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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."
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.
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
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.