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Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,690 posts, read 57,994,855 times
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ugh
""The cars will be all automatic transmissions, he said.""
Mock said GM isn't forecasting any hiring for diesel production. No miles per gallon numbers were available, but a diesel typically would surpass the 42 highway mpg from the gasoline Cruze Eco.
(of course you have been able to buy a 70+ mpg VW (Lupo) for several yrs (but not in USA)).
Believe me GM will not have to hire anyone to product diesels for them!!! They have done more to torpedo the acceptance of diesel vehicles in USA than any other eyesore auto company (including Renault)... remember their failures ... many Toro-flow (trucks)... Oldsmobile sedans ...List of GM engines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
No thanks, I'd stick with my 30 + yr old, 50 mpg's (many are from Westmoreland, PA). They are only $100 (Or free from your neighbor's Brier Patch). Very cheap to fix (seldom) and EZ to keep running (1) 12v wire, that you can use a 9v smoke alarm battery to satisfy in a pinch.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,690 posts, read 57,994,855 times
Reputation: 46171
Quote:
Originally Posted by CortlandGirl79
...Good news for our local economy here in the Youngstown/northeast Ohio/western Pa area....
Whoops, I don't mean to slight your region and employment needs (I'm a contract Economic Developer for distressed rural communities )
Maybe you can convince GM to use a REAL diesel engine instead of a retrofit of a gasser platform (their biggest failures). They do know how to design and build those for HD trucks and equipment. Ironically, they produce some of the most efficient truck engines. Now... apply THAT to a COMPACT and econo car... and certainly use a non-conventional automatic if they MUST use one. There is surely a way to couple power from a micro engine / car without losing 30% of efficiency. I trust it will also have the 'auto kill / start' at stoplights and drive-thru. Diesels can really economize and provide long service if NOT in duplicate gas applications.
big trouble... USA engineers think 'gas' / typical commute / use. They need to get out of their 'cube' more often. For diesel use in vehicles, they need to optimize the efficiency of the system THEN apply that to motion. (can use any number of non-conventional means)
People seem to love VW diesels. If GM prices the Cruze diesel right I bet it does well. It has to undercut a Jetta diesel by a lot. So, if they are out the door for 18-19,000 they have a winner but if it creeps over 20,000 then everyone will just buy the VW.
From thetruthaboutcars.com blog I found these comments from Bob Lutz on the Cruze diesel coming to the US interesting.
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ___ "Yeah, it’s almost impossible. We’ll do some because we’ve got them in Europe anyway, and we’ll make them compliant and GM will sell a few just to show that we’re part of the game. But I don’t think anyone sees much of a future for diesels in the states because our emissions regulations are six times tougher than Euro 5, and multiple times tougher than Euro 6, which nobody even knows how to do yet. The companies that are selling diesels in the United States, last time I checked which was over a year ago, are all operating on EPA deviations. So nobody meets even current diesel emissions standards. The EPA renews the deviations on an annual basis, but they’re not supposed to renew for more than three years.
It’s just so tough. You need the urea tank and everything, and in order to do the post-combustion NoX reduction in the catalyst, you have to deviate fuel to the catalyst because every two minutes a burn takes place to fry all the oxides of nitrogen and particulates. Well, that reduces the diesel advantage. So now you’re talking $2,500 of hardware and a big urea tank, and instead of a 30% gain in fuel economy, you’re looking more like 18% or 20% and you’re using a fuel that costs 18-20% more per gallon than gasoline. You tell me how this makes sense.
I mean, it’s cool. Owners of Volkswagon diesels love to go around saying [affects a voice dripping with self-satisfaction] “I have a turbodiesel,” and everyone says “wow.” But Ford canceled their passenger car diesel program, they canceled their midsized SUV diesel program, we canceled ours, we canceled passenger car diesels for the US. We were at one point talking to Honda to see if we could collaborate jointly on, say, a two-liter diesel for passenger cars, and we both came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth the trip. They were hopeful (and frankly so were we) that with all they know about engine and emissions that they would be able to somehow conquer this emissions conundrum… they gave up. So all the major producers gave up on diesels for the US."
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I have to agree with Lutz, diesels just don't sell well enough in the US to justify the the extra expense required to meet insanely strict diesel specific emissions regulations.
The problem with diesels in the US is that this country just HAD to enact diesel emission standards that are far more restrictive than is necessary--with no thought of all the "upstream" pollution problems that they cause because of lowered fuel economy, more pollution from having to produce, refine, and transport that additional fuel, etc. All of that to achieve ridiculously low NOx emissions when NOx is generally only a problem in this country's most congested metro areas.
The US is going to rue the direction they have taken on de facto banning most automotive diesels with the ridiculously strict diesel emission standards, and degrading the fuel economy of even the bigger diesel engines in trucks, railroad locomotives, etc. in order to meet the upcoming tightened emission standards applying to them. It is going to drive the cost of everything up that relies on diesel-powered equipment to produce or transport--and that IS just about everything. Those stupid standards also foreclose one of the last major opportunities to reduce this country's dependence on foreign oil--because diesel fuel can be refined fairly straightforwardly (though not cheaply) from the one fossil fuel that we do have left in relative abundance in the US: coal.
It really makes a person want to smack some heads in the EPA. The diesel car we rented in the UK was a midisize Ford with lots of room, plenty of scoot, hardly any noise and did not stink of diesel. It also gave us 38 to 44 mpg that would be best classified as "city" although it was mostly back roads with a lot of hills and switchbacks. It also had another feature that cars in the US lack these days-a liftback.
For being the "land of the free" we aren't getting much freedom these days. Our gummint is wedded to the idea of hybrids and does not like diesels. We need to find a way to remind the gummint they are supposed to work for us, not against us.
Yup, our Ford Focus diesel rental in Ireland last year was the same as above.... exactly like the 2001 Jetta diesel we already own here in the States (minus the hatch-back).
Can't go political here... it's just, wrong. It's not fair to pick on the mentally challenged kid who can't even balance a checkbook....
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