Efficient Cars: Emerging Clean Diesels May Give Electric Vehicles A Jolt (luxury car, 2014)
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...Just when it begins to look like the future of personal transportation may be the electric vehicle, The Economist warns us not to jump to premature conclusions: the advanced (and clean) diesel engine is about to land on U.S. shores.
The 2014 Mazda 6 will soon make its debut, getting a 30% premium in mileage over its petrol sipping cousin. It will shortly be followed by vehicles from Toyota and Mitsubishi. These engines will be smaller and lighter, with lower cylinder pressures. Lower pressure means less stress on other related parts, so they can be lighter as well. In turn, this means less demand on the brakes, bodywork, and other components. And that translates to yet more miles per gallon.
The Economist reports that still smaller and lighter engines are in the works for both Mazda and Toyota. To put this into context, Toyota’s Prius lags behind 19 clean diesel vehicles currently available in Europe, with the best vehicles attaining over 60 miles per gallon. And there is additional room for more improvement...
NOT to belittle the success Tesla Motors has had with its Model S luxury electric car—outselling its petrol-powered equivalents since being launched last year—the prospects for battery-powered vehicles generally may never shine quite as bright again. Babbage believes their day in the sun is about to be eclipsed by, wait for it, the diesel engine.
As much as I love diesel vehicles and have been driving them since 2001 , even I'm turned off to the new "clean" diesels. Taking somone that is sort of new to diesel technology and telling them they have to keep a tank of Urea (what is that again ??) or their shiny new diesel won't run is going to turn most away. Not to mention the newer gas vehicles are getting better MPG and the newer diesels (thanks to all the emissions BS) are getting less MPG the gap is getting closer so the advantage of the diesel is going away. (at least in cars)
Diesels still use petroleum products. Diesel competes with home heating fuel for demand, and while biodiesel is nice for the occasional user, manufacturing it in bulk to suit high demands is going to be as costly as petroleum based fuel, if it can even be done easily for general consumption (and converting food crops to transportation fuel seems a bit of a waste).
We need to reduce overall petroleum demand, not merely shift it to a different byproduct.
Diesels still use petroleum products. Diesel competes with home heating fuel for demand, and while biodiesel is nice for the occasional user, manufacturing it in bulk to suit high demands is going to be as costly as petroleum based fuel, if it can even be done easily for general consumption (and converting food crops to transportation fuel seems a bit of a waste).
We need to reduce overall petroleum demand, not merely shift it to a different byproduct.
I think the importance of that is understated. We need to become as self sufficient from an energy point of view as possible. Dependence on what we must obtain elsewhere is never a good thing, and will only become more of a negative factor as time goes on.
one of the nice things about diesel is that it is easy to use alternate fuels, such as waste vegetable oil or even bio diesel made from WVO.
Unfortunately waste vegetable oil and biodiesel can't withstand the tremendous pressures of today's high-pressure diesel fuel systems. That's why newer diesel passenger cars usually recommend no more than 20% biodiesel blend, many if not most going only as high as 5%. Try squirting canola oil through a pinhole at 30,000psi and it just breaks down.
one of the nice things about diesel is that it is easy to use alternate fuels, such as waste vegetable oil or even bio diesel made from WVO.
Pretty pointless though on a lot of the older vehicles. Look at the 300D - it's painfully slow yet gets low-mid 20's highway. Compare that to a modern gas luxury car of similar size and weight and it's pathetic both in performance and efficiency.
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