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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."
significantly cheaper at the pump
I don't think that's correct.
No, modern diesels are nothing like the anemic POS that GM released in the 70s. Mainly because of the addition of the turbo charger (which diesels benefit greatly from), but common rail, higher injection pressures, advances in metallurgy.
My TDI is quite peppy, mainly because the shape of the torque curve. BMW has a 335d and X5 which they are selling here now. VW and Benz have been selling diesels here almost non-stop since the 70s.
That's why I always laugh when Chevy's ads come on trying to sell me this AMAZING 29 MPG car.
I got 48 MPG in a '86 IDI Diesel (that was a bit weak, but who needs more than 50 HP?)
I get 45 MPG in a '98 TDI diesel that is quite peppy. I have upgraded injectors and a special chip tune. I bet I'm just barely over 110 HP, if that.
Well, the big issue was diesel was much dirtier in North America (high sulfur content) than in Europe, and a lot of the technologies that make diesel cars behave like gas cars tend to require the clean diesel. These days though, I believe the legislation has made low-sulfur diesel mandatory, which is why we see VW and Mercedes starting to import more diesel cars.
Quite a change, really - drive a heavy SUV that gets 5L/100km or better (probably spewing less CO2 than the little car next to you...). Or the fact that the engine lacks the traditional diesel clatter normally associated with trucks, or hell, doesn't Mercedes have a thing that mixes ammonia or something with exhaust that makes the exhaust even cleaner still?
Except that you're talking about a series hybrid drive, and only the Chevy Volt works that way at the moment.
The Insight and the Prius are both parallel drive hybrids, which means the gas engine turns the wheels as well as powers up the batteries. The electric turns the wheels sometimes. The Volt's big thing is that it's a series hybrid, the drive is always electric and the gas engine runs at its high-efficiency speed to charge the batteries, then shuts off again.
Meaning that your comment would be correct if all hybrids were series hybrids, but as of now your comment would only apply to the Volt which isn't in production yet.
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
Arco Gas Station down the street from my house - Regular 87 Octane - 3.05/g diesel 2.85/g
this is in Southern California.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
That's a characteristic of ALL internal combustion engines, not just diesels. The reason it has been associated with diesels is that the common applications of diesels are those that lend themselves to narrow-range or constant rpm applications like trucks and diesel-electric trains. You could easily optimize a gasoline or methanol engine for a particular RPM range wtih similar results - a restrictor plate NASCAR motor being a hallmark example. It jusy runs around at an almost constant RPM the entire race, and it highly optimized for both power and mileage.
Brett
Actually, it's just the opposite - due to the fact that they throttle simply by adjusting fuel supply to the cylinders and typically do not have a throttle plate, diesel engines are FAR more efficient at reduced power levels than gasoline engines are.
As a result, one of the two main hybrid advantages (running the engine at peak efficiency) is negated. On the other hand, due to the high compression ratio, diesels are simply more efficient.
The other big hybrid advantage (regenerative braking) is still quite applicable to diesel, and in fact may be far easier to apply to diesels than to gasoline, since "ghetto hybrid" approaches like belt alternator-starter and flywheel alternator-starter can still provide great benefit. (Downshift to rev the engine and get the electric to spin - in a gas engine this will result in engine braking. Diesels don't, and in fact can't without special tricks, engine brake, so having an electric generator tied directly to the engine would still be quite effective.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If you follow that link and look at the gas-pump shaped chart on the right you will see that Diesel has far higher taxes imposed on it than Gasoline, or put another way Gasoline is subsidized through lower taxes than Diesel. And still Diesel averages only a couple of pennies per gallon more expensive.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Mercedes uses Urea to deal with the NO2 issue - although Honda was supposed to be using a high-temp plasma to do the same (http://www.autoblog.com/2006/05/27/honda-turning-to-plasma-to-beat-diesel-emmisions/) so you would not need to refill urea/ammonia in the car.
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.
Units are not exactly the same. Europe and most of the world, I believe, uses the Research octane number or RON. The U.S. uses the average of RON and MON.
If I remember right RON tends to be 8 to 10 points higher than MON or Motor octane number. The RON MON average used in the U.S. would be 4-5 points lower than the RON for the same gasoline.
87 in the U.S. would be around 91 in Europe
91 or 92 premium in the U.S. would be 95-97 in Europe.