around the KC area, diesel is between .25 and .35 a gallon MORE than gasoline.
Mark
Hesre’s a link to the battery article.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071219103105.htm
I’ve got a Cummins diesel Ram and love the power and MPG. We get 20-22MPG on the highway in an 8,000 lb 4WD truck. It has 120,000 miles on it which is considered “broke in” in diesel terms. There are many of the 5.9 Cummins known to have exceeded 1M miles without major engine work.
It’s a tad loud, but starts like a champ down to -10F and doesn’t smell. Below -10F, you do need to use the block heater and anti-gel.
VW built a diesel car that got over 50 MPG way back in the early 80s. But the thing was about as gutless as anything.
Then they turbo’d it. And the thing got better and better.
BTW..beware of the new diesels. They now have what they call a ash pan. I understand on the VW that the ash pan cannot simply be emptied. It has to be taken off and a new one installed, and it COST $1000.00. I do not know about the others...Cummins in the Dodges, Navistar in the Ferds and Isuzu in the GMs. I suspect they will have to do the same.
I was aware of the coal-dust, but forgot thanks for the reminder.
However I still think the answer is an Omnivorous Engine.
I am going to go out on a limb here, watch the Wankel....
A great deal of research was done to make it Omnivorous and even throtte-less and has low pumping losses. Combine that with it's small size and power density, and you have a natural fit as a prime-mover engine for a Series Hybrid.
Go here for more research on the subject, it is amazing what was done not that long ago:
One other thing. My brother bought a Ford Hybred. He was cackling about the 34 MPG he was getting with it. BLAH BLAH BLAH! On it went..till I ask if it would ever get 54 MPG like my VW bug has got on the road and 48 MPG it gets average. And that is from a 2000 model!
He shut up.
Until several years ago, the average price of diesel fuel was usually lower than the average price of gasoline. In some winters when the demand for distillate heating oil was high, the price of diesel fuel rose above the gasoline price. Since September 2004, the price of diesel fuel has been generally higher than the price of regular gasoline all year round for several reasons. Worldwide demand for diesel fuel and other distillate fuel oils has been increasing steadily, with strong demand in China, Europe, and the U.S., putting more pressure on the tight global refining capacity. In the U.S., the transition to low-sulfur diesel fuel has affected diesel fuel production and distribution costs. Also, the Federal excise tax on diesel fuel is 6 cents higher per gallon (24.4 cents per gallon) than the tax on gasoline.
Yes, they all have flash cylinders to reduce the large soot particles to ash. But it’s changed out after 100,000 to 150,000 miles. Meaning it’s costing you around $0.01 per mile for a change.
Considering you can double you mileage with a diesel, that extra expense is pretty minimal.
I had a diesel Rabbit from 1972 - 1980 that achieved 57 mpg on highway driving. Then I bought an Audi 4000 diesel that lasted for 400k miles and got 52 mpg highway.
Both were a bit sluggish to get on the highway but other than that they were real cruisers.
I wish I had the 4000 today.
Listening to the hybred evangelists gets pretty tedious. I just tell them about the great send-up South Park did on the Prius. They had a routine about the Toyunda "Pious", which emitted a super clean exhaust with no smog,.....but spewed so much smug that nobody could stand having them around.
The enviros will never be happy as long as there are people on earth who are not living in absolute poverty. On the extreme are those enviros who want the human race to be exterminated because they think humans have ruined the "purity" of nature (I think these fanatics are one step lower than the Nazis, if that is possible). The more "moderate" environmentalists long for a communist-style planned economy where few consumer goods are produced and everyone stands for half the day every day in bread lines for a slice of stale bread.
Right now the enviros are sort of hyping hybrid cars but this is only because these cars are not cost-effective and when one accounts for everything (batteries having to be replaced) it is not certain that hybrids are so clean after all. If batteries become more efficient so hybrids are truly clean and cost-effective, the enviros will find a reason to oppose them -- trust me on this -- no enviro anti-humanist will support anything that makes economic sense even if it helps the environment. Anything that helps humans and improves their standard of living is considered evil, even if it has positive environmental effects. The American left will regulate modern Diesel cars out of existence because these cars make environmental and economic sense and -- worst of all -- these cars with modern Diesel technology are desirable and high-performance.
Remember, the enviros think that you should not be zipping to the store in your high-performance bio-Diesel car -- you should rather be trudging for 16 hours a day behind your ox-driven plow and the anti-human "animal rights" faction of the left would not even allow you that.
We rented a VW diesel in Scotland a few months ago. D@mn nice car. I might have to buy one.
Many industrial diesel engines already can run on any of the fuels you mentioned.
Back when starting in very cold weather was an issue a lot of construction equipment wasstarted on gasoline and then switched to diesel. They had two fuel tanks onboard.
The diesel engine is of necessity built much tougher than a gasoline engine, so it is rugged enough to use nearly any fuel.
A gasoline engine, by contrast, isn’t as mechanically as strong. Witness the GM automobile diesels which were simply modified gasoline engines. Those engines were battered to pieces in a very short time.
Exactly so.
All engines run on some variant of the “suck-squeeze-bang-push” cycle. The differences are:
1. How is the ignition performed?
2. Are the fuel:air ratios constant (as in the Otto gasoline engine) or variable (diesel and turbojet/fan engines)?
3. Where are you extracting the heat & pressure from the combustion? In a diesel, you’re using the piston to extract the energy from the pressure/temperature of the burning air/fuel mixture. In a turbodiesel, you’re using the piston, but then you’re scavenging some more heat+pressure from the exhaust and pushing that back into the engine in the form of higher charge air temps and pressures.
In a jet engine, you’ve done as you’re indicating — you’ve reduced the size of the piston to zero, and you’re running nothing but a huge honkin’ turbo, where you’ve stuffed an intermediate burn can between the input spool and output spool of the turbo. Oh, and you’ve put a longer shaft on the turbines. ;-)
I plug the block heater in when the temp gets below 40ºF.
About 90 mins before I intend to start it. I have 294,000 mi
and it starts like a dream!
I’m holding out for a diesel Honda Element. When Honda makes one, I’m buying it.
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