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World's Only Diesel-Electric Honda Insight
Jake Staub writes "Just replaced the gasoline engine in a Honda Insight with a Diesel engine. On a 3,000 mile cross-country shakedown journey the car averaged 92mpg over 1,800 miles. Around a very hilly town in Northwest Washington, the car is averaging 78mpg. These mileage averages are without the electric side of the vehicle fully functional. With a bit more tinkering on the electric side and through a slight gearing change through tire size, it is anticipated that the car will likely average 100mpg. The build for the car has been documented on the web site and is as close to open source as my time allows. The car was built by two guys in a garage in Southern Maryland. If we can do it I don't see any reason why major auto manufacturers can't do it since we used their parts."
So it's diesel - is it as gutless as I've been led to believe diesel cars are? I've never driven one, but I am genuinely curious....
Does Jay Leno have one?
Diesel engines are way better at mileage, and is significantly cheaper at the pump. At the same time, though, the stuff they output is worse, lots of fine dust particulates.
For the MPG's though, I want one.
For various reasons the industry in the US has shunned diesel for private vehicles. That has to change before any headway can be made.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
The black helicopters need to be sent in here. Gas Mileage like that is un-American. Before you know it, the schematics for the water-car will get out.
1) They either have not done what they claim and their inflated mpg values will be shattered under third-party testing (least likely).
2) Big oil is so deep in peoples pockets that it's more porfitable for companies to get paid off then it is to actually make a car that would dominate the marketplace (most likely).
(whisper)When it comes to cars, the slashdotter species generally has absolutely NO idea what it is talking about. Shhhh. Here comes the posters now. Let's watch quietly as they trot out the same old ignorant meme's about hybrids, electrics and diesels.(/whisper)
By using less fuel you are shifting the tax burden onto those who cannot afford a high tech vehicle. We should expect owners of hybrids, electric cars and high efficiency vehicles to pay their fair share if they can't manage to pay their road tax through fuel purchases. Perhaps you people should be required to keep a log of your travel distances and cut a check when you renew your state registration based on your mileage.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
And that's why I bought a Sat....oh wait.
This is bullshit, hybrid cars should use a different metric. In theory, a hybrid could get infinite MPG.
Diesel engine with WVO/PPO has less fine particle dust as output.
Also a particle filter can be used.
I saw an ad for an american petrol car that needed a hybrid version to average 1L in 16 KM which is relleay poor for a 'high tech' car.
I do like the diesel-electric idea, too bad the site is slashdotted?
If we can do it I don't see any reason why major auto manufacturers can't do it since we used their parts
profit margin
fixed that for you.
Diesel engines have always been where hybrid cars should go, its just that in North America, most people avoid diesel and gas stations often don't have it.
Diesel engines afaik have always been more tunable to run very efficiently at specific speeds and are therefore a much better choice for generators in general (and are often used in that capacity). Using a fixed-speed diesel engine to generate electricity for a hybrid vehicle seems obvious, and its been done for both city buses and the military HMMV with great success.
I believe a consumer focus on gasoline has lead to car companies' focus on gasoline-electric hybrids instead of diesel-electric.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
If the unions have contracts that stipulate what cars the manufacturers can produce, that's news to me. Link please.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
another reason is patents. Since the Oil companies hold most of them in one form or another. We have had the technology for viable electric cars for the last 15 years. The Oil companies do not want us using them.
I drive a VW Golf TDI ("turbo diesel...") for both the gas mileage and the torque. (That's good for acceleration.) To broaden your mind, stop at a VW dealership and try one out.
I love my car, but I'd replace it with a commercially available diesel electric hybrid in a heartbeat. Beyond the incredible mileage, there would be something cool about driving a diesel+electric arrangement similar to that in train locomotives.
Since the site has been /.'ed and I can't RTFA, I have to ask... Is this really a Diesel Electric engine (as in locomotives) where the diesel engine is used solely to create electricity and is not connected to the drive train? Or is this actually a Diesel Hybrid?
The current model VW's that have diesel options (Jetta, Golf, Beetle) can average 50mpg all day long with 4 adults and the AC turned on. The first generation Honda Insight, by comparison, barely fits two grown adults (no back seat at all), and has a much smaller fuel tank. If they did this with the new Insight (their web page seems to have gone up in smoke so I can't tell which Insight they used) it would be a little more impressive, though they would still be dealing with the technical issues that face hybrids that do no apply to diesel.
I for one would rather start with a diesel and tune it to get 70mpg without a trunk full of batteries.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If your taxes are fuel-based, it is correct. If they are based directly on mileage or on another proxy for mileage like tires, fuel economy isn't an issue.
On the other hand, if the fuel tax is used as an anti-pollution tax, then it's fair to tax the fuel as a proxy for pollution. Of course, not all vehicles pollute the same per gallon of fuel used, but that's another issue....
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Big oil.
Massachusetts and Oregon are working on shifting from a gas tax to a mileage tax for precisely this reason. No joke.
I wonder how well a diesel motor would do in a serial Hybrid like the Volt...
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
I've always wondered why the Chevy Volt is planned to have a 4-cyl engine. Initially they spec'd it for a turbo 3-cyl 1 liter... basically a beefed up Geo metro engine. But Diesel should have been the initial plan, railway locomotives have been using that setup for decades.
--alop
Isn't it a feature of diesels that they run best in a narrow RPM range? If so, they would be ideal for operating a generator optimized to that range in a hybrid.
A genuine 100mpg car -- not this phoney 230mpg G(overnment) M(otors) Chevy Volt figure -- with acceptable performance would truly excite the automobile market much more than a 99mpg car can.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Since their webserver seems to have gone up in a cloud of smoke I can't view the web page to see what car they worked on. Some of us might not realize that there have been two very different cars sold in the US by Honda called the Insight. The current one of course is a nearly perfect clone of the Toyota Prius. However some time ago there was a much, much, smaller hybrid sold by Honda under the same name. It was probably the first mass-market hybrid sold in the US. The first Insight could almost fit inside the trunk of the new one.
Hence getting 78mpg in the older Insight would not be nearly as much of a feat as doing the same in the new one.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Fucking awesome.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
The main reason gasoline hybrids get better mileage than direct-coupled engines is that the gasoline engine is not forced to operate at inefficient points on its' BSFC map (near closed throttle). The engine only runs when needed, and then it runs near its' BEP (Best efficiency point), or occasionally at maximum power which also has decent efficiency. It is not forced to idle and off-idle conditions where the pumping losses are horrible and efficiency s#x (5x fuel for same marginal power).
Diesel engines have entirely different BSFC maps, and do not suffer the same pumping losses (vacuum across throttle plate). Their drop off at idle is _much_ lower than for gasoline engines, so they're great in city-wide European traffic jams. Diesel fuel also is ~15% denser (more heat per gallon) and the higher compression ratio is about 5% more theoretically efficient.
But a diesel hybrid does not have much to gain by hybridization. The BSFC map is much flatter, and the engine restarting power & wear is considerably higher.
"By using less fuel you are shifting the tax burden onto those who cannot afford a high tech vehicle."
How do you figure? If the sticker price is higher, then so is the amount of taxes I'm paying to roll it off the showroom floor.
Also, your argument is only valid at the leading edge of the paradigm shift to high tech vehicle adoption. Eventually, those brand new 'high tech vehicles' will fall into the secondary markets (e.g., used car lots), becoming more affordable with each resale. It's only a matter of time until we reach the tipping point where gas guzzlers are in the minority. When we're all driving cars that get 100 mpg, then we're all sharing the burden equally.
Fighting progress because it changes the status quo is a losing proposition.
- Despite popular opinion, I am not perfect.
> If we can do it I don't see any reason why major auto manufacturers can't do
> it...
Have your car's emissions tested.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Diesels usually have high sulfur and nitrosoxide. The new so-called "clean diesel" engines and fuel supposed beat this problem.
If we can do it I don't see any reason why major auto manufacturers can't do it since we used their parts
union contracts
I don't understand this comment. It's like replying "the invisible unicorns did it" as far as I can tell. Unions are part of the company -- they're made up of the people who actually do the work on putting cars together. If the company goes out of business, the union is out of business as well, and all the people who are a part of it. They want their company to survive and thrive, to be competitive, because that's how they stay alive. Unions exist to extract the maximum amount of concessions possible out of a company, while returning the minimum possible work, in exactly the same way that a company tries to extract the maximum amount of money out of consumers while providing the minimum possible product. Unions are just groups behaving as rational actors engaging in a business transaction.
If you want to look at someone who doesn't care much about the company surviving, look at top executives, who are going to get paid regardless, and who are well-served by obeying short-term interests and slashing costs, then moving on to another company while the one they just left collapses as a result of their efforts to inflate their resumes at the cost of the company. Again, they're rational actors engaging in a business transaction, but their motivations aren't necessarily aligned with the company's success.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Note that the volumetric energy density of diesel fuel is almost 10% more than that of gasoline while its energy density by mass is slightly lower.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
in the US, the federal fuel tax pays for major interstate highways. and the state fuel tax generally pays for load roads. For many states this is the only budget available for performing road maintenance.
In some states they bring up bills to put GPS units in every car and then bill drivers a few times a year for the distance they traveled. But usually these plans are very unpopular.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Most oil men might tell you that they make a higher profit from making plastics from crude, rather than burning it up as gasoline.
Additionally, noting prevents electric cars from being powered by oil-fired power plants.
What these personal projects usually miss is that it's not enough to just be able to build the thing in your garage. It has to be economical to produce it on an assembly line, and also has to fit government safety standards and emissions controls.
You can make any old car get at least a 10mpg bump just by knocking off all the stuff you don't technically need to drive it around (air bags, sound proofing, padded seats, stereo, air con, etc.). Doesn't mean anyone would buy it, or even be allowed to buy it.
Not a typewriter
All diesels in the 70s where gutless. Heck simple truth was all cars in the US in the 70s where pretty gutless. The 70s was when we where trying to get emission controls to work and computers for controlling fuel injection and spark where primitive or just not available.
This is true. The basic scientific research on how to control automobile exhaust emissions was incomplete at the time, and the engine controls available were too primitive. This isn't anyone's fault - technology just hadn't caught up to the needs of the time. The only way to do it was to lower compression ratios, and reduce the camshaft profiles. The pellet-bed catalytic converters of the time were horribly restrictive also. About the only good thing that happened to car engines in the 1970s was the advent of good electronic ignition systems. Turbochargers were not in wide use (or production) for cars, so there were very few turbodiesel cars (mostly MB) due to the cost of the turbo itself. Normally aspirated diesels aren't exactly exciting to drive. (Trivia - when the Porsche 911 Turbo came out, parts of the turbo system were made by Lycoming, the aircraft engine company, because there weren't any suitable automotive turbo parts available.)
GM got such a bad rap on the diesel and for the most part it was unfair.
That's not totally true. There were some basic design mistakes, and a cost cutting decision you mentioned that were the downfall of the Oldsmobile diesel.
The GM diesel where sold to people that didn't know how to maintain them and by dealers that really didn't know how to maintain them. People that bought a 300D where used to paying Hans the big bucks. Olds buyers where not.
Actually, a Mercedes diesel of the time required very little maintenance (on the engine at least). Oil, coolant and filter (air/fuel/oil) changes, and that's about it. You could do it all in your driveway.
Also GM didn't put in a water separator. That was shouldn't have been an issue but right then quality of diesel went to crap and you had a lot of failed injector pumps. Again MB was used to crap fuel and put in the extra filtering needed.
This was a big problem. All diesel fuel accumulates water eventually. Diesel fuel has a lubricity requirement - because it must also lubricate the high pressure injection pump. Water is not a good lubricant. Leaving out the water separator was a cost cutting decision GM would not repeat. The later Chevrolet (designed in collaboration with Detroit Diesel) 6.2/6.5 V8 came with one, and even a warning light on the dash to indicate that there was a buildup of water in the fuel (you would then have to open a valve and drain the water out of the separator.
The problems weren't all maintenance-related. The GM 350 diesel (and the lesser-known 4.3V6 diesel used in the front-wheel-drive A-body cars, unrelated to the later Chevrolet 4.3 gas V6) was designed by reusing parts from the Oldsmobile gas V8. The blocks were made using a high-nickel iron alloy and are very strong - they're often bought from the junkyards by drag racers who want to use them as the basis to build very high powered gas engines. The cylinder heads and crankshafts were pretty much stretching the design limits of the materials they were made of, since they were designed under budget constraints. Cracked heads and broken crankshafts were not uncommon. There are tolerances in the alloy compositions (this is just a fact of life, not a GM problem) - because of this some engines got stronger crankshafts and cylinder heads (basically by chance), and there are quite a few 5.7 diesels still running around. I have a friend who was driving a 1980 Oldsmobile 98 Diesel until a few years ago when the body started to rust out.
The later 6.2/6.5 engines were very durable, because they were designed from the ground up to be diesels.
It is unfortunate that GMs design errors stained the diesel in the US
Putting moderation advice in your
Modern diesels are great. In Europe we have been able to get cars like the VW Polo Bluemotion, which can get 80mpg from a 1.4 diesel engine if you drive carefully. Admittedly, it is a bit gutless, but then you wouldn't be expecting it to be the epitome of performance. As to whether diesels have a narrow powerband, no, they don't. They create power at lower revs and keep power throughout the rev range, but generally are not designed to rev their nuts off. To get the most from a diesel you have to adapt your driving style to the low rev torque available.
On a more technical note, I believe the reason diesels aremore efficient than petrol (gasoline) engines is because under low load, the petrol engine cannot lower the fuel/air mixture much below the stoichiometric level, and it is also throttled. Diesel engines on the other hand are not throttled, and direct injection diesels can go far below the stoichiometric limits and use far less fuel under low load, at the expense of creating much more nitrous oxides.
Myself, I prefer a high revving petrol engine, but diesels also can be exciting, because they have this thing called torque. However, I imagine that the reengineered Honda insight will get its mpg figure mainly through aerodynamic efficiency (blocking off front grill slots) and low rolling resistance special tyres). Once the electric parts are working, it may be able to get much higher mpg figures, assuming the folks can tune it right.
It's just a shame that due to the prejudice of the North American market diesel hybrids aren't widely available. I think they provide the best interim solution until we can sort out fuel cells and get zero local emission transport. Another reason that manufacturers shun diesel in favour of petrol hybrids is that diesel engines produce more nitrous oxide. However, this is directly related to fuel usage. If you use less fuel overall, you can reduce nitrous oxide emissions, and diesel hybrids are much better than petrol hybrids.
A combustion mode of a gasoline engine is called "stratified" when no clean mixture is burned, but the cylinder is filled partially with an air/fuel mixture and partially with fuel-less gas. This improves the efficiency under low load conditions as less fuel is required. That combustion mode is quite similar to that in a diesel engine (except that it still requires a spark).
The S in SDI is for suction, i.e., the engine is breathing itself and no turbo or compressor is feeding it.
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Sales tax is a different budget and is not applied to maintaining our roads. We all have to pay sales tax, license, registration, etc. Even the poor shmuck you can only afford to buy a beat up astrovan that gets 14mpg. The difference is he pays 3 times more road tax than the guy with the fancy new hybrid.
It's like saying because you pay more income tax than average that you shouldn't have to pay other taxes. Would be nice for us 6-figure folks to not have to pay sales tax anymore.
If you happen to have watched Top Gear, you must realise that their opinions extremely rarely are good consumer advice. It is an excellent programme and extremely entertaining, but damn near useless for deciding which car to buy.
Their distaste for Diesel engines is notorious, but it only ever makes sense in the context of the programme, which is about fast, entertaining sports cars and super cars, for which diesel engines may well be useless.
However, for regular car buyers, modern turbo diesel cars are absolutely competitive with similar class petrol cars, but has considerably better fuel economy. I drive a three year old typical European mid-size family hatchback (i.e. Ford Focus class) reasonably aggressively and still get 47 mpg. With a comparable petrol engine I'd be very lucky to get 35 mpg. Yet I've never, ever felt let down by the engine when accellerating or overtaking. There was a short period of time here (England) where Diesel was about 15% more expensive than petrol, but even then the fuel economy of the diesel more than made up for it.
That said. I hope Top Gear doesn't change. Their laddish and brash style is part of what makes it so entertaining.
Diesel engines, since about 2007 all have soot capturing devices installed.
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although the MPG rating is slightly less than the poster claims. I'm more than willing to bet this 70+mpg car will trounce it in any sort of performance. And you can afford it. http://www.autoblog.com/2009/03/28/topgear-com-america-completes-project-sipster-lives-to-tell-the/
That limitation is likely due to winter tires, not some company specific limitation specifically for you. Many winter tires are not designed for speeds above 190 km/h (type T) or 210 km/h (type H), which is indicated in the dash-board with a small speed limit sticker if the car is capable of more.
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Since the site has been /.'ed and I can't RTFA, I have to ask... Is this really a Diesel Electric engine (as in locomotives) where the diesel engine is used solely to create electricity and is not connected to the drive train? Or is this actually a Diesel Hybrid?
It's a Diesel Hybrid. Interestingly, the first hybrid I remember seeing in the 1980s / early 90s was a converted diesel VW Golf.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
My 15 year old Peugeot uses a 1.9 litre Turbo Diesel engine and gives me about 50mpg+ urban cycle (I don't use for anything other than local driving). My wife has a 5 year old 1.7 Turbo Diesel Honda Civic which just gave us an average of 75mpg on a 500 mile round trip over the weekend - and half of that was with me driving (which means an average of about 90mph! Oops...), so if my wife had driven there AND back, we'd probably have seen efficiency up beyond 80mpg easily.
Modern diesels are very efficient and also very responsive to drive. Even my slightly older diesel seems to give better efficiency than a lot of the hybrids being released into the US market at the moment (even allowing for the difference with the US 'gallon'), so it'd be good to see more diesel/electric hybrids being released instead of petrol/electrics.
In the UK, diesels account for more than 50% of all new cars sold, in France it's even more popular (and has been for a long time).
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It seems that the most important issue to the state was the taxes they should get for upkeep of the roads.
Having roads is pretty handy, especially since our hybrids and electrics are not all-terrain vehicles.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
...you could use home heating oil (but that would be illegal, because it's not taxed for road use).
My receipt for heating oil contains the notation "dyed diesel fuel".
Diesels are more expensive than gas engines. Hybrids are more expensive than non-hybrids. Diesel hybrids are the most expensive of the bunch. The market just isn't willing to pay an extra 8-10k for more efficiency. As it is, hybrid buyers have to wait many years to make up the difference versus similar but non-hybrid cars.
Compare the Honda Fit to the Insight.
Insight Base MSRP 19,800
Fit Base Auto MSRP 15,550
Insight MPG 41
Fit MPG 31
Assume fuel is $4.00 (higher than now) and 15,000 miles driven per year.
So basically, assuming you keep the car, you break even when you've saved 4250 on fuel. That will take 9 years.
So say you take the 50MPG diesel and turn it into a 66MPG diesel. The amount spent on fuel each year will be much smaller in the first place, so it will take even longer to pay off the investment.
If we can do it I don't see any reason why major auto manufacturers can't do it since we used their parts.
Oh you poor, silly, person. You seem to be laboring under the misconception that auto manufacturers hire people to think about new practical functionality. Alas, no. Their main focus is advertising. More woodgrain leather seats and movie-tie-in badgework. Actual value can only move so many cars, but elevating irrational demand? -- that is an idea with legs.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Wake me when there's a car that's Vin Diesel-Electric.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
I know it's popular around here to blame corporations and the pursuit of profit as the root cause of everything, but in this case profit margin probably has nothing to do with it. You don't think the auto companies can get the parts cheaper than these guys? Besides that, GM at least has been selling a lot of their cars lately with a negative profit margin, which is why they lose money every year. And the Volt doesn't look like it will be that much better.
Qxe4
rational premise: 1. you worked 8 hours, you're tired, you want to go home rational act 2. you build a road and a car - it will get you home faster irrational outcome: 3. you are stuck for 2 hours in a small space breathing all the unhealthy fumes ...
rational premise:
1. you have a disagreement with your neighbour
rational act
2. you build a means of deterrence: an atomic bomb
irrational outcome:
3. you are close to destroy ... well, everything
and countless other examples about instrumental rational acts.
By the way, unions are NOT made up of the workers in the plant - at any time any worker who does not care for a strike will be greated by his fellows union members he does not know and who will prevent him to go in his workplace ...
Gutless off the line, compared to an equal gas-powered engine? Maybe.
Gutless up a 15-degree incline? Nope.
Take a look at a VW 1.6 Diesel (turbo or normally aspirated - your choice) in a Mk.II Jetta, and in a Suzuki Samurai.
Take a look at a VW 1.9 Diesel (T or NA) in a VW Vanagon, compared to the anemic NA 1.6L.
The difference is often in the gearing in the transmission and/or differential (if equipped).
we merely have to deploy the sails!
Please cite the agency which collects money and fixes the environment. And then we can come up with a way to apply tax revenue to them. Until then STFU.
There's also something called a DiesOtto:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DiesOtto
Diesels (especially turbo-diesels) can be horrendously rapid, with enough torque to twist your arm off.
If a third of America's passenger vehicles were to be replaced by diesel-powered equivalents, you would not be dependent on foreign oil.
Think about it.
But Diesel should have been the initial plan, railway locomotives have been using that setup for decades.
Many American drivers still distrust diesel after the terrible vehicles (mostly large sedans) with big diesels that the big three produced back in the 70s and 80s. For better or for worse, the big three are aware of this and haven't bothered even trying to sell consumer diesels in the US. Unfortunately they also can't find marketing droids that are capable of pulling their own heads out of their own asses, so they will never try to correct the misconceptions.
Hence while indeed a diesel setup would have been a better idea for the Volt, it would have been likely a complete failure for GM.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
http://www.99mpg.com/projectcars/redlightracingworl/
I will agree with others who said this is gutless. This is a 1.2L diesel. Probably doesn't produce 50 HP.
IMO the cool thing here is the Insight car body, this is proably the slipperiest and lightest car body on the road.
IMO this is a better use for an Insight body:
http://www.tamparacing.com/forums/lht-performance/425659-k20a-insight-lht.html
200hp and 50mpg.
This is one that gets me a bit...
With all these hybrids etc... there seems to be some confusion as to the actual point of them, both from the consumer and the people that make these things.
Is the point A) to reduce the amount of fuel used and thus your dependence on oil and your check book at the end of the day or
B) To reduce your environmental impact on the world.
These do not always co-exist together. People also tend to overlook the total life cycle of these things as well as not looking at the big picture. Car companies simply sell to a demand and market whatever way to sell product.
Its all well and good for people to start thinking along these related lines, but more coordinated thought (and not market controlled) needs to be done I think.
but politicians have already been floating the idea for years for taxing by miles you drive. Currently only privacy concerns have been raised against this proposal.
Don't worry, should mileage per gallon become a non-issue the tax will be made up elsewhere. Politicians are famous for implementing taxes on "indefensible segments" of the population to fund new programs only to see that segment decrease so much as to leave the programs underfunded; think smoking.
So we will get mileage feels, congestion driving, toll roads, and yearly vehicle taxes (ad volorum?)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I have a serious question about diesel cars in general. My understanding is that diesels take longer to warm up than gasoline engines; and in fact you can leave a diesel parked and idling for hours without it warming up significantly. (If you drive it, it warms up in 15-20 minutes.)
Note that the above is what I have read; I have not tested this myself.
My question is: if I bought a diesel (say, a Volkswagen Jetta TDI Sportwagen), would I have trouble defogging the windows in the morning? I live in the Seattle area, and there are several months in a row where the temperatures will be cold while the humidity is high, and the windows will be completely fogged. I'm interested in buying a diesel, but I'm seriously worried about this issue.
Volkswagen diesel cars generally come with heated seats, and heated windshield washer fluid. These would be all you need in a truly cold place, where all the water froze out of the air and there is no fog on the windows (only, possibly, snow and ice). Or if you lived in a truly warm place, like southern California, it would rarely get cold enough to fog windows. Or if you park your car in a garage, that might be enough to keep the windows from fogging.
But, parking my car outside in the Seattle area winters, I worry that a diesel is not for me. It's a little bit silly, because for most of the year this won't be an issue, but I'm worried about this.
If they put electric heaters in the blowers that defog the windscreen, that would sort this right out. But I don't think anything like that is available.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The reason people in Europe have lots of diesel and in the US they don't is funny US regulations. The US smog limits are per gallon of fuel and the European per mile driven. Diesel is much heavier than gas, so has more stuff in each gallon burned, but more energy too. If the US rules were per pound of fuel or per mile driven then Diesel would be popular like in Europe.
In Georgia today, diesel is $0.10/gal to $0.30/gal **more** than gasoline. Last year, it was $1/gal more.
Current "low" prices are 2,31/gal for reg-unleaded and 2.43/gal for diesel. These prices are outside the metro area where specially formulated fuel is required this time of year.
Why can't the big boys make a 100mpg car? They can, but not many people are willing to drive it. Our requirements for a vehicle (or anything really) is different when we tinker it together or when we buy it "complete" from someone. Anything that is "home built" will probably have a few issues that we will work around for years before correcting - assuming the issues are ever resolved.
Don't forget the energy companies and big 3 vehicle manufacturers are working together to slightly reduce demand, slowly, not cut it in half. A 50% decrease would throw their business models off too much.
One has to wonder, slightly or greatly, if the petroleum industry has any hand in this, trying to keep vehicles as fuel-inefficient as possible? Besides large bribes from rich arabs, what other motivation would a troubled auto industry have for not taking advantage of this sort of improvement?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
So it's diesel - is it as gutless as I've been led to believe diesel cars are?
Where on earth did you get the idea that diesel's are "gutless"? They generate heaping gobs of torque and along with it's fuel economy there are good reason virtually every cargo hauler on earth uses diesel. Gutless they ain't. If you want performance, turbocharged performance diesels are available today from BMW, Mercedes and Audi. I've personally driven the BMW 335d and it is a fantastic car to drive. Terrific acceleration and gets 33mpg on the highway.
I've never driven one, but I am genuinely curious....
So stop asking stupid questions publicly and go test drive a BMW 335d. If you call that gutless I would call you a fool.
If the new clean diesels emit more particulates than gasoline engines, how come new diesels like the Jetta TDI have such low emissions that they qualify for the same ultra low emissions tax credit that a hybrid gets?
If your statment is correct, then the diesels wouldn't get those tax credits for being ultra-low emissions (and god knows the government likes hybrids more than diesels, so it's not like they're trying to push diesels).
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
The US view of diesel cars is somewhat different to the European one!
These days the (possibly daft) 0-60 mph time of a diesel versus a petol engine is comparable (we're talking "normal" cars) Then look at things like the 50-70 mph time (more meaningful - you want to drag past that truck on the autoroute ASAP...) and see why diesel cars are so often preferred!
Oh, and since no one else has mentioned it yet: 2006 a diesel won the Le Man 24-hour race.
Diesels are not as gutless a some may think. They are just tuned for low rpm performance, which is where those engines spend most of their life. Some guys modify their turbo diesels with bigger turbos, bigger injectors, propane injection and nitros oxide to produce some STUPID power. Here's a link showing some of those trucks drag racing other cars and beating them pretty bad... [URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH9kKYz0kmI"]Link[/URL]
Their webserver is a smoldering pile of rubbish right now, but the google cache shows that they used a first-generation Honda Insight. While today's Insight is a dead ringer for a Prius, the first generation of the same was a small 2-seater coupe on 13 inch wheels.
So while it is impressive that they shoehorned in a small diesel (or really any other engine than the original Honda) into that engine bay, the fuel economy numbers they report aren't really that impressive.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
For diesel up here in north Georgia. Feeds my 81 Datsun diesel pickup. 40 MPG. About double what you get with a similar sized small truck with a gasoline engine, so even though diesel is a little higher, it's still a better deal and the power is pretty good for a small engine. These are industrial forklift engines from what I found out. Not fast, no turbo, but strong and designed to last for decades.
The best of the larger pickups are the 1990 to 1999 year Dodge Rams with the Cummins diesel. All sorts of farmers are getting 400 thou to half a million miles on them and still going strong. I read about them (favorably) all the time in this farm rag I read that has "best and worst buys". And you can tell on the used market they are good, they still get outrageous good prices for those trucks (main reason I haven't bought one yet).
Show me a single SULEV diesel, for example.
Show me more than a handful of non-hybrid SULEV vehicles. Besides, since diesels hardly sell in the US, there hasn't been a lot of point in developing the technology. SULEV is a US (not EU) standard, and diesels only account for a small percentage of passenger car sales. Most of the diesel vehicles are produced by EU companies and there is no reason SULEV cannot be achieved by diesel.
The modern "clean diesels" generally barely meet modern US emissions reqs.
The regulations are arbitrarily established standards. Some gasoline engines "barely" meet the requirements and some exceed them. Same with diesels.
The only reason they're so widespread in Europe is because they have more lax emissions reqs.
The reason diesels are popular in Europe is because gasoline is so heavily taxed in Europe that the 10-30% improvement in fuel economy diesels get adds up to real money. Furthermore as of this writing the EU and Japan have more stringent emissions standards than the US.
It's almost 15% denser and releases correspondingly more CO2 per gallon
Even if that were true (and this study says you are wrong), diesel also uses 10-25% less fuel for the same power output thanks to that same energy density. Diesels get 10-25% better fuel economy which offsets their emmissions. It's a wash at worst. There are particulate differences and some other output differences but please at least think it through. There is no reason to accept that petroleum is inherently cleaner than diesel.
And it's no longer true, thanks to modern desulfurization reqs, that diesel takes significantly less energy to refine, offsetting the difference.
Yes cleaner diesel requires more processing but you haven't provided any evidence that it is worse than gasoline in this regard.
In Georgia today, diesel is $0.10/gal to $0.30/gal **more** than gasoline.
Which means that diesel is still cheaper because you'll get 10-25% better fuel economy with a diesel.
Last year, it was $1/gal more.
With gas at $4 a gallon and diesel at $5, it might still be a wash with some of the more efficient diesels out there. That's only a 25% premium per gallon and most if not all of that will be recouped by the better fuel economy of the diesel.
You are wrong. Volkswagen (and others) is already implementing start/stop technology in it's bluemotion diesels. The honda civic is not different. It keeps the engine running unless you stop completely. The toyota prius however can drive at low speeds 100% electric. The insight will only use it electric system to give the unrated combustion engine a kick in the back when accelerating.
the toyota corolla 1.4L D-4D sold in europe is rated for 58 mpg, realistic driving shows more like 43 mpg.
with some work it could probably get even better mileage, and combine it with an electric mini-engine and you have what the original poster developed.
you think they want to cut into the sales of their upper-crust Toyota Prius with something half the cost and the same fuel economy?
the oil lobby probably wouldn't be happy either if the need for gasoline diminished in one of the largest car markets in the world, in a culture that is markedly slow in terms of adopting technological advancements.
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/120/motorhead-messiah.html
IINM the Europeans have better unions than we Americans do.
Free Martian Whores!
My father had a 1981 Olds 88 that did the exact same thing... for any speed below 40mph, you just rode the brakes and didn't touch the gas pedal. The car also would often run on after cutting the ignition. I actually took my driver's test in that car using the brake-riding technique!
That car originally had a diesel, but it had all sorts of problems and never could start well in Nebraska winters. The car had an Olds 307 swapped in by the time I drove it. I'm not sure if it had the same loopy behavior with the diesel or not.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
The adiabatic engine was never picked up, Smokey Yunick created a 78ci 2 cylinder engine capable of 150HP and 60 mpg. http://schou.dk/hvce/ The trick was to vaporize the fuel so its is far far more explosive before injection to the cylinder using exhaust for the heat source. The man had a Delorean given to him by John Delorean himself, He created a HVE (hot vapor engine) for the car out of a buick 6 cylinder block by cutting it in half and working his magic. By the time he was finished it was 3 cylinders and 500ish HP and 40ish mpg.
As far as significant options go, the Insight base has, over the base Fit, a trip computer and cruise control.
Cruise control can be added for about $500 by any mediocre mechanic. The unit alone is $300 retail, though I'm sure shopping around can find it cheaper. I added mine to one of our cars, and I'm far less capable than a mediocre mechanic.
A trip computer would be a bit less than $200, but would do more than the base computer. Most people don't use their trip computer.
Still, the break-even point is far off and questionable since fuel prices may not hit $4.00 anytime soon.
It should be enough for a state-approved inspector to look at the odometer.
Odometer fraud and tax fraud are both criminal offenses in most states.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Where does this come from??? While I admit that there are stations that don't carry diesel, almost every station near an Interstate highway in the U.S. carries it. They have to: they're competing for truckers' business, and rigs uniformly run diesel.
So what if there are a few stations that decide to save on construction costs by purchasing one less underground tank and cheaper pumps? It's not like I don't know where to find diesel fuel if I need it. And I can't imagine a situation where I'd be driving long distance and not have a diesel station conveniently located along my route.
I apologize to MikeBabcock, I don't mean to dump on you personally about this. I just see it trotted out like it were a barrier to entry similar to lack of charging stations for all-electric cars or filling stations for all-Hydrogen vehicles, and I'm mystified by it.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
"For various reasons the industry in the US has shunned diesel for private vehicles. "
They shunned it for private CARS, and didn't offer performance diesels in automobiles.
Trucks are another story entirely. Ford, Chevy, and Dodge all sold and sell many diesels to buyers who want performance and economy. Diesels have eclipsed the big block gas engines of yore, with massive horsepower, plenty of torque, and reasonable economy figures.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The website he refers to (original source: redlightracing.org) is dead. "Cannot connect to MySQL". #boo
There are two ways for oil/petroleum molecule to be cracked..euro refineries are geared to create a much greater % of diesel/heptane, while US refineries use a method that creates a much greater % of gasoline/octane. Could be due to greater demand for gas powered cars when the refineries were built (no new ones built in decades)..is just the way things are.
turbo diesel/hybrids would be nice for sure..but the term hybrid doesn't only mean electric..UPS is putting 1000s of hydraulic hybrid trucks into service.
By using less fuel you are shifting the tax burden onto those who cannot afford a high tech vehicle.
Thanks to "cash for clunkers" anybody who can't afford a high-tech vehicle also can't afford to buy a replacement when their current low-tech vehicle finally breaks down beyond repair. They'll have to walk or take public transit (if it is going from where they are to where they want to be).
The cashed-out clunkers get scrapped. The used car market has just dried up for lack of supply - and the few remaining used cars are priced out of reach of the poor.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
First let me state upfront I'm not arguing against clean air regulation. I am against the method used to supposedly achieve it, not the objective. The reasons that the main manufacturers don't build Diesel-Electric (Exception being VW and Mercedes and their straight Diesels) for the US market, comes down to the following.
1. Emissions: Diesels, as sold in Europe, and non vehicle applications, as of yet, don't pass the emissions standards, especially for particulate, and NO2 emissions.
2. Perception: Americans tend to rely more on what they think they have heard than investigating for facts. When they think of Diesels they think of the smoke belching, trains and buses around the city and the "sounds like it's about to fall apart" rattle of diesel pickups. Diesel engines that are clean and quiet (like VW or Mercedes) don't get noticed. In fact rarely do people even know that they are a diesel.
3. Patent problems: Diesel Electric is the primary mover and shaker behind trains. Has been for decades. They hold the patents on the easy solutions and this presents a problem for development in the US. US manufacturer's love to hold patents.
4. EPA testing methodology,and laws: They are designed for gasoline vehicles. The cost, which industry would bear, to create new regulations and to motivate legislators and bureaucrats to change them is extremely high in the US. Unless you give the vehicle only 3 wheels. Then it gets much cheaper.
Side note, building the vehicle these gentlemen have built would likely be impossible in California. Emissions laws here largely prohibit installing an engine not of the same vintage or type as supplied by the original manufacturer. It's a sticky gray area that could make it very difficult to get the vehicle licensed if you run into the wrong gov official. 5 years ago I had to give up (as in donate to a cause) a nice little car I owned when I moved to CA because, even thought the car was equipped with the full CA emissions package, and could pass smog, it might have been run on gasoline not compliant with CA standards. (Direct quote from what the DMV told me) the cost to remove the CA emissions package and re-install it and get it "certified" was more than the bluebook on the car, so I had to dispose of it. (I couldn't sell it in the state.) So when you ask "Why doesn't the US have...." it's because the law dictates methodology not standards. IMHO.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
No wonder they need a bailout!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-Porsche_Mixte_Hybrid
How quickly people forget the Clinton-era Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles.
Chrysler, Ford, and GM all developed 70+ MPG prototypes around 2000, all three were diesel-hybrid. Follow that link for pictures
"On track to achieving its objectives, the program was cancelled by the Bush Administration in 2001 at the request of the automakers, with some of its aspects shifted to the much more distant FreedomCAR program."
Research continued with USCAR and USABC and now the DoE battery grants, but the wasted years... Arggghhh!
=S
It's my understanding that tire odometers are used to enforce mandatory safety actions that deal with tire life, e.g. inspections every X miles, retirement after Y miles, etc.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Oregon is testing in car GPS units to track and tax based on mileage in fuel efficient cars. ...And one of it's senators is pushing the federal government to make it national.
Hi,
I've been doing diesel since 1978 when I bought my first NEW car, a Diesel Rabbit from VW. ANY diesel provides much more engine braking that gas engines, because of the compression ratio, which runs 8- or 9-to-1 in gas engines and better than 20-1 in diesels.
Back in the 70s diesel was rare, but now more stations carry it than don't. Out west most pick-up trucks are 3/4 ton or ton trucks which run on diesel.
The reason diesel isn't more popular in the US is that back in the 1970s (the first oil embargo) GM tried to provide diesels in their big cars built from the same blocks as their gas engines, and with insufficient fuel filtering. Water and impurities can be an issue in any liquid fueled engine. In GM's case most of their diesels crapped out well under 100,000 miles, and they didn't extend their warranties. For many people this was their last shot at diesel, as opposed to their last shot at GM.
In most of my diesel vehicles I get twice the mileage from a set of brake pads as from a gasoline powered vehicle, especially when they have either a manual transmission or a usefully controllable automatic.
Apparently you don't know much about the UAW. They're highly overpaid, have completely ridiculous things in their contracts (such as getting 90% of their pay for NOT working if workers need to be cut), and also have stipulations that require the auto companies to have way more workers than are actually needed to do the job. If you still want to claim that the union cares about the good of the company, read up on how pathetically little the union was willing to give up when GM and Chrysler were trying to avoid bankruptcy. The UAW has a ridiculous sense of entitlement that makes the woman suing her college because she cant find a job after 3 months with her 2.7 gpa look sensible. It's quite sad that in the bankruptcy proceedings that GM / Chrysler couldn't ditch the union.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
The California Air Resources Board is the main reason there are not more diesel-powered cars. The bureaucrats at CARB hate diesels, even more than they hate gasoline engines.
The disadvantage of a diesel-electric hybrid is the original cost. If you are already getting 50 mpg in a small car with a turbodiesel engine, and drive 15,000 miles a year, then your car consumes about 300 gallons of fuel annually. At 75 mpg, about 200 gallons, at 100 mpg about 150 gallons.
So how much EXTRA would you spend for a car that would save you 150 gallons of fuel per year? If fuel was $10/gallon, then maybe a considerable amount. But at less than $3/gallon, there is no reason to pay extra for extra fuel savings. Buy what you want, drive as much as you like.
Eventually the marketplace will nudge fuel prices higher and higher, and then innovative technologies like hybrids and electric vehicles will make sense. Right now they are all hype and PR.
A day later and their website is still unavailable.
It can be viewed from Google's cache.
The Insight is the older (2 seat) version, the motor is a 1.2L VW TDI (is that the one from Europe's Lupo?)
Interesting. Used Insight's seem to start at about $7000.
No, the compression ratio contributes little to engine braking. Yes, you have to compress the air in the cylinders, but then the piston moves back down, so the net work is very little.
The primary mechanism behind engine braking is the fact that gasoline engines have a throttle plate that restricts air into the engine (since running lean will damage a gasoline engine typically - the direct injection used by diesel engines lets them just throttle by adjusting fuel w/o adjusting air.). When this plate is closed, the engine has to work against the vacuum in the intake manifold (but the exhaust still has atmospheric backpressure at the very least). This leads to pumping losses that increase with engine speed. These losses are why gasoline engines are so inefficient when not at full power.
Diesels don't have these pumping losses so are more efficient at partial power and won't engine brake well unless the exhaust or intake is artificially restricted, or valve timing is altered.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_brake - alters valve timing to achieve engine braking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaust_brake - restricts exhaust
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I guess that depends on what you mean by better...
Most european unions are generally less "managment" heavy than ones in the United states (e.g., the structure of the union is more regional and there are less employees paid by the company to only do union activities). The result is that in general (although it's usually not that great to generalize), unions in europe are often working for social stability reasons, whereas, in the US (being a bit culturally different), tend to emphasize economic factors in their goals.
One of the side-effects of a social stability focus is that sometimes unions goals tend to form around regional, language, religious, or ethnic lines. This works well in countries with large regional companies with a more homogenous population separated by geographic, and language barriers. In an economic environment with large regional companies with built-in regionalization barriers, there is much to be gained by local cooperation between companies and labor. These type of unions don't play very well in the US which has a more heterogenous population and a body of law that really isn't compatible with such organizatons. You see more unity in unions when the ties are more than just economic, and even though the unions in europe tend to have lower financial resources, they tend to have more regional aligned goals with the companies and management.
In an enviroment where relationship model is primarily economic (which is more common in the US union structure), the "gains" that each of the opposing sides can make are often zero-sum and that results in a completely different dynamic.
I predict that as the EU economic model morphs into on more similar to the US (as trade and other barriers between countries start to fall), the union movement in Europe will start to look more like the US and probably inherit some of the characteristics of US style unions. We've already seen some of this post-german reunification and in the UK and it's likely to just to continue on this trajectory.