Results from this week’s J.D. Power and Associates’ second annual Alternative Powertrain Study show that the number of customers considering buying a hybrid has declined over the past year, partly due to a realization of the actual mileage that hybrid cars are likely to achieve. Of the 4,000 participants surveyed, 50 percent said they were considering a hybrid compared with 57 percent in 2006. J.D. Power also attributes the drop in hybrid interest to an increase in the number of clean diesel vehicles; the study found that the number of new car buyers considering a diesel had nearly doubled over the past year.
| Why don’t they start manufacturing diesel hybrids? Duh! |
| From Crave. |
One – ONE American manufacturer has the brains to follow your suggestion: Eaton.
FedEx is switching to diesel hybrids and is realizing consistent 50% savings over their previous power trains. They buy Daimler Sprinters from Dodge – and have them shipped to and converted by Eaton. Phah!
Eaton is even building diesel hybrids for over-the-road freight haulers, now.
Just two words.
TDi
and
908 RC
I’ve emailed Toyota twice, so far, about making a diesel prius. I also requested that they add an HECE device (20% improvement) and solar panels (10% improvement) to it. I may have also mentioned a plug, though it would do me little good in a Manhattan garage. If they did this, they’d easily break the 100MPG barrier.
Funny, the article mentions that the Isuzu deal gives Toyota more diesel experience. However, safari vehicle Land Cruisers in Africa have been diesel for years.
I guess doubling your gas mileage isn’t sufficient (or tripling, I suppose, if you drive an SUV). I mean, I’d like a 100 mpg car, but the Prius, at half that, is pretty decent.
The good part is that the modern diesel engine is quieter and makes fewer particulate pollutants than old diesels used to. The bad part is that diesel fuel in the USA is still rubbish so you’re unlikely to ever see French PSA and Fiat built engines – which don’t have the horse power of VW diesel engines, but are cleaner, more fuel efficient, quieter and more reliable. For what it’s worth, I drove a Fiat Punto diesel 200 km recently on 6 litres of fuel, which is 78.4 miles per US gallon.
I wish more people were worried about lower emissions than better fuel economy.
The great thing – to my way of thinking – about the Prius was that it was a gasoline-powered vehicle with extremely-low emissions.
i.e. Advanced Technology Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle. AT-PZEV-rated vehicles are 90% cleaner than the average new car and have near-zero evaporative emissions.”
http://tinyurl.com/ywuofk
You only get that massive reduction in emissions by smoggin’ the hell out of the internal combustion engine – so it is only good for steady-speed driving – and using the electric-drive to provide the acceleration the “gut-less” smogged engine cannot provide.
The recent [2006] US mandate of ultra-low-sulfur in diesel fuel will help diesel hybrids run cleaner, but I would prefer a car that gets a AT-PZEV rating.
That’s because the average American men asociate wasting fuel with masculinity.
I like my favourite quote from animaniacs: “Air conditioning wastes too much gasoline but we keep the windows closed to pretend we have money.”
Oops, the quote was from the Tiny Toons.
Does anyone remember the Wired story a few years ago concerning supplementing hydrogen and oxygen to the diesel engine.
Basically, it takes the energy from the air moving through the intake, uses it to spit water into it’s component parts and injects that into the engine along with the gasoline. The hydrogen ignites and the oxygen just enriches the air. It’s similar to the Plasma Fuel Reformer, but it’s already being made. Not a down the road thing.
Diesel has a big negative connotation in the US. When you think of diesels, you think of big stinky, loud tractor trailers, not fuel efficient passenger cars. Until that prejudice is overcome, diesels will never take off here.
Mercedes Benz diesel sedans are sold in the U.S. and have very good fuel economy.
#10, Chris
I’m not sure about this. Obtaining energy from one form and converting to another form always costs energy. It takes energy to power the truck diesel engine. It takes that energy to power the alternator to obtain electrical current. It takes that energy to convert water into H2 and O2. H2 does not contain the same energy per volume as does diesel fuel.
One site mentioned Transport Canada’s test showed it took 8.7 units of diesel energy to produce one unit of H2 energy. They also had no or negligible emission decreases.
Good idea, but cars and trucks don’t run on water.
#13 – Mr. Fusion,
#10 is referring to the same or a similar technology to the one I referenced in post #3, the HECE is a hydrogen enhanced combustion engine. Counter-intuitively, it really does work. The addition of the hydrogen to the engine makes it burn the rest of the fuel more efficiently and comes out as a net win even given the energy required to split off the hydrogen to inject into the cylinders. The really cool thing is that it works with any internal combustion engine, gasoline, diesel, any biofuel. I’m not sure about natural gas, which already burns very efficiently.
http://www.hydrogen-boost.com/complete.html
Just remember, diesel fumes cause testicle cancer.
Darn, too late to post again.
#13, Mr. Fusion, Actually, cars could run on water (and some beer cans). The technique could be used to replace gasoline. The method makes it unnecessary to store or transport hydrogen – two major challenges in creating a hydrogen economy, says Jerry Woodall, a Purdue professor of electrical and computer engineering who invented the process.
I want mine now. I remember that scene from “Back to the Future” where the Mr. Fusion reactor was on the back of the car and the Prof threw in some beer cans, etc. [ I guess there could be some arrests for public nudity — “But, Officer, I was out of fuel and I really had to go…” 🙂 ]
The overview, from Car Design:
http://tinyurl.com/2lph4l
The real stuff from Purdue Univ., for those scientifically inquisitive:
http://hydrogen.ecn.purdue.edu/
Diesel should be heavily promoted in the US. European and japanese Diesel engines are reaching an efficiency, performance and cleanliness beyond gasoline engines. Audi wins LeMans two years in a row with turbo charged diesel engines. And this year Peugeot came second with a Hdi (their turbo diesel engine) And also derived a family (4seater) supersports car from it: http://tinyurl.com/2heh35
But the most interesting is that paves the way for BioDiesel fuel.
BioDiesel is amazing, because it can be produced from recycled deep fry vegetable oil. Imagine the waste recycling goodness…Just the McDonalds french fry oil waste could power their delivery fleet…
edwinrogers(#6),
Not sure what you are referring to for today’s diesel fuel in the U.S. as it is now the lowest sulphur diesel fuel in the world, at least until Canada comes online with it.
Also my Mercedes Benz E320 Bluetec won the Green Car of the Year award and is getting me 27 city/37 highway driving here in Texas.
#18 I just hope that ULSD doesn’t screw up the pumps on my backhoe or tractors. The process to produce it reduces the lubricity of the fuel and is causing failures in older fuel systems not designed for it.
My first level on this is as long as it’s the size of a full-sized truck, who cares what powers it? It’s all good, put whatever you want in it.
I’ve come to a deeper realization though: I now even support the piece of crap Prius if, long term, it encourages commuting, urban sprawl and more ownership of private vehicles. Anything to reduce people living close together and using public transit. Anything to encourage more roads.
Soooo…. Go Diesel, Go Prius, Go everything!!!
I drive a Toyota diesel and I love them! Good fuel economy (30 mpg for an 8 seater 3 liter engine)… mine is a Japanese import http://tinyurl.com/3xpuhf which are pretty cheap to buy here in the UK…. for me the big add advantage is that if there is a fuel strike (which happened a few years back in the UK) or otherwise a shortage you can also run it off new or used veggie oil…. which makes me feel better….
[Please use TinyUrl.com for overly long URLs. – ed.]
#21
Don’t you mean:
“…makes me feell BUTTER…”
(Yeah, I know, awful humor…)
#16 – BubbaRay,
Great find!! I need to watch the full videos, perhaps during lunch. I’m a little concerned about the impact of mining the aluminum. I assume if the reaction that produces the H2 produces heat (energy), then burning the H2 produces more heat (energy), that getting back to aluminum from Al2O3 will be impractical. This makes me think this is all one way and will require mining rather a lot of aluminum, which is not insignificant environmental impact.
#20 – iGlobalWarmer,
Seems you’ve run out of anything worthwhile to say.
#23 – In the sense of repeating the same view for a couple of years, you could say that – but then global warming alarmists have also done that so the same comment could apply to them.
To be completely on topic: Car Buyers Pick Diesels Over Hybrids because there are a lot more “good and worthwhile” diesels than hybrids.
“Gets you from point A to B” is a very minor part of the equation. In fact, simply driving with no defined destination is a GOOD form of recreation and to be highly encouraged.
Since many people are changing vehicles to save us from frying, peripherally on topic, if you go here:
http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf
in the upper right you can watch the Earth’s temperature rise. Kind of relaxing….
#24 – iGW,
Interesting website. Some odd choices in statistics that they’re showing. Why show mothers dying in abortions but not show mothers dying in childbirth? Makes me think they have an agenda on that topic. Also, species extinctions since dawn of time would be 99% of all species. So, I’d rather see a countdown of species remaining. I think that might be more interesting. Of course, barrels of oil, as the fastest growing number is rather depressing.
As for driving as an acceptable form of recreation, perhaps, assuming the costs were properly allocated. When $12/gallon comes out of my tax dollars, I can’t say it thrills me to subsidize 80% of someone else’s recreation.
#16 – BubbaRay,
I watched that presentation. Really cool!! They guy is even addressing the Al2O3 -> Al part of the process. So far, it’s only 50% efficient. But, he expects 75% soon. If this takes off, there will be strong economic pressure to get the number way above 75% as well, presumably slowly and asymptotically approaching 100% efficiency. With wind/solar/tidal energy driving the recycling of the aluminum and the water from the tailpipe going back into the vehicle, this has some very real potential. This seems far more commercially viable and physically feasible than any other source of hydrogen I’ve heard about before now. I’m duly impressed!!
They might have an agenda…..ya think? 😉
OK, I’ll bite, post a link to gas costing 12.00/gal in tax subsidies. Doing a quick calculation that would mean my tax subsidy bill is about equal to my total federal tax. I’m reasonably sure that’s not correct. (since I know I’m also paying far too much toward education and entitlement programs as well as funding other essentials out of the same tax bill).
#27 – iGW,
Now I’m running out of useful things to say. Here goes, same link I keep re-re-reposting …
http://tinyurl.com/3b7w9m
BTW, though the data is 9 years old, I can only assume the tax portion of the price of gasoline should now include Gulf War II: The Vengence (tagline: He tried to kill my daddy!)
Oh yeah, that document. Oh yeah, I forgot, the war is about nothing but oil and the entire cost of the war needs to be counted as an oil subsidy.
To quote someone we both know: “Makes me think they have an agenda on that topic.”
#26, Scott, thanks, I thought it was extremely ingenious. With more efficiency, it could even power piston airplanes. With blue avgas at current prices, I can’t afford the mileage much as I used to in a light twin. And thank goodness some major oil company doesn’t own the patent(s). If I had the bucks, I’d seriously consider funding Prof. Woodall.