Get real America, diesel no longer blows. Black exhaust, that is.
If we go back 100 years we would find a wide assortment of propulsion systems used on cars. We had electric cars, along with street outlets in cities to charge them. We even had steam powered cars. All of these different propulsion systems were pushed aside and gasoline and diesel piston engines became the engines of choice. This dominance occurred for the simple reason that these engines were the most reliable at the lowest cost.
Diesel engines in particular are remarkable power plants. They have been made in both two stroke and four stroke designs, and in fact your PT boats and tanks of World War Two were powered by two stroke diesels for their sheer reliability. They are fuel efficient, and the oily nature of diesel fuel contributes to a very long engine life.
Once emissions became an issue, the diesel engine came under very tough scrutiny. Two stroke diesels were dirty engines by their simple design and have just about been eliminated from production. While it looked for awhile like the diesel was heading towards extinction, technology has emerged to clean the emissions from four stroke diesels so that the diesel has been resurrected as a viable power plant for a cleaner, greener world.
A diesel gets good fuel economy because of its high compression design. Simply stated, if you raise engine compression you increase fuel economy. The use of unleaded fuel forced a reduction in gasoline engine compression, but diesels are high compression engines by their basic design. High compression squeezes more useable energy out of the fuel. Modern small diesel engines are now getting better mileage than hybrids. It also results in a high combustion temperature that helps to reduce hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions.
Diesel engine emissions were an issue in two areas. First, the high combustion temperature resulted in high levels of Oxides of Nitrogen emissions, and most importantly diesels had a high level of soot emissions. Modern emission controls have cured these issues so that the modern diesel is a very clean running engine. The tailpipe in the picture is on a diesel engine in a transit coach with 60,000 miles, and remains as clean as it was when new.
Now that emissions have been corrected, the diesel engine becomes one of our better green solutions at the current time. A small diesel engine has lots of torque, making for a car that performs well. The use of a small engine enhances the clean design since a smaller engine, everything else being equal, breathes less and naturally pollutes less. In addition, since diesel engines last longer they will remain clean burning for a longer time than a gasoline engine.
Acceptance of diesel cars in the United States has been poor, primarily because the average motorist is not sensitive to the different nature of the power train. Diesel engines develop more torque than gasoline engines, but they don’t rev like gasoline engines. They also must be warmed up in cold weather, and maintenance intervals must be more closely followed. Oil changes and filters are critical to the reliability of a diesel.
The motorist who considers these differences and works with his machine will be rewarded with a car than can realistically get 60 miles per gallon for several hundred thousand miles. Maybe its time for Americans to rediscover this old, proven engine, but don't treat them like gasoline engines.
Comments
My 2009 VW Jetta Diesel is everything Nick says. It has great acceleration, incredible fuel economy, it is very quiet, and has no Diesel smell at all. Plus, there's no battery (like hybrid cars) that must be replaced eventually. In short, there's no downside at all to owning a Diesel car. Add the fact that Diesel fuel is currently (June, 2009) selling for ten cents a gallon CHEAPER that regular gasoline, and a person would be a fool not to consider buying a new clean Diesel car!
I agree with everything, except I ca buy a gasoline powered car that gets 38+ on the highway in mpg (Toyota Yaris) and the only diesel powered car I can get is a VW and those will start at over 22k. The difference in the initial cost of the car more tha makes up for the better economy of the diesel. I asked people At Ford why they were not going to be selling their new Fiesta with the deisal which they sell in Europe . The car gets 65 mpg. They said their was not a market in in the USA. Everyone I speak to aboutthis responds that they would love to buy a car that got that type of mileage. Meanwhile 80% of the VW Jettas that are sold, are sold with diesels. It seems that the aniti diesel culture is perpetuated by those who make the marketing decisions at least at Ford and probably in other manufacturers.
Ales: I am certain that your figure of 80% of Jettas sold having the TDI engine is something of an exaggeration. The TDI is quite popular, but according to VW's sales figures for May, the Jetta TDI accounted for about 36% of Jetta sales.
I had a 2002 VW Golf TDI and loved it for the first 100K miles. No problem getting 53mpg. Because of the torque once I got in 5th gear I rarely had to downshift. I live in Alaska though and diesel gels when the temp goes below freezing. Fuel stations are required to sell special cold weather fuel but all it takes is one dealer to sell summer fuel in the winter and you've got a really expensive repair bill. Up here diesel is .50 -.60cents more then gas per gallon so when it came time to replace the Golf because of starting problems last winter, I got a Prius. I wrote to VW about the cold weather fuel problem and found that the big truckers have onboard heaters that keep the fuel from gelling in the tank and fuel lines but the system is too expensive for the average consumer. If they could solve that problem I would trade the Prius in for a new TDI in a minute.
I've owned a VW Diesel Rabbit Pickup since I bought it new in 1981. I have averaged over 35 mpg since then, and I do mostly around-town driving. Paid $8k new, have put $16k into it in the 28 years of ownership. Love it still.
I also recently bought a used 2000 Golf TDI. I've gotten 35 mpg since I bought it, and that's around-town mileage. But it has almost twice the horsepower of the pickup at the same mpg.
And both vehicles will run on bio-diesel, leaving a smaller carbon footprint than a gas automobile.
I had a 2003 Dodge 3/4 ton, 4x4, quad cad that weighed over 6000 lbs. The saving grace...A Cummins turbo diesel power plant. On the highway I could get up to 24 MPG...! Around town I averaged ~20 MPG. That same truck with a Gas engine was getting low teens. That truck had soooo much torque it could pull over a house. The big 3 had plans to build a mid sized diesel truck for a while that would get about 30 MPG...That seemed to go up in smoke. Now there is an Indian company hitting the US shores with it. VW has had the strangle hold on the US with its awesome little diesels that are now setting records. BMW is sitting on its hunches with the 1 series diesels. But Audi seems to be following the VW business plan with the A3 diesel, and the commercials which show that if only 30% of the cars in the US were diesel the US could send back 150 million barrels of oil A DAY... All I can say is bring it on. If the little 3 choose not to keep up, so be it. Everyone has to make a choice.
I drive a 05 Jeep CRD with 125,000 miles.
I fail to understand how the ex-Big 3 who are obviously cash short, try to reinvent the wheel with their hybrids in NA while they offer a full line of diesel engines from 1.4l to 3.0l in Europe in their cars, light trucks and vans. They have been doing so for years and I am sure that the bulk of their developments are behind them and have been amortized. And those are clean diesel engines now. For fun, visit the sites of Ford UK, Vauxhall UK and Chrysler UK.(I travel to continental Europe a couple times a year and had the opportunity to drive all kind of diesel powered rental cars).
If they could use their marketing smarts the way they used to push the Hummer, for exemple, they should be able to leverage their diesel assets in NA. Imagine a Ford F150 with their existing european 3.0l diesel at a $2/3 k premium over gas (not the $6/7K premium for the powerstroke in their F250/350), that could be a green and macho machine.
If it gets good fuel mileage, handles great, lasts a long - long time...Who has the most to "loose"?
finally someone who has the resorces needed to publish this issue! i personally dont have a diesel, but i know i will never own a gas vehicle after my ranger. i think the diesel is the future. there are already 0 yes i said ZERO emission diesels on the market today, they are primarily in heavyduty OTR trucks but the technology trickles to the consumer market. also there is already an infrastucture to diesel (your local fuel station) which i think that fact alone eliminates about 75% - 80% of the ideas for alternate fuels. all we have to do is change the source of our diesel fuel to say oils from the seed of some weed like hemp or something we dont use normally and harvest the oils from said seed. oh yea and regulate our cetane level in our diesel/biodiesel fuels. that fact is the reason we cant have european diesels in america, their fuel systems cant support our crappy fuel europe regulates theirs at 50 and a company called neste has a fuel with a cetant from 89 - 100!!
diesel is in!
finally someone who has the resorces needed to publish this issue! i personally dont have a diesel, but i know i will never own a gas vehicle after my ranger. i think the diesel is the future. there are already 0 yes i said ZERO emission diesels on the market today, they are primarily in heavyduty OTR trucks but the technology trickles to the consumer market. also there is already an infrastucture to diesel (your local fuel station) which i think that fact alone eliminates about 75% - 80% of the ideas for alternate fuels. all we have to do is change the source of our diesel fuel to say oils from the seed of some weed like hemp or something we dont use normally and harvest the oils from said seed. oh yea and regulate our cetane level in our diesel/biodiesel fuels. that fact is the reason we cant have european diesels in america, their fuel systems cant support our crappy fuel europe regulates theirs at 50 and a company called neste has a fuel with a cetant from 89 - 100!!
diesel is in!
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