Mazda Claims 70 mpg For New Engine, No Hybrid Needed

thecarchik writes "There's no word on when the new version of the Mazda2 will finally reach the US but when it does we can reveal that it will return a fuel economy of 70 mpg — without the aid of any electric motors. This is because the car will feature Mazda's next-generation of drivetrain, body and chassis technologies, dubbed SKYACTIV. The new Mazda 2 will come powered by a SKYACTIV-G engine, Mazda's next-generation direct injection gasoline mill that achieves significantly improved fuel efficiency thanks to a high compression ratio of 14.0:1 (the world's highest for a production gasoline engine)." I wonder if a real-life-real-drivers 70 mpg car is what will actually arrive, or if such promises will dissolve like Chevy's promises about the Volt did.

Comments

Diesels already do this.

[gilesjuk]

Plenty of diesel cars already do 60-70MPG. With the advantage of having no ignition system to go wrong and lots of torque, horse power is a misleading gauge of power, torque is what turns the wheels.

Sure, some people don't like diesels due to the noise they make. They are typically quieter when cruising as the RPM is often about 1000RPM lower than a petrol engine.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[0100010001010011]

WTF is this news?

VW Polo

70 miles per US gallon highway.
60 MPUSG combined.
50 MPUSG City.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is a unit of power a misleading gauge of power? Have you considered that power equals torque times angular velocity?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[edxwelch]

> and lots of torque
except with a diesel car you tend to get the torque when you don't need it. And there's also the "diesel lag". Slam the accelerator to the floor - nothing happens - then 2 seconds later a sudden burst of power. Quite fun when your pulling out in a busy roundabout.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Rising Ape]

With the advantage of having no ignition system to go wrong and lots of torque, horse power is a misleading gauge of power, torque is what turns the wheels.

I can produce more torque than a diesel engine with my hands and a long spanner, which suggests that maybe it isn't that useful a figure for determining a car's capability.

And your ignition system may not go wrong, but your turbocharger and much higher pressure injectors can, and do.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[txmcse]

Could it be due to the new ads i keep seeing on /.?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of European Diesel cars are not noisier than other.
Their injection system is prone to very expensive damages, when fuel is not clean as should be.
These engines are more complicated, expensive and hard to maintain than gas ones.
You can save about 20% on fuel, but probably the total cost of ownership is about the same.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[aliquis]

I actually RTF(2nd)A, and it says:
"Mazda expects it to come in at 28 mpg city, 35 mpg highway with the five-speed manual, and 1 mpg less on highway mileage with the automatic."

Does not compute.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[leenks]

No you don't. In a modern turbo diesel you get the torque from the engine exactly when you need it. And turbo lag is nothing like as bad as your exaggeration suggests. And if you actually like driving and have a manual box, the pulling out on a busy roundabout situation you described should never happen as one is able to have the engine (and turbo) spinning at sufficient speed this is never going to happen.

Put it this way, unless something big changes, I'll never buy another petrol engined car.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hcdejong]

You're talking about turbo lag, which happens on any vehicle with a turbocharger, not just diesels.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[bgt421]

It's news because it's a gasoline engine, not just because of efficiency. Gasoline is marginally more available and often cheaper than diesel.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Diesel contains significantly more energy per gallon than gasoline, so "MPG" comparisons to gasoline vehicles are totally useless.

Also, the UK fuel economy ratings are hopelessly optimistic, as are the Japanese tests.

The Third-Generation (ZVW30) Prius gets 59 MPUSG combined according to the UK tests, but 50 MPGUS according to the US tests. Anyone who actually drives their vehicle normally will tell you that the US tests are a lot closer to reality.

Whenever someone announces that a vehicle "beats" the Prius (or other hybrids) in fuel economy without a hybrid system, you have to look for one of several mistakes:

- Are they comparing diesel MPG (or L/100km) to gasoline? You can't do this because diesel contains more energy per unit volume.
- Are they comparing a small vehicle to a much larger hybrid? Yes, you can get good fuel economy in a Smart, but it also doesn't hold 4 people and is considerably less safe if you get in an accident with a larger vehicle.
- Are they comparing fuel economy ratings from different countries? Compared with the new EPA ratings (and reality), most ratings from other countries are hopelessly optimistic.
- Are they using a different sized gallon? The Imperial gallon is larger.

Often this is done implicitly - the poster won't even mention the hybrid in their comparison. That way when you look up (or remember) the fuel economy ratings of the hybrid, you're likely to use US-EPA sources.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Luke has no name]

UPvote, I noticed this as well.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[sco08y]

I'll give you another reason why diesels are nice: they don't quit. I was driving a rather large truck when (thanks to an idiot mechanic) an electrical problem caused a fire in the engine compartment. As various wires burned through, one by one everything died but the engine kept going; pretty much the only way to kill a diesel is to flood it with water.

The reason I think diesels haven't caught on in passenger cars is that while swapping out a petrol engine for a diesel one will improve your score on road tests, it will be underpowered. So you adjust the gear ratios down to maintain acceleration, and now you're revving higher at cruising speed... end result, for real driving, the diesel isn't doing much better than the petrol, and it's more dangerous with tricky merges / passing. Obviously, for some countries where there's a high density of slower moving traffic they might make more sense.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Abcd1234]

Plenty of diesel cars already do 60-70MPG

Well given diesel has higher energy density, they damn well better get better mileage compared to a typical gasoline-powered vehicle.

Sure, some people don't like diesels due to the noise they make.

You also neglected to point out:

a) ULSD wasn't available in the US until relatively recently, which meant:
    i) It was difficult to hit emissions standards in a diesel engine
    ii) Manufacturers couldn't simply bring over European models, as they need to be modified to work with high-sulphur diesel.

b) Diesel engines exhibit poor performance in cold climates, which makes them a poor choice for northern states and Canada.

The first point, in particular, meant that turbodiesels have only started to appear in the US in the last 4-5 years.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hcdejong]

I can produce more torque than a diesel engine with my hands and a long spanner

That's a nonargument.

Torque figures are just as useful as power figures for comparing cars, i.e. not very much. The meaningful items are the torque curve, which tells you how responsive the engine is over its operating range, and the power-to-weight ratio, which tells you what effect the engine will have in terms of accelleration.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[dloose]

I don't get it... why can't you use MPG to compare gasoline to diesel? If diesel has more energy per unit volume, then cars with diesel engines should have a higher MPG rating, right? What am I missing?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[0100010001010011]

You mean like VW's TSI engine. The one that's won the International Engine of the Year Awards for 5 years running and was voted the International Engine of the Year and Best Green Engine in 2009?

Completely new thing they have.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Quasar1999]

I have a 2005 2.0L Mazda 3. It easily gets 40MPG, and if I pay attention to not mashing the gas pedal randomly while crusing (a big cause of wasted gas since the speed stays more or less the same but the fuel consumption increases), I can easily get 50MPG.

I agree that Diesel has done this for a while. But, while you cite no ignition system to go wrong, I cite cheap maintenance costs (oil change on a diesel is much more expensive, and a recurring cost), and I live in Canada and can't be bothered to worry about installing a block heater for those few days where my petrol engine sounds painful when started, but my diesel friends can't start. Low end torque is owned by diesel, but it's ALWAYS at the cost of incomplete combustion. Not even the latest and greatest modern diesels will accelerate off the line without a plume of black come out the tailpipe... which leads to further maintenance costs down the line.

Diesel has it's place, some people love it, some people hate it. But what I found great is that not only is it quite possible based on my own experience to get a non-direct fuel injected petrol car up to 50MPG, it looks like this mazda 2 and its new tech can reach 60+ MPG. The stupid hybrids out there with their insanely expensive markups, and huge toxic batteries can't acheive 50MPG in the real world. I can't speak for the Mazda 2, but with my 5 year old 3 I can get 50MPG in the real world. It's nice to see a company focus on actually improving fuel economy instead of this hybrid hack job.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[klazek]

I just moved to the US from Germany. I replaced my Golf I had there with a new one from here. What a let down. Only choice = 170HP ~30 mpg, optimistically speaking - unless you want to spend 27-30 K USD on a diesel.

As for Polos, even the 100HP gas model beats a Prius (OK, just barely), but they are kind of small.

If you check out the Golf models at the above link, you'll see they pretty much all match or beat the Prius. Why don't they offer them here? (And don't give me any BS about tighter emissions regulations here - compared to Northern Europe, our environmental regulations are also sad and embarrassing. Besides, they do actually offer the GTI here -also sad compared to the euro GTI- which is using stratified injection, just like all the other euro models).

I asked my friend who works at the VW lab in Palo Alto about it (i.e. when will we be able to get the good stuff here) and all she said was that everyone asks them that.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[BrentH]

The important metric is exhausts. Burning a litre of diesel creates more CO2 (and NOx because of the higher temperatures) than burning a litre of gasoline.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hardburn]

That's for the Mazda2 you can buy right now, not the one coming down the pipeline.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[StoatBringer]

My Nissan Note diesel easily does 60mpg at 70mph, and 70+ mpg at 50mph. Admittedly, it's not terribly fast, but it is efficient.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hardburn]

They take into account different driving conditions. Diesels are good for hiway cruising, but are terrible in stop-and-go traffic. Hybrids are basically the opposite, and traditional petrol is somewhere in between.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well in north america, there are very few places to refuel a diesel.

They are called gas stations in North America, but don't let that confuse you. They also carry diesel.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hardburn]

In a modern turbo diesel you get the torque from the engine exactly when you need it.

Which is why the Golf TDI get's a 0-60 time of 5 seconds. Oh, wait . . .

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

14:1 compression ratio is nuts, unless it's running on race fuel.

Old corvettes and muscle cars used to run this type of compression before they banned leaded fuel, because the lead helped prevent premature detonation (insert sexual pun here)... after unleaded fuel they dropped to 9:1 compression, maybe 10:1 and mmaaaaaaayyyybe 11:1 on really high end motors, but 14:1 is crazy on normal unleaded. Achieving these numbers without detonation or using 100+ octane fuel is very difficult. I'll believe it when I see it.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Totenglocke]

It's news because the US doesn't allow diesels like that to be sold here (well, technically they're allowed, the government just makes it such a hassle and so expensive that companies WON'T sell them here).

That's why the BMW 330d doesn't get as great of mpg as you would expect, because BMW would only pay to get one diesel engine approved for use in the US and they had to have an engine that could work for their SUV's as well.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[pnewhook]

I have a hybrid with a CVT. I can basically out accelerate almost anything on the road (except for true sports cars) from a standstill to the speed limit.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[jo_ham]

When was the last time you drove a diesel? 1974?

They're considerably more refined these days, with very minimal turbo lag and decent all-range torque.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[aliquis]

K, engine name sounded the same:
"This is because the car will feature Mazda's next-generation of drivetrain, body and chassis technologies, dubbed SKYACTIV. The new Mazda 2 will come powered by a SKYACTIV-G engine"

"Mazda announced that its 2011 Mazda2"

Considering the /. post sayd "The new Mazda 2", the article says 2011 and the enginge was called SKYACTIV-G while the article talks about the new Mazda 2 and the SKYACTIV engine it's easy to think they are the same ..

First article says:
"It will come powered by a SKYACTIV-G engine", so same name.

But maybe the journalist of the second article found some old MPG values from some older Mazda2?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[fotbr]

That is only important if you're trying to cut CO2. Otherwise, in the more practical day-to-day use of "How often will I have to fill up if my daily driving distance is X miles and the tank holds Y gallons", MPG is much more important than any measure of crap coming out the exhaust.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[RightSaidFred99]

If the article had been about an award the Mazda had received, you'd have a point. As it stands, it's about the potential MPG rating, which the TSI engine doesn't approach. So you posted a non sequitur.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hcdejong]

That's nonsense.

1. they have caught on very well, thank you very much, everywhere except the US, and that's because the US was slow in adopting the low-sulfur diesel fuel needed by modern diesels.

2. if anything, the diesel will have longer gearing than the petrol version to take advantage of all that torque at low revs. Since turbochargers have become common on diesel engines sometime in the '80s, diesels have had easily enough power to cope with the most demanding driving conditions.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[sjames]

Just power brake a bit to spool up the turbo.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[ifiwereasculptor]

In 1988, Brazil had a two-cilinder, 800cc car that fit 4 people and averaged about 45-50mpg on gasoline (actually "gasoline" is 25% ethanol here, making the mileage per gallon even more expressive). It wasn't exactly powerful, of course, but it was perfectly functional. The company that made it ended up going bankrupt because it couldn't compete with huge automakers such as Fiat after a dramatic tax reduction on imports. However technology was arealdy there, in the 80s, to get such figures as 50mpg, so it shouldn't be news 22 years later, when engine efficiency has increased dramatically. It still is, though, and that's baffling.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[PopeRatzo]

I asked my friend who works at the VW lab in Palo Alto about it (i.e. when will we be able to get the good stuff here) and all she said was that everyone asks them that.

If you read between the lines, what she's really saying is "We'll get the "good stuff" over here when we're no longer governed by the oil companies. Or, when gasoline hits $9.50/gal in Lincoln, Nebraska. Or, when pigs fly".

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Local ID10T]

I hear this a lot... but I cannot buy one at a local dealership in the USA.

So they are irrelevant to me (and most of the rest of Slashdot's readers.)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[kaoshin]

Are they comparing diesel MPG (or L/100km) to gasoline? You can't do this because diesel contains more energy per unit volume.

MPG is determined by the efficiency of the engine. Diesel and gasoline by themselves each have 0 MPG, because the crap doesn't move itself. I'm not sure what the heck you are even talking about.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason the UK tests give a higher MPG figure is because a "gallon" is defined differently in the UK..
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallon

Re:Diesels already do this.

[MichaelSmith]

But then if you made this engine a hybrid you would get even better consumption. Even the honda system which stops the petrol engine at red lights, then gets you going initially with an electric motor would save a lot of fuel in the city cycle.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[fotbr]

You mean like all 6 gas stations here in a town of 4000 people? (Interstate on the edge of town with 4 stations located right next to it (and avoided by most of the town residents because of the traffic), the other two are "in town" and usually a bit cheaper)

And then there's the various rail depots out in the countryside catering to farmers, which consist of a small grain elevator, a few large diesel tanks (mostly diesel labeled "for offroad use only" which isn't taxed as high, but usually one "road-use" tank), and if you're lucky, a loading dock.

The only stinky, noisy, and smoke-spewing diesels I see fall into two categories: a) old & poorly maintained engines, and b) pickups owned by rednecks who think belching black smoke and making noise is "cool".

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Bert64]

A good driver and a manual box can overcome most of the aspects of turbo lag, but that assumes a good driver or about 1% of people on the roads... A lot of people can't even drive a manual. And with an auto, even on highend diesel vehicles you still get some considerable lag, i was driving a 2009 audi q7 (4.2ltr turbo diesel) recently which had a noticeable lag even when you switched the gearbox into sport mode.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[TerranFury]

Diesel contains significantly more energy per gallon than gasoline

Nah, the fuels have roughly the same energy; the difference is that diesel engines typically operate at much higher compression ratios and so are more efficient.

Some numbers:

• Gasoline has a heating value of 32 MJ/L, neglecting condensation of exhaust (which I'll assume doesn't happen).
• Diesel has a heating value of 36.4 MJ/liter.

Source.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[voidptr]

As long as a gallon of gas and a gallon of diesel cost close to the same at the pump, of course a head to head comparison is fair to some extent. At the end of the day, MPG is just a proxy for some cost per mile, and if a higher diesel mpg means a lower per mile cost, the fact that diesel is more energy dense then gasoline is somewhat academic.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[M. Baranczak]

"Mazda expects it to come in at 28 mpg city, 35 mpg highway with the five-speed manual, and 1 mpg less on highway mileage with the automatic."

Does not compute.

28 + 35 = 63. That's not quite 70, but it's still a pretty respectable number.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Bert64]

The later V12 engines from Jaguar would run at 12.5:1 in some markets (obviously depending on what fuel was available there)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_V12_engine

Re:Diesels already do this.

[MichaelSmith]

Not sure I agree. We had a 2000 Corolla for ten years and just bought a VW Jetta with a TSI engine. It does a good job for a 1.4 but it still costs more to run than the corolla. The DSI transmission is horrible to use and bordering on dangerous. The reason is that its response is too slow. You press the throttle for a little bit of power and you get nothing. Press a little bit more. Nothing. Press more and you get a big surge of power, delayed from the first little press on the throttle. There is no precision. It is horrible at slow speeds.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[ffreeloader]

They take into account different driving conditions. Diesels are good for hiway cruising, but are terrible in stop-and-go traffic. Hybrids are basically the opposite, and traditional petrol is somewhere in between.

I disagree with this. My old man had a Mitsubishi turbo diesel pickup back in the 80's. It would get close to 40mpg during normal driving, and had enough power that you could spin the rear tires on dry pavement when shifting to 2nd gear under heavy acceleration. It drove just like a gas-powered vehicle, other than having more torque. I also have a buddy that drives a 3/4 ton 4 wheel drive Chevy with the Duramax diesel. It also drives like a gas-powered vehicle.

There is very little difference between driving a diesel or gas rig in traffic any more. Yeah, the diesel is going to be a little noisier due to its much higher compression ratio, but that's it. The newer diesels aren't your grandfather's diesels that had the red line set on the tach at about 2000 rpm, and that's what made them a little harder to drive in traffic as you had to run through the gears very quickly to keep from over-revving the engine when you accelerated.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Put it this way, unless something big changes, I'll never buy another petrol engined car.

In the US, the government discourages diesel with absurdly high taxes (WAY more than gasoline). This is done to keep refiners happy -- it takes more oil refinement to make the equivalent amount of gasoline, so the refiners make more money. Any "excess" diesel is quickly exported to China to prevent any kind of market glut.

Strategically, this is a mistake as it makes the US even more dependent on oil per car, and overlooks the possibility of refining diesel from non-petroleum sources (people are *amazed* that the very first diesels ran on peanut-based bio-diesel). Then again, the purpose of US taxes (and subsidies) is to help protect campaign contributers from actual market forces they claim to support.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get diesel at just about *ANY* gas station. Are you serious? Every semi truck, dump truck, bus, construction vehicle around here uses it. Do you think they go to special areas to fill up? No, many go to the gas station just like everyone else. The downside is the newer additives they added to them. Making it 10-20% higher priced then premium gas. If they are spewing black smoke then they need either a newer engine or some serious engine work. Just like any other car that spits black smoke these days.

Even in the little 'podunk' town I live in with 6 gas stations all of them sell it.

The only real downside is colder areas of the US where diesel is not well suited. As it takes a decently high temp to get started (-10f and above). In states like Minnesota they are not such a good idea.

I personally do not own one because of the cold startup problem. I like my car to start right away. If I lived in a warmer area then I might even get one myself.

Either you are a moron, or a troll, or need to close your ass because you seem to be speaking from it.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[PopeRatzo]

That's why the BMW 330d doesn't get as great of mpg as you would expect, because BMW would only pay to get one diesel engine approved for use in the US

How much does it cost to get a diesel engine "approved" for use in the US? Is it an issue of federal approval or state approval?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[MichaelSmith]

That is only important if you're trying to cut CO2. Otherwise, in the more practical day-to-day use of "How often will I have to fill up if my daily driving distance is X miles and the tank holds Y gallons", MPG is much more important than any measure of crap coming out the exhaust.

But the other question is how much will it cost. Diesel is often much more expensive than petrol where I live.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[RingDev]

Ehh, it's the same technology. They both use high compression and direct injection to acheive great gas milage and high torque output.

The only difference is that you can buy a TSi today, or yesterday, or even back 5 years ago. You can't buy a SKYACTIV-G today, or tomorrow, or even next year.

When they have the car on the road and it is beating out the TSi's, I'd be excited about it. But at this point, it's just "Company advertises that it's doing what competetors have been doing for 5 years, only better!".

-Rick

Re:Diesels already do this.

[PopeRatzo]

I have a 2005 2.0L Mazda 3. It easily gets 40MPG

Which is about the same as a '95 Protege. The question is, "why couldn't they improve the mileage in the course of a decade when gas prices were rising fast"?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[PopeRatzo]

Well in north america, there are very few places to refuel a diesel.

Maybe Chicago is an unusual case, but I don't recall seeing any gas stations where you can't buy diesel.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Local ID10T]

Diesel contains significantly more energy per gallon than gasoline, so "MPG" comparisons to gasoline vehicles are totally useless.

I have to disagree. The comparison may be imbalanced in terms of energy / volume, but as a consumer it is very useful because both can be reduced to miles per dollar.

Example:

• Car-1 gets 27 MPG running gasoline. I pay $3.19 per gallon. $0.12 per mile
• Car-2 gets 40 MPG running diesel. I pay $3.79 per gallon. $0.09 per mile

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hardburn]

The Golf TDI is still getting 0-60 times of over 9 seconds. My rule of thumb is that 10sec is the absolute max you can buy a car at, because you'll have trouble making it up to hiway speed in the length of most on-ramps. 9sec is still really pushing it.

About the only petrol cars that do over 10sec are either really old or come from Korea.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[bzipitidoo]

One interesting reason I heard was that it's the politics of jet fuel. Airlines do not want to compete for fuel with millions more diesel automobiles.

In the US, diesel fuel is subjected to extreme emissions regulations to keep all those diesel engines out, which keeps the price of jet fuel low. The concern for the environment is just an excuse. If jet fuel is really why, I don't understand why the automakers cover for them--what concessions do the automakers get for this service? -- and trot out lame reasons like that there is suppoedly no demand, or lamest of all, that they have no idea.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

diesel needs to be turbocharged, due the injection strategy. diesel requires a very high compression rating for the injection to work over 2500 rpm*, so they also require a turbocharger to put enough air in the chamber for allow the fuel to burn

remember the otto/diesel difference:
in the otto the fuel is injected and compressed with the air, and then it detonates.

in the diesel the air is compressed and the fuel injected during the expansion phase and burns down as it expands and get injected.

at high rpm you need very high pressure for the diesel to be injected as fast as the piston goes down to keep the chamber filled with enough fuel.

that is also why petrol engine can run so high while diesel usually stops at 4500 rpm

note that hp *are* a good measure for a car power. you need to factor in in some way or another the fact that petrol can go at higher rpm, because that allow petrol engine to get at the same speed of a diesel using a lower gear, so they have less torque but a favorable gear ratio over diesel.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[MechaStreisand]

You just CONFIRMED what he said, not contradicted it. Diesel DOES have more energy per volume - more than 10% more.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a 2005 2.0L Mazda 3. It easily gets 40MPG, and if I pay attention to not mashing the gas pedal randomly while crusing (a big cause of wasted gas since the speed stays more or less the same but the fuel consumption increases), I can easily get 50MPG.

I agree that Diesel has done this for a while. But, while you cite no ignition system to go wrong, I cite cheap maintenance costs (oil change on a diesel is much more expensive, and a recurring cost), and I live in Canada and can't be bothered to worry about installing a block heater for those few days where my petrol engine sounds painful when started, but my diesel friends can't start. Low end torque is owned by diesel, but it's ALWAYS at the cost of incomplete combustion. Not even the latest and greatest modern diesels will accelerate off the line without a plume of black come out the tailpipe... which leads to further maintenance costs down the line.

Diesel has it's place, some people love it, some people hate it. But what I found great is that not only is it quite possible based on my own experience to get a non-direct fuel injected petrol car up to 50MPG, it looks like this mazda 2 and its new tech can reach 60+ MPG. The stupid hybrids out there with their insanely expensive markups, and huge toxic batteries can't acheive 50MPG in the real world. I can't speak for the Mazda 2, but with my 5 year old 3 I can get 50MPG in the real world. It's nice to see a company focus on actually improving fuel economy instead of this hybrid hack job.

I don't get anywhere near 40MPG with my 2005 2.0L Mazda3. I call bullshit, especially with the weather up there in Canada. I am in Wisconsin, where the weather is very similar, and nowhere near 40MPG. And where you say it can get 50MPG in the real world? What world do you live on?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[soundguy]

Assuming you mean 100+ octane as measured on the RON scale (now obsolete in the US, replaced by RON+MON/2), there are a number of other common fuels that can be used in high compression non-diesel engines either alone or as additives. These are also listed as RON

benzene: 101

butanol: 103

propane: 110

ethanol: 129

methane: 135


Also keep in mind that you can still run a high-compression (10:1 and up) engine on low-octane fuel by setting the ignition timing closer to zero advance. Engine knock/ping/detonation only occur under load. You can idle, coast or cruise at 35-50 degrees advance with just about any crap fuel and drop back to zero or even less under load. You just won't be able to utilize the potential extra horsepower of the high-compression design.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[TheKidWho]

You can't actually buy a TSi in the USA, who knows why. I would have bought the TSi if they had it available instead of the 2.5 5cylinder in my MKV.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[commodore64_love]

(1) Remember that diesel has about 1/3rd more BTUs per gallon than gasoline, so achieving 70mpg is no great feat. VW sold a Lupo that got 88mpg highway, and built a three-person family prototype that had 120 mpg.

(2) 70mpg is a challenge for gasoline, but it can be done. Suzuki and Honda have both made 70mpg engines, using 2 or 3 cylinders. My Insight averages almost 90mpg, even with the battery turned off. (The Insight SULEV has also been rated world's cleanest car by greenercars.org.)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[aliquis]

I saw this yesterday:
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/fordon_motor/bilar/article2494299.ece
http://www.nyteknik.se/incoming/article2494304.ece/BINARY/original/airmotion700.jpg
http://www.nyteknik.se/incoming/article2494301.ece/BINARY/w468/airmotion468.jpg

Also this:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/27/indian-air-powered-city-cat-car-prepares-for-production-run/

"68MPH and a range of 125 miles"

On pressurized air ..

Re:Diesels already do this.

[aliquis]

So you mean you can use the tank twice as long as you don't spend it in the same environment both times? :D

Re:Diesels already do this.

[ffreeloader]

How is a unit of power a misleading gauge of power? Have you considered that power equals torque times angular velocity?

Because a gasoline powered engine will have peak torque and horsepower at a much higher rpm range than a diesel will. That means you can turn the diesel engine a lot slower and still have the muscle to pull hills, accelerate away from a stop light, etc.... A diesel pickup with 300 hp will out-pull a gas engine with the same horsepower every time, and get better fuel mileage while doing it. The 300 hp diesel engine will put out 500+ ft lbs of torque. The gas engine will be lucky to put out 70% of the diesel's torque and will only be able to do that at much higher rpm. Meaning, you will have to shift down to keep the gas engine turning faster and use more fuel at the same time.

From Chevy's own statistics their 6.0 liter gas engine generates 360 hp and 380 ft-lbs of torque. Their 6.6 liter diesel generates 397 hp and 765 ft-lbs of torque. The diesel gets better mileage and can do far more work with all that torque. Just comparing hp ratings the engines appear somewhat equal, but when you add the torque ratings the diesel is far superior. Where you would be shifting down 2 or 3 gears with a gas-powered pickup to pull a heavy load up a steep hill you could pull the same hill with the same load in high gear with the diesel.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[TheKidWho]

Car-2 costs $5,000 more than Car-1 (Note Golf vs Golf TDI)

You may be saving $.03 per mile, but that's going to take you over 150,000 miles to pay back.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

pickups owned by rednecks who think belching black smoke and making noise is "cool".

You mean teabaggers.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[aliquis]

Cool shape, reminds me somewhat about the Saab 92 we used to have, sold a few years ago for stupid reasons :/
http://www.nnauto.cn/nnauto/Factory/Saab/1947_Saab_92_Prototype_The_Ursaaben-01.jpg

That one looked something like this though:
http://www.saab-motor.ru/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/103-saab-92.jpg

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Rising Ape]

I've had no trouble in cars much slower than that (16 seconds). Frustrating at times, but perfectly manageable.

Even if you don't get up to the exact right speed, people simply move out to let you on.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[devphaeton]

I saw this yesterday:
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/fordon_motor/bilar/article2494299.ece
http://www.nyteknik.se/incoming/article2494304.ece/BINARY/original/airmotion700.jpg
http://www.nyteknik.se/incoming/article2494301.ece/BINARY/w468/airmotion468.jpg

Also this:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/27/indian-air-powered-city-cat-car-prepares-for-production-run/

"68MPH and a range of 125 miles"

On pressurized air ..

The thing to keep in mind, is you still need a form of energy to compress the air. Usually we're talking electricity. Granted, this tech + a huge power plant is probably still more efficient and green.

IMHO though, the real ticket would be if they combined this with a solar-powered compressor that could run while the car was sitting out in the parking lot for 8 hours, and in the driveway for another 3 or 4 (plug-in ability is for a back up). For the daily commute and around-town trips for the average person, I bet this would be plenty usable.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[ffreeloader]

Do you not drive? Or haven't driven in the last 20 or 30 years? Every gas station I pull into has diesel pumps, and lists the price of diesel along with the price of regular and premium on their sign. This hasn't been a problem since diesel pickups became an every day item on the road.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Marginally, no. I don't think I have never seen a gas station with the pumps that doesn't sell diesel alongside petrol.

More expensive per gallon of liquid fuel, yes. But it works out cheaper overall as you get more mpg.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[ffreeloader]

Nah, it's not that difficult to run those high compression ratios with variable valve timing and with all the electronic sensors and controls that are being used today spark timing can be controlled almost instantaneously over a wide range. Who knows, they may also even use something like water injection like we hotrodders did back in the 70's to reduce pinging on high compression engines..

Re:Diesels already do this.

[evilviper]

everywhere except the US

Right, everywhere EXCEPT that one big place where the majority of all cars (and miles driven) are...

And even that's not true... Diesels have caught on in EUROPE. Why? Because...

and that's because the US was slow in adopting the low-sulfur diesel fuel needed by modern diesels

No, it's because the taxes on fuel in most European countries is greater than the actual cost of fuel, and therefore the fuel with slightly less tax burden turned into the most economical by-far. Nowhere outside of Europe is there such high adoption of diesel cars. It's all because of the taxes.

if anything, the diesel will have longer gearing than the petrol version to take advantage of all that torque at low revs

IMHO, all non-CVT vehicles should die off ASAP. You need much less horsepower when you don't get "stuck" in a high gear while trying to accelerate. Not to mention the much more predictable behavior on slick (rain/snow/ice) roads, and less dangerous behavior in cruise control. CVT is so frickin' overdue, it's hard to believe old automatics are still being made.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Also have to think of how much CO2 is uses in its lifetime.

A Prius for example, uses more CO2 to manufacture the car than a Land Rover uses to manufacture (from mining materials to coming off the production line), fuel for the whole of its lifetime, and to dispose of. Land Rovers typically use a lot of fuel and last a long time on the road.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if this is true with current generation diesel engines. I drive a new VW TDI and it supposedly puts out less CO2 and NOX than a gas engine.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[MichaelSmith]

"68MPH and a range of 125 miles"

On pressurized air ..

I will believe it when I see it.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[DaleSwanson]

36.4 / 32 = 1.1375

14% more energy is arguably significant.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[blackraven14250]

Try living in New Jersey.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not that other countries are overoptimistic, it is that the US roads and driver habits are way different. The same car that you would drive in USA would have 100hp less in Europe. For example my 2010 Golf with it's 170hp and 5cyl 2.5l engine automatic consumes about 10.8l/100km while driving in US. I was in Europe in September and drove the same car, with 80hp 4cyl 1.4l engine manual that used about 5.2l/100km. Both drive perfectly smooth, and under normal driving conditions the perceivable difference in the hp is minimal, but tell me, who in the US is going to buy a 80hp car? Nobody and I? US drivers frequently floor both the gas and the brakes instead of cursing on neutral to the stoplight which is red. Even so when I use my European driving habits (a lot of neutral, light on the gas, even lighter on the brakes) on that US Golf I can make the 22mpg go to about 29, and depending on the areas I drive even 31, but for that you need to know how to drive (I'm speaking like 60+ driving practice hours with instructor in a special double brake/double gas/double clutch pedal car) which most US drivers. You do not become a driver passing a driving test, you are merely an operator (yeah, that is what your permit says)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[demonlapin]

In the US, most stations don't sell diesel. It's not really a big deal on the highways - you can always go to a truck stop if you can't find auto diesel - but in town it can be a real pain.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[BasilBrush]

Diesels are good for hiway cruising, but are terrible in stop-and-go traffic.

You must be wrong about that, because if that were the case, they wouldn't use diesel for buses and taxis.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more like 8.5 seconds. I have never remotely had a problem with the acceleration on my Golf TDI. Once you are going over 30mph it becomes extremely responsive and will knock you back in your seat if you gun it. Once you get up over 90mph it gets a little sluggish, not that that matters. In real world driving this is pretty much perfect, all the power is right where you need it.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

While compressed air uses cheap hardware, has great power density, and not terrible energy density (with modern composite tankage), actually compressing the air remains horrifically inefficient because of heating.

Much better to use a (smaller, cheaper) solar unit to charge batteries (if they're charged every day, cheap ones like NiZn will work), or if you're really intent on having extra moving parts in the vehicle, electrolytic hydrogen generation.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Horsepower is actually quite a beneficial measurement. Torque tells you how much power it is producing. Horsepower is Torque*RPM/5252. Thus down the track a Diesel with 800 ft/lbs of torque and 500hp may not beat something with 200 ft/lbs of torque and 600 hp. Assuming all things are equal. This scenario is overly simplistic. Every good mechanical engineer understands its the total power underneath the curve, not just the peak number. Which is why cars with less hp can beat cars with more hp.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[budgenator]

I can't imagine a gas station that doesn't sell diesel fuel, diesel fueled vehicles aren't a majority yet in the US but they are by no means rare either. Mercedes have been selling diesel fueled cars in the US since Christ was a corporal, VW has been selling a boat load of TDIs and the big 3 have been selling almost as many diesel pickup trucks as gasoline. Hell around here even kerosene is at every gas station, which at 14:1 compression would probably run pretty well in that engine too.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[newcastlejon]

I disagree with the OP but to play Devil's advocate: buses can use them because there's room for large gearboxes with enough gears to handle a large engine (like a lorry), taxis (I expect) use them for cost/range reasons.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[budgenator]

With a compression ratio of 14:1, the SKYACTIV-G will put out NOx in the diesel range.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[dabadab]

Where did you get your numbers? I have checked the USA VW site and the base prices are $19,685 and $23,435 - that's a difference of $3,750 but the TDI is better equipped, so the actual difference caused by the diesel engine seems rather small.

On a side note I find it, err..., rather American that the only gasoline engine is the 2.5L one. In Europe that's not even available - but there's a wide selection of engines, the smallest ones being the normally aspirated 1.4 and the turbo-charged 1.2TSI and the largest one the GTI's turbo-charged 2.0.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Chelmet]

Sorry to be a party pooper, but those numbers all stack up.

A US gallon is 83% of a UK gallon, so the the MPG figures are going to vary.

50 MPG (US) is roughly the same as 59 MPG (UK).

When using US gallons, its hardly surprising that you reach the US figure, rather than the UK figure.

Not everybody does things your way.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's strange - I drive a diesel every day and manage to pull out onto busy roundabouts without having to deal with a two second lag.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hardburn]

The Golf TDI is rated for 41 hiway, but 30 city. These aren't bad numbers, but it's rather uncommon for a petrol car to have such a large spread between the hiway and city numbers.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[ffreeloader]

What does this have to do with diesel engines? I've driven plenty of gas powered vehicles that couldn't meet your acceleration specs. And, I've driven diesel powered vehicles that easily meet your acceleration specs.

Your complaint is now about acceleration, not what kind of engine the vehicle has. And, straight line acceleration is only a very small part of stop-and-go driving, which was your original complaint. In all stop-and-go driving situations I've ever been in no one was driving at 60 mph. Everyone was moving at much, much slower speeds and no one needed the kind of acceleration rates you have specified.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Poorcku]

mod parent informative. a bmw 1series can achieve 4.1 to 4.3 liters per 100km. and it is a 2004 model. but HP is not really misleading; true, torque is what turns the wheels, but HP tells you how long is that torque available. think of it this way: race drivers shift to maximize engine POWER, not engine torque.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[0100010001010011]

BS. I drive a diesel car. You don't look for it because you don't have a one. It's never been a pain, even when we drove through NYC.

Will people let this old "-1. Diesel" die?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[commodore64_love]

>>>diesel creates more CO2 (and NOx because of the higher temperatures)

NOx is no longer an issue thanks to NOx-neutralizing converters. Even in California, which has the strictest NOx requirements (almost zero), 2006 or later diesels are able to be sold without violating the law.

As for CO2, I did a comparison one time and discovered that the Beetle TDI (diesel) emits less CO2 per mile than the Beetle gasoline version. The diesel also burned fewer BTUs/mile than the gasoline. That's due to the higher efficiency of the diesel's compression-ignition engine.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[clarkkent09]

In the US, if it has a 1.2 liter engine with 60hp, it's a lawnmower not a car so that doesn't count.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, more likely, Car-2 has a bad enough emissions quality that it's not allowed to be sold in CA, and therefore isn't sold in the U.S.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[TheKidWho]

I was comparing the 2-doors.

There are two engines actually, there's still the turbocharged engine in the GTI.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Silentknyght]

(1) Remember that diesel has about 1/3rd more BTUs per gallon than gasoline, so achieving 70mpg is no great feat. VW sold a Lupo that got 88mpg highway, and built a three-person family prototype that had 120 mpg.

Citation please? The US EPA cites that diesel is 137,000 btu/gal, all of 7,000 Btu/gal more than gasoline, at 130,000 Btu/gal. A 5% difference, but not a 30% difference.

http://www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/appendix/appa.pdf

Diesel is also arguably dirtier than gasoline. It's a bit of tradeoff.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the UK fuel economy ratings are hopelessly optimistic, as are the Japanese tests.

The Third-Generation (ZVW30) Prius gets 59 MPUSG combined according to the UK tests, but 50 MPGUS according to the US tests.

The UK gallon is approximately 4.5 L whereas the US gallon is approximately 3.8 L. If you do the math, you'll find those two numbers are identical.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[0100010001010011]

My TDI is at 250k. Numerous people on TDIClub have run theirs to 300k+ with no problems.

Then again it's unamerican to think long term.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[commodore64_love]

>>>28 mpg city + 35 mpg highway = 63.

I sincerely hope you're joking.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[RJFerret]

Reminds me of the Honda Civic HF, which nearly 25 years ago got 57 MPG average.

Plenty of diesel cars already do 60-70MPG. With the advantage of having no ignition system to go wrong and lots of torque, horse power is a misleading gauge of power, torque is what turns the wheels.

People usually look to horsepower as a measure of potential speed actually.

They are interrelated though, as HP = torque X RPM / 5252

Sure, a tractor can be powerful, but I have a car with ridiculously low torque, with record setting HP per cylinder, that is extremely fast (0-60 in 5-6 seconds) and amazingly fuel efficient (have gotten over 30 mpg highway) compared to similar performing alternatives.

All that being said, modern diesels not only are great, can use alternative fuel with little to no modifications (vegetable oil), but sadly still have a hard time overcoming the early introduction of diesel cars in America, which were sorely under-performing, dirty, noisy monstrosities.

Sure all those things have been remedied, but that just goes to prove how silly our general market is.

Diesels outperform hybrids, last longer with less maintenance and cost less (both initially and overall), but Hollywood hasn't made them trendy yet.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[icebike]

You don't suppose the difference of 7 months between those two articles had anything to do with that do you?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Silentknyght]

Diesel contains significantly more energy per gallon than gasoline, so "MPG" comparisons to gasoline vehicles are totally useless.

As I replied to another post, citation please? References I have cite diesel at 137,000 Btu/gal, while gasoline is close behind at 130,000 Btu/gal. More certainly, but not significantly more, and arguably not enough more to warrant comparisons on a per-gallon basis irrelevant.

Actually, if you wanted to argue on a per-pound basis, the same US EPA sources I cited previously list gasoline at slightly more Btu/lb (20,300) than diesel (19,300).

Interesting stuff.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Totenglocke]

Federal approval, though you have to do extra to get approved for California. I haven't been able to find the actual numbers, but I know that the cost is pretty high for jumping through all the regulatory hoops and, in some cases, modifying an engine to meet the higher emissions standards in the US.

It's wonderfully ironic that the very government that pushes people to buy higher mpg vehicles makes it incredibly difficult to get high mpg diesel cars in the US.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[emt377]

On a side note I find it, err..., rather American that the only gasoline engine is the 2.5L one. In Europe that's not even available - but there's a wide selection of engines, the smallest ones being the normally aspirated 1.4 and the turbo-charged 1.2TSI and the largest one the GTI's turbo-charged 2.0.

Easy: Americans drive automatic transmissions. The transmission control can't see there's a hill coming up ahead and downshift before reaching it, leaving it momentarily in a high gear before it responds. Engines here need a power reserve to bridge bad shift timing or it becomes very difficult to keep up with traffic.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've kept careful track of my mileage, I have no idea how EPA came up with those numbers because mine are significantly better and I drive rough. I floor it all the time, on the highway I'm rarely going under 70 mph. I always have AC on. I drive in sport mode regularly. Over the past year my average mpg comes out to just under 44.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Vegeta99]

Yeah! My 2000 Jetta /can/ get 35MPG on the highway now, and that thing has 200,000mi on it!

Re:Diesels already do this.

[TerranFury]

You just CONFIRMED what he said, not contradicted it. Diesel DOES have more energy per volume - more than 10% more.

I mean... yes, I read the numbers; I did post them after all. Still, it's the higher compression ratio that's the dominant factor, which is what my point had been.

Here, look at the 2010 Volkswagon Jetta. Here are the numbers for more-or-less identical vehicles, one with a diesel engine, one with a gasoline one (and a fairly high-compression one at that):

4 cyl, 2.0 L, Manual 6-spd, Diesel......41 mpg hwy

4 cyl, 2.0 L, Manual 6-spd, Premium.....31 mpg hwy

To drive one mile, it takes the gasoline-engined car 32% more fuel. By comparison, the diesel fuel itself has only 14% more energy per gallon. Energy density of the fuel alone is not sufficient to explain the difference. The difference comes from the efficiency of the engine.

I should note that this is in spite of the fact that the Otto cycle (which approximates gasoline engine operation) is more efficient than the Diesel cycle (which approximates the operation of real diesel engines) at the same compression ratio. Diesels, in practice, simply have compression ratios that are high enough to overwhelm that advantage.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[BasilBrush]

Buses:There would be room for large gearboxes if they used gasoline too. But they don't.

Taxis: If it's used for cost/range reasons, for the stop/start city traffic of most taxi journeys. Then the implication is that diesel engines are NOT terrible for that usage.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Bertie]

0-60 times really have nothing to do with the situation you describe. Diesels tend not to be so hot on them, because before the turbo spins up they can be sluggish. Try looking at the 30-70 in-gear time, which more closely replicates pulling into fast-moving traffic, and you'll find that they perform very nicely.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[BasilBrush]

The spread on the gasoline powered GTI is greater than the spread on the diesel GTD. The very opposite of what you think the case is.

http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/new/golf-gti-vi/which-model/engines/fuel-consumption

To look at those figures in another way, for urban driving the Diesel engine is getting 45% more mpg than the gasoline engine. For highway, diesel is getting only 28% more mpg.

Contrary to what you imagine, diesel gives it's greatest benefit for city driving.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[dbIII]

It is actually cheaper to produce but there is now a large demand with all the 4WD vehicles that never leave the city (which started as a tax dodge but is now trendy), so the price is marked up. At least we can be happy that the things are burning less fuel than the US equivalents.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia, diesels are good but..
1) There are 'used oil recyclers' and somehow gets blended at gas stations
1.5) The better / more high tech the injectors, the easier they get damaged
2) Diesel injectors are expensive to service/clean - Mechanics cost $110 per hour here
3) If you cop a bad dose of fuel - you pay for it - same for petrol

Re:Diesels already do this.

[saleenS281]

Of course you can compare the two. That's the point! The US should be embracing diesel's instead of shunning them. Claiming it's not a fair test because one runs diesel is BS. You might as well say we can't compare hybrid's to straight gasoline because it's a hybrid. WTF?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[MichaelSmith]

I believe that diesel fuel is cheaper in Europe because it attracts less tax. Its one of their famous farming subsidies which keep farmers happy.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[NETHED]

I'm only replying because you have a low enough UID to know I am not just trolling. I have a TSI engine in my 06 Passat. Wonderful engine, but the premium gas requirement gets old quick.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[BlitzTech]

Diesel's actually not that bad. It gets a bad rap because it's used in a lot of truly awful applications, but it's not much worse than regular gasoline when combusted reasonably efficiently - like most modern cars do. Just google "clean diesel" and read up!

Also, I believe GP misspoke with regards to BTUs/gal - diesel engines tend to be more efficient than petrol engines, to the tune of ~30%.

I'd give you a quote and link you to Wikipedia, but /.'s new comment system sucks and won't let me paste anything. It's in the "Fuel efficiency" wikipedia entry, just before "efficiency in microgravity".

In other, unrelated news, why is /., a site for programming/tech oriented people, such a mass of crap code?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hardburn]

I've driven plenty of gas powered vehicles that couldn't meet your acceleration specs

Yes, and I don't buy them, either.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hardburn]

The EPA numbers do tend to be a bit conservative for hiway driving, especially when they were "corrected" a few years ago. Effective drafting distance can be larger than you think, and I suspect that the EPA doesn't take this into account.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Zeussy]

horse power is a misleading gauge of power, torque is what turns the wheels.

That is wrong in soo many ways, power is produce by a combination of torque and rev's. Torque is not a measure of power, it is a measure of force at a distance. A person can produce a lot of torque if you give them a huge lever. The amount of power a person can produce is always the same. Horse power is not a misleading gauge of power, IT IS the gauge of power. When you see an engine described at making x amount of torque @ x RPM, e.g. 350nm at 3500RPM this is actually just giving you how many kilowatts it makes at that point, which is 128kw. (350nm * 3500rpm / 9549 magic number). 350nm is just how much force the firing of the pistons are making at that point.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[ivec]

I also hope you were joking...
When the VW claims 60 MPUSG combined, it is a (weighed) average of the City and Highway scores.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Tumbleweed]

WTF is this news?
VW Polo
70 miles per US gallon highway.
60 MPUSG combined.
50 MPUSG City.

I'm not sure why you'd use 'US gallons' here, considering this car isn't available in the U.S. None of those ultra-efficent non-hybrid (generally diesels) cars are available in the U.S. It'll be BIG news when one of them DOES come here. Until then, I'm sticking with my 2001 VW Jetta TDI (diesel), which only gets around 35mpg city, and about 45+ highway. (No, it's not in great shape, and yes, I drive like a madman. :)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Golden_Rider]

Because of the average US customer. It's not worth it for european car companies to bring the good stuff there, because nobody would buy it. Case in point: the new Volkswagen Jetta sold in the US uses lesser quality interior and different engines than the european one, so that it can be sold at a lower price (i.e. same as Toyota models etc.). Obviously Volkswagen think selling the SAME car as here in Germany, with higher quality components, but at a higher price, would not be worth it because there would not be a market for it. Or look at the "Routan", the US variant of the euro Touran. US version is only available with silly large (3.8l/197hp, 4l/251hp) petrol engines, while here in Germany, they offer the same engines as in the Golf (e.g. the various TSI models like the 1.4l/170hp or the 2l/170hp diesel). And the funny thing is that the 1.4l/170hp TSI engine (which in real life uses like 8l/100km) then even has the same 0-60 time as the 4l/251hp/18mpg US engine...

Re:Diesels already do this.

[ncgnu08]

You assume people buy a car that makes sense. How many of us drive a car that can hit 165 and handle turns at high speeds, but do we ever need to race? How many have pick-up trucks but never haul anything. 4wd's are everywhere but not many actually need them (or know how to drive them). If every one in a city drove a Prius or other hybrid we would save a lot of fuel, but not every one does/will.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[BigFootApe]

Not a problem. Diesels tend to be quite durable, so (with a few notable exceptions) if you can put the mileage into the car, the motor will stand up to it. 1/2 million miles is not uncommon for a VW diesel.

It doesn't make sense to buy an expensive, efficient car if you're going to be putting in low mileage/low hours on your car.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[demonlapin]

I haven't the foggiest where you live, but I've never seen kerosene at a gas station.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[moortak]

They probably don't because to draft effectively you have to be following at an unsafe distance.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[nabsltd]

I have a hybrid with a CVT. I can basically out accelerate almost anything on the road (except for true sports cars) from a standstill to the speed limit.

Not a chance, unless "the speed limit" is very low.

Although you will almost certainly use less fuel, there are many non-"sports cars" that will out-accelerate any hybrid. There's even this seven passenger hauler that weighs nearly 5000 pounds.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[demonlapin]

YMMV. I'm aware of the stations that sell diesel, and the ones that aren't truck stops are pretty rare around here. Some of us live in BFE.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[flyingfsck]

Even worse, TFA doesn't state whether it is US or British Galons. Getting 70 miles per British gallon is old hat.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the United States per kilometer on the highway speed limit is 50 miles buy cabal gold

Re:Diesels already do this.

[TheKidWho]

You mean the 2.0T? It's a good engine, but I don't think it's comparable to the one in the article.

I apologize however, I was thinking of the 1.4T TSI which they don't offer in the States.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, indeed there are people that live north of the 42nd parallel. Imagine that.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[ChipMonk]

I have. It's been a few years (less than half my life ago), but still, I can say it's within living memory.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Burz]

Diesel contains more energy per gallon than gasoline, but I read a report of the lifecycle CO2 emissions of of the two fuels and diesel comes out 20% lower.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Burz]

Diesel contains more energy per gallon than gasoline, but I read a report of the lifecycle CO2 emissions of of the two fuels and diesel comes out 20% lower.

Sorry, I meant to say 20% lower per mile driven.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[marxz]

I'm pretty sure if you check that's the diesel VW Polo model were as the Mazda has a petrol engine. Sadly even though here in Australia diesel cars are selling great guns and in Europe they already dominate most market segments for some reason north Americans don't like diesel cars. That said this sort of economy is not surprising, my daewoo matiz (sparks or something like that in the US) gets around 4.5 liters per 100 klm (a shade under 60Mpg) using rather primitive engine tech, compare that to the full size 4WD that at 18 liters per 100klm's gets taken out so rarely now that we have to wipe the cobwebs off it (true story). given the Daewoo range is no longer sold in my market and the local GM company (Holden) reneged on a commitment to sell it under their badge, my next car was going to be a diesel VW polo but if this Mazda 2 is released in Australia in 2011 or 2012 I'll give it serious consideration.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

The code was written by Pudge, but he left recently. He learned all of his Perl by reading the book of Revelation. I told him that if he paid more attention to the minor prophets Amos and Habukuk it would help him write better organized code. But he wouldn't fucking listen to me. No, he was all "death riding on a pale horse" and all that shit. Fucking newb.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[w0mprat]

Plenty of diesel cars already do 60-70MPG. With the advantage of having no ignition system to go wrong and lots of torque, horse power is a misleading gauge of power, torque is what turns the wheels.

Sure, some people don't like diesels due to the noise they make. They are typically quieter when cruising as the RPM is often about 1000RPM lower than a petrol engine.

Huh?? Torque is a momentary measure of twisting force, horsepower is a measure of an engines rate of mechanical work output. Horsepower = torque x engine rpm. So perhaps meant that the other way around?

Just to bust a bit of a myth: Diesels do not have more maximum torque than an equivalent displacement naturally aspirated gasoline engine. This is partly Diesels are not as volumetrically efficient as gasoline engines, they have smaller valves and heads that do not breath as well, especially as the RPMs climb. Diesels are well suited to forced induction though, and this is where all that awesome torque comes from.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Quasar1999]

First, check your purge control valve, if it sticks open it'll kill your fuel economy. I clean mine every 50,000km. The valve has a design flaw in the 04/05 model car. I never bothered to let them replace it at the dealership, so if yours wasn't replaced, this may be why you're not seeing good fuel economy.

Next, I neglected to mention I drive a manual transmission, I'm sure it makes a few MPG difference but based on your reaction, I'll assume your results are WAY off mine.

If I drive like I have a deathwish and pretend the gas and brake pedals are digital inputs, I can still get 600km out of a 52 Litre tank. If I simply accelerate normally from stoplights, and pay attention to keeping the throttle constant when cruising at highway speeds, I'll easily hit 800km a tank. I'm not talking about hypermiling, drafting trucks, and coasting downhill with the engine off... I've heard people pass 1000km on a tank doing crazy shit like that, but that isn't real world.

I'd highly recommend getting a scangage or similar device and hooking it up to your car to see your instantaneous fuel consumption. Very small changes in how you handle the accelerator pedal make a world of difference on your fuel consumption, and without it affecting your ability to keep up with normal traffic, hell I average 20km/h over the posted speed limit on highways, and I really do get over 40MPG.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[w0mprat]

I had no idea diesel costed more than gasoline there. In other parts of the world diesel is significantly cheaper!

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Quasar1999]

My guess is because they focused on 'safety'. Late 90's early 2000's, most of the cars were getting ABS, all sorts of airbags, traction control, stupid junk like 'on-star', navigation, power windows/locks/seats/steering columns/etc., Tire Pressue monitoring, climate control... The focus was on luxurious features and safety, which added lots of weight.

And then to add insult to injury the emissions standards got thrown in, and manufacturers were forced to scrap the old way of doing things to meet the new standards. It takes a long time for a new engine design to make it from concept to production, and the manufacturers were sitting on their laurels as it were.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll get the "good stuff" over here when:

a) VW gets their fucking quality control issues sorted out (I've seen more late model VWs on the side of the road in full flame than any other make).
b) The US (or, better yet CARB) and the EU can harmonize noise, particulate, emissions and safety standards.

Emissions and safety testing are crazy expensive.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Black Gold Alchemist]

Yep. One air car company has already been busted for fraud. Others have been dancing around for years, but no products yet. The linked article was from 2007, and said it would be in production by now.

If you do the math, you'll find that having %100 efficient air motors (not likely) leads to around 2.6 MJ per L of compressed air at 10,000 PSI. A Tesla roadster has a 55 kWh battery, meaning you would need a 76 liter, or 20 gallon air tank. That's a carbon fibre tank. Good luck finding that for sale, anywhere. The Tesla would probably consume less energy per mile than the MDI car linked. Why? Because the Tesla is sleeker (look at it) and has a smaller frontal area. Thus it would have less drag, and be more efficient.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[MikeBabcock]

CVT doesn't have transmission lock, where most decent automatics do, totally eliminating the 'cost' of running an automatic at high speeds.

CVT wastes some energy, energy not lost when using a manual transmission, or when cruising at highway speeds in a modern automatic.

CVTs are cool and fun, especially in-town, but people who drive automatics with autostick transmissions can outperform them as well as manuals.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[rtb61]

The biggest saving for hybrids will always be in regenerative braking in city driving. No has really gone all the way with hybrid, a combustion engine driving a generator at maximum operating efficiency (no transmission losses), charging a battery, that drives electric motors in the wheels (compact engine compartment). Then add in solar panels to pick up a bit extra when parked.

There seems to be some resistance for the extra investment in the development of hybrids as advances in battery technology will likely make it pointless with the preference for all electric and the detoxifying of cities.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[0100010001010011]

Because slashdot is a predominant US based website. If I quoted the Imperial Gallons 90% of the replies to my statement would be "OMG TEIHR GALLON IS BIGGER".

Re:Diesels already do this.

[stripes]

About 2 out of 3 gas stations around here (Bay Area CA) don't sell diesel. I'm assuming some combination of making the equipment cheaper, maybe environmental licensing and inspection cost savings and such.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[ShanghaiBill]

The transmission control can't see there's a hill coming up ahead and downshift before reaching it, leaving it momentarily in a high gear before it responds.

All the altitude data for every road in the world will fit in a few $ of flash. So if the engine's computer has access to GPS, there is no good reason that it shouldn't be able to anticipate the hill.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[stripes]

[...]what concessions do the automakers get for this service? [...]

Well, I'm not sure I believe any of that, but I can see a reason automakers might be down of diesels if they had the chance... a diesel engine tends to last way longer then gas engines, and it is to the advantage of car companies.

That said, conspiracy theories are fun to think about, but the real reasons behind stuff tend to be more complex and less fun to BS about.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

- Are they comparing diesel MPG (or L/100km) to gasoline? You can't do this because diesel contains more energy per unit volume.

Despite appearances, logic, and reason, "MPG" does not actually get computed by dividing miles driven by gallons of fuel consumed. Especially when dealing with 'alternative' fuel or hybrid engines.

For example, using the government's MPG rating, the Chevy Volt DOES live up to the hype. But they are allowed to claim such high numbers because they can base MPG rating over the entire anticipated use of the vehicle, not on an individual unit basis. So if 100% of the users only use it to commute to work and never use the fuel, just the electric, that's an infinite MPG even if the car can only drive 2 miles per gallon of fuel burned while using the combustion engine.

- Are they comparing a small vehicle to a much larger hybrid? Yes, you can get good fuel economy in a Smart, but it also doesn't hold 4 people and is considerably less safe if you get in an accident with a larger vehicle.

I agree with all your points except this one. It IS entirely appropriate to compare a small hybrid to a large one, just as it's appropriate to compare a car with good aerodynamics to one with poor airflow, or a car with a large engine to one with a small one. It certainly is something to take into account when you're purchasing the vehicle, however.
As for being "less safe" that's just not true- less massive vehicles means less energy in the collision which makes both drivers safer. It also does not address the safety issues with larger vehicles such as having larger 'blind' spots, higher rollover rates, less stopping distance, etc.
What we really need to do is split the non-commercial vehicle class into two parts, a sub-compact/compact size/weight and then another class for large passenger vehicles such as SUV's, full-size trucks, minivans, etc. Then adjust tax rates and licensing fees to reflect the difference in emissions, fuel efficiency, wear on the roads, space used on the roads, and danger in event of collision. We could even start introducing special lanes in busy areas which are narrower and reserved for motorcycles and sub-compact passenger class vehicles only. The same could be done for parking spaces in cities with space shortages, as well as parking garages, ferries, etc. It would encourage people to buy smaller vehicles, which would lead not only to reduced fuel consumption but also a reduced rate of auto fatalities, less land being consumed for road expansion projects, and other benefits.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hcdejong]

Incorrect. Non-turbocharged diesels exist. Getting enough compression to allow the fuel to ignite is not the reason to use turbocharging.

At low rpm, the turbo doesn't work anyway and you need to rely on compression ratio alone to get the fuel to ignite.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[raynet]

Oddly enough, my Mercedes 200D had diesel engine and no turbo and it run just fine. My new Kia does have a turbo diesel, but the lag is minimal, even with an automatic gearbox. I might wish for tad more top speed, but I guess 185kph is best that that SUV can do.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[uninformedLuddite]

I drive a 1996 Nissa Micra. It is driven predominantly on country roads and I get over 40MPG(US). It also cost $800AU.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[GNious]

Yes, you can get good fuel economy in a Smart, but it also doesn't hold 4 people

Feeling fairly confident that the Smart4Four holds 4 people - at least we were putting 4 seats into each of them.
(yes, its no longer produced - shame, really)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[raynet]

Diesels work just fine in cold climates, especially if you have Webasto or engine block heater (which you should have even in gasoline cars). As long as it is warmer than -35C, I've been able to drive my diesel car. Thanks to Webasto being on during the first couple miles, the engine heats up quickly and doesn't suffer any performace lost I can notice. (The MPGs do go down when it is over -25C as the Webasto will be on all the time while driving)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

And then there's the various rail depots out in the countryside catering to farmers, which consist of a small grain elevator, a few large diesel tanks (mostly diesel labeled "for offroad use only" which isn't taxed as high, but usually one "road-use" tank), and if you're lucky, a loading dock.

The only stinky, noisy, and smoke-spewing diesels I see fall into two categories: a) old & poorly maintained engines, and b) pickups owned by rednecks who think belching black smoke and making noise is "cool".

The stuff they sell for "non-road" (agriculture, construction, etc.) is usually referred to as "dyed diesel" because... they put a dye in it. When you burn it, it produces large clouds of black smoke, which makes it hard to get away with if you're driving a passenger vehicle.
The trucks owned by the rednecks are usually dual-use vehicles (primarily used as off-road farm/ranch vehicles) which allows them to use the cheaper stuff, but you do see a lot of people in those areas just filling up all their diesel with the dyed product.

And yes, you can get diesel pretty much anywhere in the US, especially in the smalltown, rural areas. I live in Montana, and I actually know of quite a few small, off-the-beaten-path stations which ONLY sell diesel... you'll have to drive another 1/2 hour to get to a station with gasoline. I've spent plenty of time in large cities around the country, and while it's not common to see dyed-diesel pumps at most service stations, you do still at least one street-diesel pump. (In the larger cities, they are less likely to have the subsidized diesel, and usually prefer to sell it in bulk to operations which maintain their own on-site storage).

Re:Diesels already do this.

[uninformedLuddite]

I guess that all those fuel consumption figures quoted above by various people are wrong then.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[uninformedLuddite]

ISo they are irrelevant to me (and most of the rest of Slashdot's readers.)

Is that because all the smart people that read /. come from the USA? people in the US aren't really this blinkered are they?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[hcdejong]

Yup. That's because diesels lack a throttle valve. In a gas engine, the throttle valve increases the resistance in the intake system at partial throttle openings.

Some modern gas engines, e.g. BMW do without a throttle valve to mitigate these losses. Still, they vary the intake valve opening to modulate engine power, so there still are losses at lower throttle settings.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[fractoid]

With the advantage of having no ignition system to go wrong and lots of torque, horse power is a misleading gauge of power, torque is what turns the wheels.

People say this so often, which is really annoying because it's flat-out wrong. Torque at the wheels is what turns the wheels. Torque at the crankshaft is what a diesel engine has more of than a petrol engine. Between the two is a gearbox that makes your argument invalid. At any given speed, it is the power that the engine is producing that determines the torque at the wheels.

What you really mean when you say "torque is what turns wheels" is just that an engine with a torque band centered around cruising RPMs (as diesel engines tend to do) feels good and responsive when you're cruising along and you boot the accelerator. An engine with peak torque at much higher than typical cruising RPMs may potentially have much higher performance but it will still feel sluggish if you refuse to drop a gear or two to reach the power band.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mazda expects it to come in at 28 mpg city, 35 mpg highway with the five-speed manual, and 1 mpg less on highway mileage with the automatic."

Does not compute.

28 + 35 = 63. That's not quite 70, but it's still a pretty respectable number.

You forgot to add the five-speed manual and the 1mpg less...
28 + 35 + 5 + 1 = 69
FTFY

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that the US gallon is different from the standard gallon.

I owned a Peugeot turbo diesel, 12 year old model, in actually real life usage it always gave me at least 60 MPG. And that was regardless of city or highway.
Diesel only has bad press in the USA. In Europe, they have much higher grade diesel fuel and very quiet diesel engines. The noisy diesels were from maybe 15 years ago.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[dbIII]

Perhaps, but it is also cheaper to make at the oil refinery.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Gordonjcp]

Its one of their famous farming subsidies which keep farmers happy.

No, road diesel isn't taxed at a lower rate. You can get red diesel which has identical properties but has a red dye added (looks like snakebite and blackcurrant, hence the name "Diesel" for that drink) but which is taxed at a lower rate. You can't use red diesel in road vehicles.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Gordonjcp]

Sure, some people don't like diesels due to the noise they make. They are typically quieter when cruising as the RPM is often about 1000RPM lower than a petrol engine.

I can't understand why people keep bringing this up. I had the profound misfortune to drive a petrol hire car recently (Ford Focus) and it was the most dismal motoring experience I've had in a long time. The blame for that can be laid squarely on the gutless, noisy, smelly petrol engine. Going back to my van (Mercedes Vito, 2.2 litre diesel) was like swapping a half-dead carthorse for a thoroughbred on speed.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

not if you get MORE MPG! It evens out.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a big champion of e85 use (I buy it for use in my 2010 Dodge Dakota whenever possible to help support the infrastructure even though I know it is possibly a net energy loss using our current corn -> ethanol production method in the USA.)
However, the compromises they made for this fuel in the engine are sad: the engine can run regular el-cheapo pump gas (aka u87) just fine due to its use of normal (low) compression ratios. If dodge had only decided to bump up the compression ration so that it required either e85 or u92, I suspect it would be much more competitive (it currently gets about 18.5 mpg best case on the highway using u87 and about 15.8mpg under similar conditions running e85.)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[bhtooefr]

The Routan isn't the "US variant of the Touran" (and the Touran is far smaller, the Sharan is a far better comparison,) it's a Dodge Caravan with a VW badge.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[bhtooefr]

The weird thing is, the original DSG transmissions were very, very quick. I've driven a 2006 Jetta TDI and saw none of that, and then a 2009 Jetta TDI and got exactly what you describe. For some reason, in the past few years, they started making the tuning suck. That said, there may be newer code that resolves that problem, IIRC the VW dealers in the US have such code for the 2009+ TDIs.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[pnewhook]

Not a chance, unless "the speed limit" is very low.

I'm talking in town speed limits. No I can out accelerate most cars because I've got max torque at zero (from the battery), and my CVT means I don't have any transmission shift lag. Many times I find I have to lay up on the gas because the car in front of me slows down suddenly as it shits to the next gear.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

The power curve is fine to use too. Most of the "torque is everything, horsepower doesn't matter" guys forget that we have this thing called gears that lets us convert from one to the other!

Re:Diesels already do this.

[bhtooefr]

As of 2005, 42% of stations in the US sold diesel: http://www.dieselforum.org/news-center/pdfs/March2005.pdf

Here in Ohio, I haven't had a problem finding it. Some stations sell it, some don't, but I'm never too far from a station that does sell it. And, almost every BP station that's been renovated around here has been installing a diesel nozzle at every pump. (Myself, I fuel at an unattended station that has a biodiesel pump.)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[bhtooefr]

I have a 1999.5 Golf TDI that, with only minor mods, could get to well above the speed limit on even short uphill ramps if I pushed it, wide open throttle shifting at 4000.

Of course, now it's chipped. So it gets even further above the speed limit when driving it hard, and hits the speed limit while driving it moderately no problem.

Original 0-60 rating? 11-12 seconds.

For that matter, as long as there wasn't some bluehair in a Buick going 35, I could take most ramps and get to the speed limit in my 17.0 second (advertised at 17.5) 1986 Golf 1.6 diesel. (Some ramps, I couldn't, and if there was a bluehair, I was screwed on even the longest ramps.) Still, because of the bluehairs and idiots talking on their phones, it was dangerously slow.

The trick is, though, almost nobody goes 0-60 wide open throttle.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[bhtooefr]

At legal speed limits for semis in most parts of the country, a safe distance is still well within drafting range.

At 55 MPH, you're only 242 feet away with a 3 second gap, which is widely considered safe in dry conditions.

65, it goes out to 286 feet.

70, it goes out to 308 feet. 300 feet is still close enough to get some drafting effect, at least in a car the size of a VW TDI.

If you drop things to a 2 second gap (which many people do in regular driving, and you're gonna get stopped faster than the semi if something happens anyway,) it gets better. 205 feet at 70, 190 feet at 65, 161 feet at 55.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[pnewhook]

The only stinky, noisy, and smoke-spewing diesels I see fall into two categories: a) old & poorly maintained engines, and b) pickups owned by rednecks who think belching black smoke and making noise is "cool".

Really? Then why would there be scientific papers describing the problem of particulate emissions from diesel engines? It is a well known fact that there are far more emissions from diesel than a regular gasoline engine. That's why there are so few diesel cars available for sale in north america - they don't pass emission standards.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[pnewhook]

It is a well known fact that there are far more emissions from diesel than a regular gasoline engine. That's why there are so few diesel cars available for sale in north america - they don't pass emission standards.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[MichaelSmith]

Ah thats interesting. We took the car back two weeks after it was delivered to have a sun shade installed. Without telling us the dealer installed a firmware upgrade. I tried to get the mechanic to tell me the version number so that I could get an idea of how many changes were being pushed out, but he wouldn't tell me.

I will keep raising this with the dealer (I am in Australia) so maybe we can get our hands on newer, better software.

While they were flashing the Jetta they gave us a 2009 Golf to drive around. In a shopping centre car park it actually hunted between second and third gear with a period of about a second. Couldn't make up its mind. Needs more hysteresis.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[drinkypoo]

Diesel is also arguably dirtier than gasoline. It's a bit of tradeoff.

PetroDiesel #2 is dirtier than gasoline; the cleanest diesels are dirtier than the cleanest gassers. However, you can burn biodiesel, and then you are potentially carbon-neutral (depending on production tactics) and you produce only NOx worth mentioning; soot and CO drop significantly. There is no proven biofuel which replaces gasoline being made in any quantity, although various companies are working to commercialize Butanol, which is a direct gasoline replacement.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[drinkypoo]

I live in Lake County, California, which is as far into the sticks as you can get without hitting the border and living in Weed. There's maybe one or two stations in the county (which is sizable) that don't carry diesel. I'd say half of them carry kerosene. More than half sell propane. This is cattle country, some of California's oldest. People do actual work here and it gets cold, so we have lots of diesel and kerosene. It's also tourist country and there's no gas lines so we have ample reason for lots of propane.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[drinkypoo]

Many times I find I have to lay up on the gas because the car in front of me slows down suddenly as it shits to the next gear.

I have that problem too but I have a 1982 Mercedes 300SD with a slush box essentially designed by Chrysler in the 1930s (that's who Mercedes copied.) It's called torque. My car will hold a gear up to approx. 4750 RPM which is massive for a diesel.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[drinkypoo]

That's only what happens when the turbocharger is oversized for the vehicle. The Garrett T0301 on my 1982 Mercedes 300SD spools before I even get through a crosswalk. My 1992 Ford F250 with ATS 088 Turbo kit spools before I can get through an intersection, but it has torque on tap WITHOUT a turbo so it's not a great comparison. However, my 1989 300ZX Turbo didn't have any lag worth mentioning either. What all these systems have in common is that they have fairly low boost.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[drinkypoo]

With the advantage of having no ignition system to go wrong and lots of torque, horse power is a misleading gauge of power, torque is what turns the wheels.

People say this so often, which is really annoying because it's flat-out wrong. Torque at the wheels is what turns the wheels. Torque at the crankshaft is what a diesel engine has more of than a petrol engine. Between the two is a gearbox that makes your argument invalid. At any given speed, it is the power that the engine is producing that determines the torque at the wheels.

Okay, so I've driven a bunch of cars and trucks, diesel and gas. And what I have observed is that it most certainly does matter. See, a given diesel engine doesn't necessarily have more torque than a given gasser. What it necessarily has more of is compression, which means that it can make more torque at low RPMs. This makes a dramatic difference in driving; even though the OM617 engine in my 1982 MBZ 300SD has only 120 horsepower and 170 ft-lb, it provides performance similar to most insipid American V8 gasser luxury cars. It makes torque very low, then I run it up to the line during heavy acceleration, finally making some horsepower someplace in the higher end. Torque converter dumps, and then I begin again.

An engine with peak torque at much higher than typical cruising RPMs may potentially have much higher performance but it will still feel sluggish if you refuse to drop a gear or two to reach the power band.

While you can convert HP to Torque and vice versa pretty readily, in practice it leads to a lot of shifting and an unacceptable top speed. 18 wheelers don't (most often) have diesels because they put out more horsepower, because they don't. They have diesels because diesels have more torque, and that's what you need to pull stuff. At some point you run out of gears. Try dropping two gears from second sometime... that's why we still have diesels. Being more efficient in all conditions doesn't hurt either.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[bhtooefr]

Except TDIs hold their resale better, too. Annoyingly, couldn't find actual transaction prices on any 2.0L Golfs, so... we'll compare 2006 (5 year old) Golfs via the various blue book sites.

In 2006, the TDI was only available in GLS trim, so we'll start there.

NADA puts a 2006 Golf GLS 2.0 at $5225-7025 trade-in with 200,000 miles. (Not uncommon for a TDI, and gotta put the mileage the same for the comparison to be fair.) Kelley Blue Book puts trade-in at $2175-3675, or $3780-5405 private party. For a silver (ridiculously common) car, Edmunds puts the value at $3370-6497 trade-in, or $4292-7837 private party.

NADA puts a 2006 Golf GLS TDI at $7650-9600 trade-in for a $2425-2575 premium for the TDI. KBB puts trade-in at $3575-5675, private party at $5355-7555. Oh, and historically, KBB has been low on TDIs, and they still put a $1400-2150 premium on the TDI. Again silver, Edmunds puts the value at $5117-9283 trade-in, $6199-10,840 private party, for a $1747-3003 premium.

So, worst case, you're getting $1400 more if you sell the car 5 years later, and you're getting as much as $3003 more. Gotta consider that in your cost analysis, because that makes the payoff period much shorter.

Oh, and the 2006 Golf GLS had an MSRP of $18,390, versus the TDI's $19,850 MSRP. $1460 premium, so over 5 years, that turns into a $60 premium in the worst case. (Of course, in 2006, you most likely paid quite a bit less than MSRP for the outgoing 2006 Golf gasser, whereas you likely paid MSRP or more to get one of the last TDIs before 2007 emissions kicked in, and the TDI wouldn't be available until 2009 (expected for 2008,) but I digress.)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[bhtooefr]

Nope. That was only for 2004-2006, and those were sold here. You might be thinking of the 2007 and 2008 Jetta TDIs, which weren't sold in the US because the US matched the 2004-2006 California standards, and VW had to do a ton more engineering to get the engine to be suitable again.

Car-2 is sold in California, it's the 2011 Golf TDI in this case, I believe.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[bhtooefr]

And now we have the very quiet diesel engines, too.

(Our fuel is still crap, though. Poor lubricity (which is blowing up the high pressure pumps on said very quiet diesel engines,) low cetane (so it takes longer to burn.))

Re:Diesels already do this.

[PopeRatzo]

And then to add insult to injury the emissions standards got thrown in

I seem to recall there being emissions standards in '95.

And my '95 Mazda has airbags, power windows/locks/mirrors, ABS.

No, you've got to do better than "more features" when explaining the fact that cars haven't gotten significantly more efficient in the past 15 years.

Although I have noticed that the Honda Accord looks like it's grown about a meter in length during that time. But I wonder if that's just for the US market, and why.

People buy what marketers tell them to buy. And why are the car companies trying to sell us bigger, less efficient cars?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[RichiH]

> I'd give you a quote and link you to Wikipedia, but /.'s new comment system sucks and won't let me paste anything.

I noticed a small icon in the upper right. I clicked it and could turn of dynamic this and bullshit that. Now, everything is back to normal. I am using the text version though. YMMV.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[RichiH]

> is considerably less safe if you get in an accident with a larger vehicle.

Not true, unless you are billiarded off the street. Someone in a rear-ended Smart does have a problem, but from the sides & front, it is incredibly sturdy. They are using the same crash boxes to eat up energy as F1 cars.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[RichiH]

My BMW 320d spins up to 5000. It's torque at low RPMs sucks, though. And yes, it drives "like on gas".

Re:Diesels already do this.

[RichiH]

Boy, am I glad I am using Metric. I never even thought of this in this context.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[RichiH]

And I can create more torque with a nuke. Your point being?

That neither your spanner nor my nuke fit into a car and can power it consistently and independently over long distances? Ah, I see.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[RichiH]

> all that torque at low revs

My BMW 320d has shit torque in the low RPMs. But it spins up to 5000. Don't ask me why/how, but that's how it is.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[commodore64_love]

>>>Diesel is also arguably dirtier than gasoline

VW and Ford have both produced diesels that pass SULEV (super-ultra-low-emissions) qualification. They did it by filtering out the NOx and Soot. Unfortunately neither is for sale right now, since both companies decided ULEV was "good enough" and cheaper to produce.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Rising Ape]

The point is that torque is not, by itself, a relevant quantity for determining a car's performance. You can change torque as much as you like with gears. Power, on the other hand, is quite useful - a single power figure doesn't provide a complete picture but it's a lot closer.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Smauler]

In the UK, nearly all petrol (gasoline) retailers offer high octane varients (at a few pence more per litre). Tesco, the biggest supermarket, offers the highest octane (if I'm not mistaken), at 99 RON. I'm not sure what that'd be in the US system, about 94-95 I'd guess, since MON is about 10 lower than RON generally for petrol. Just having had a quick look around, BP seems to have a 102 RON varient as well, which I didn't know about, not sure how available it is... looks to be about 97-98 octane in the US system.

We're completely mixed up in terms of units in the UK - petrol is sold by the litre (AFAIK it's actually illegal to sell it in gallons now), yet everyone uses mpg to judge fuel use. The official way to measure it is l/km, but no one uses this. It's proper madness...

Re:Diesels already do this.

[leenks]

Yeah, we all drive the nuts off our cars to get from 0-60 as fast as possible.

In real world driving the diesel makes much more sense.

And anyway, the 2.0FSI Golf is pretty much comparable to the 2.0TDI in terms of 0-60 speed (8.6/8.9s vs 9.0/9.2s depending on configuration).

Re:Diesels already do this.

[leenks]

There are more people in the UK that feel they can't drive an auto than feel they can't drive a manual. I'm assuming the GG...P was talking about the UK, since he used the term "roundabout".
   

Re:Diesels already do this.

[leenks]

I live in the UK, so I'm not so bothered about the taxation issues in the US - although similar practices go on here. If I lived in the US it would take me years to recover from the shock of how little taxation is applied to fuels anyway though ;-)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[russotto]

Plenty of diesel cars already do 60-70MPG.

Sure. On diesel fuel, which has a higher energy content. And using the diesel cycle, which still produces copious amounts of soot despite what its apologists say.

horse power is a misleading gauge of power, torque is what turns the wheels.

No, torque _at the wheels_ turns the wheels. This number is limited by gearing and engine horsepower.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[ffreeloader]

I've driven plenty of gas powered vehicles that couldn't meet your acceleration specs

Yes, and I don't buy them, either.

That's the point. Your specs have everything to do with acceleration rates and nothing to do with engine type, and yet you make engine type a determining factor in your purchasing plans.

A friend of mine owned a late 80's Mercedes Benz 4 door sedan with a 4 cylinder turbo diesel that would have easily passed your acceleration tests. That car was really fast for its engine displacement. It would do better than 70 mph in the length of a city block, and a couple of seconds faster than your time limit. The same goes for the 80's turbo diesel Misubishi 4 wheel drive pickup old man drove for years.

Engine type has nothing to do with performance any more. The little 4 cylinder turbo diesels I have driven have outperformed gas engines of similar displacement, and gotten better mileage to boot.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Torque is force. Horsepower is work. Torque is variable over an RPM range. Horsepower is a calculation of that force applied over the rev range. Horsepower is a far more valuable measure of the performance of a car than torque (unless you want to know how much weight it can pull).

Re:Diesels already do this.

[fractoid]

Okay, so I've driven a bunch of cars and trucks, diesel and gas. And what I have observed is that it most certainly does matter. See, a given diesel engine doesn't necessarily have more torque than a given gasser. What it necessarily has more of is compression, which means that it can make more torque at low RPMs. This makes a dramatic difference in driving...

Believe it or not, what you're saying doesn't contradict what I'm saying. I'm saying "torque at the engine is irrelevant because you have a gearbox, but torque curve affects ease of driving". You're saying "an engine with higher torque lower in the RPM range provides more accessible power". I don't disagree.

While you can convert HP to Torque and vice versa pretty readily, in practice it leads to a lot of shifting and an unacceptable top speed.

As long as the power band is wide enough, the torque is irrelevant. Of course, most engines (especially lower tech ones) come with wide (albeit not overly high) power band, so you can get near-best-case performance from them without much work. If you're comparing good engines with well matched gearboxes, the driving experience is very similar. For every V8 or diesel that can pull easily from 1500rpm "to redline" (at 5000rpm) there's a smaller, free breathing, rev-happy engine that hits its straps at 3000rpm and even at 7000rpm just wants to keep revving higher and higher.

18 wheelers don't (most often) have diesels because they put out more horsepower, because they don't. They have diesels because diesels have more torque, and that's what you need to pull stuff.

Actually this is a different issue. 18 wheelers have diesels because they have better part-load efficiency, and because diesel costs 10-20% more than petrol but has 30% more stored energy. If you could go more kilometers per dollar on petrol then big rigs would run petrol.

At some point you run out of gears. Try dropping two gears from second sometime... that's why we still have diesels. Being more efficient in all conditions doesn't hurt either.

If you need to drop two gears from second then your gearbox is wrong. And diesel isn't more efficient "in all conditions" - but as I said its part-load efficiency is better than petrol so for vehicles that spend a lot of time cruising (such as trucks) it's a superior choice, plus the energy per dollar is better.

I've always said that if you want best fuel economy, forget getting a non-plug-in hybrid, just get a *good* diesel hatch.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[level_headed_midwest]

I live in Missouri and I have. Generally it's smaller gas stations in more rural areas that have them, and it's almost always a single pump set off by itself away from the gas pumps, or sometimes next to the diesel pumps. I have also seen kerosene for sale in most hardware stores as well.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Eharley]

You're talking about the 2011 Mazda2, not the Mazda2 with the "SKYACTIV-G engine." While the 70mpg is high, because it is on the "Japanese cycle," it will likely hit the mid 40s under the EPA standards.

The NY Times clarified this point on their blog

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/mazda-next-generation-mazda-2-will-get-70-m-p-g/

Re:Diesels already do this.

[dfghjk]

"...horse power is a misleading gauge of power, torque is what turns the wheels."

No, horsePOWER is the "gauge of power". Horsepower "turns the wheels" while torque is an intermediate, and ultimately useless, term. This kind of misunderstanding is generally a symptom of trucker mentality.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[dfghjk]

For most people, the important metric is how much it costs them.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[level_headed_midwest]

The governments in the U.S. do not discourage diesel fuel with higher taxes. I live in Missouri and most fuel pumps have the taxes charged for fuel posted on the pump. Total tax per gallon is $0.387 for gasoline and $0.414 for diesel here, between state and federal taxes. That's a whopping 2.7 cents per gallon difference in tax rate and certainly not enough to explain why diesel costs $2.99/gallon and regular unleaded costs $2.53/gallon right now.

The real reason diesel fuel is more expensive is because of demand. Diesel fuel is almost universally the fuel for heavy trucks, freight trains, and any sort of industrial and agricultural equipment. It is also used to some extent for heating purposes. In very slightly modified form, it is the most widely used type of jet fuel (Jet A1). Much of the world outside North America uses a fair amount of diesel for passenger cars as well. Gasoline is pretty much just used for passenger car transportation and consumer-level small engine-powered equipment like lawnmowers. Thus anything that affects any of the various uses of diesel fuel (for example, construction) will affect demand, while gasoline demand is pretty much only determined by the number of miles driven by passenger cars. A by-product of the distillation of crude oil for diesel fuel is lighter distillates like gasoline, so when diesel demand goes up compared to gasoline demand, you have more gasoline being produced along with the diesel and the price of gasoline goes down a little.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[r_batty_00]

"horse power is a misleading gauge of power"

No, Hp is a unit of power measurement (like Watt).
Torque allows the car to pull away from a dead stop. Diesel cars frequently have problems passing emissions in CA, mostly due to our fuel not being as clean as the diesel they sell in Europe.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[drinkypoo]

For every V8 or diesel that can pull easily from 1500rpm "to redline" (at 5000rpm) there's a smaller, free breathing, rev-happy engine that hits its straps at 3000rpm and even at 7000rpm just wants to keep revving higher and higher.

There's a point of diminishing returns in terms of keeping that motor running, though, and it's somewhere around eight grand...

Anyway, I wasn't precisely disagreeing so much as saying that gearing isn't magic...

Re:Diesels already do this.

[cynyr]

None, most cars in the USA are limited to 104, and very few will be able to do much in the way of turning at that speed.

Pickup trucks, I'll give you.

As far as the prius goes, can i fit 3 car seats, 2 adults, the dog and stuff in it? I live in "the city" by the way so while i would like to drive one, I can't, as even a trip (like to the park) without the dog still needs 3 car seats and 2 adults. Did you kids need to be in car seats until around age 8-10, basically until they are big enough that the seat belts fit correctly and even then a booster seat could be better? So bring on the hybrid minivan that can tow the small boat, carry 6 + stuff for a week at the cabin, and I'll bite.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[nabsltd]

I'm talking in town speed limits.

So, yes, you're talking 0-30.

Even so, there are a lot of vehicles with torque curves such that they have close to max torque at very low RPMs, and they will act the same as your car.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sure, some people don't like diesels due to the noise they make [when not cruising]."

Like the residents of thousands upon thousands of homes that are near city and town intersections?

Outside of the occasional muscle car without a catalytic converter or similar unbaffled harley (say once every 2 week, get that "bad candy" gasoline sweet smell that lingers for about 40 minutes), diesels are easiest the smelliest, nastiest exhausts out there. I'm talking new diesels too, which people modify to lower the compression.

You think tuner exhausts are bad (and they certainly are a "smell you later" crowd)? Imagine that population doing the same to gain performance from their diesels.

As a person who lives next to plenty of diesel output with semis, dump trucks, and farmer diesel pickups blowing by, the number one pervasive, nasty "smell" is from diesels who have their exhaust exiting near ground level (like older VW diesel cars, and most diesel pickups).

I do not look forward to more diesels on the road. There are other considerations besides simply mpgs and noise to consider. Diesel exhaust has been proven to have shearing effects on the bloodstream, leading to stroke and particularly cardiovascular affects.

And yes, I'm well aware of many clean diesel efforts, like that from luxury branded vehicles such as Mercedes and BMW.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[viracochas]

I've heard this about the UK cycle many times but in my experience is not true. I do 400-500 miles per week, in a mixture of urban and rural driving. My current car, a 2.0l 136 bhp diesel, is rated at 40/51/62 and I would regularly get 54 or 55 mpg on a week's driving. On a long rural drive between 55 to 60 mph the consumption is over 70 mpg. In my previous petrol car I would get about halfway between the combined and rural figure. I'm not a slow driver by any means! A torquey diesel is far more fun to drive than a petrol engine of the same power, and the midrange push is fantastic. I use about two thirds the fuel over a week as with the petrol. The downside will be the cost of repair for when the turbo or injectors go south, as I've replaced a whole petrol engine for less than the cost of fixing either of those.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously a Prius owner had modded you a troll.

Wasn't this on Top Gear?

Re:Diesels already do this.

[r7]

Diesel's actually not that bad. It gets a bad rap because it's used in a lot of truly awful applications, but it's not much worse than regular gasoline when combusted reasonably efficiently

Efficient or not Diesel exhaust contains a lot of particulate matter. The stuff accumulates in the lungs where it is far more damaging to human health than gasoline's non-particulate components.

Other than that, and the need for high compression ratios Diesel is pretty good. High compression, OTOH, is hard on piston rings and other parts of the drivetrain and kills efficiency when the inevitable early wear starts in. Replacing piston rings is also very expensive.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[r7]

* Car-1 gets 27 MPG running gasoline. I pay $3.19 per gallon. $0.12 per mile
  * Car-2 gets 40 MPG running diesel. I pay $3.79 per gallon. $0.09 per mile

Would be nice if that were the sole measure of cost per mile, but it fails to factor-in the cost of higher compression ratios, which A) will experience blow-by earlier than engines with lower rations. When that happens pollution will increase substantially and efficiency will drop until B) the engine gets a ring job, costing big bucks.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[BlitzTech]

Hence using 'not that bad' instead of 'good' ;)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[RichiH]

While you can obviously up the torque a lot, there are limits in gear size, etc. Also, you lose RPM which means the car will go slower. Also, HP is a maximum value.

Let's agree on: For a truly meaningful comparision, you need car size, seats, loading capacity, weight, comfort & security level. Also, consumption, HP & torque graphs.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[budgenator]

Thumb of Michigan, the every station for kerosene would have been more accurately every station I go to. the kerosene pumps even have shortened hoses to make it difficult to fuel a motor vehicle with kerosene by mistake and dodge road use taxes Kerosene is used for heaters and lamps. Winter ice storms can knock out power for days in some rural places and it gets quite cold.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to compare them, you shouldn't use "miles per gallon" as a unit of comparison. You need to compare average energy usage per mile.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[demonlapin]

Ah. I couldn't figure out what people were using it for. I thought heating oil was a separate product. I'm in the deep south; around here it's noteworthy when it goes below freezing at all. We lost a lot of landscape plants last winter because the temp fell below freezing for 72 hours straight.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I better not tell the dude I know who owns a gas station this then. He might go under from not passing inspections on diesel trucks and cars and not selling diesel for passenger cars.

A car that is not maintained will spit out more emissions, your point I guess?

Many trucks you see on the road go for a million miles+. Do you think all of those are well maintained when they get on average 5-10 mpg. No it is because since the 70s they have had huge exemptions on them to allow them to use basically 1950s tech. Diesel passenger trucks and cars are a WHOLE different story and are quite modern in both their emissions and gas mileage.

Also that 1998 paper is one of the reasons they have reformulated the diesel gas. And the reason it is 10-20% more in cost.

Also did you really spend 50 dollars on a copy of the paper or did you just link to the summary because it sorta kinda supports what you said?

Again I think you speak from your posterior...

Re:Diesels already do this.

[DarkMinds69]

Japs were doing it in the 70's...I, to this day, still break 55 MPG combined, and being heavy on the throttle of my 1975 Yamaha XS650

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh, try Seattle. On average, it seems that fuel stations don't have diesel. Pisses me off.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[aliquis]

The thing to keep in mind, is you still need a form of energy to compress the air

No shit.

Usually we're talking electricity

What else would you suggest? In the case of that vehicles they used wind electricity.

But the huge advantage is most likely less advanced technology than batteries and electronic motors, lower cost, more reliable, ...

Granted, this tech + a huge power plant is probably still more efficient and green.

Over here our electricity is almost 50/50 water + nuclear.

the real ticket would be if they combined this with a solar-powered compressor that could run while the car was sitting out in the parking lot for 8 hours, and in the driveway for another 3 or 4 (plug-in ability is for a back up). For the daily commute and around-town trips for the average person, I bet this would be plenty usable.

Yeah, would be cool, eventually better with electronic motors then though. Depends on the batteries.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[billstewart]

If you want to keep a diesel engine happy and efficient, you get it hot and never turn it off. A taxi in the city may be less efficient than driving on the freeway, but it's still spending 8-24 hours a day driving around, so the engine's always hot, as opposed to a regular person's car which most makes short trips and maybe two long commute trips a day but is usually doing cold starts.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anpheus]

You haven't traveled very far in the US, I'm guessing. There are no stations in Cedar Falls or Waterloo, Iowa that I can tell that aren't on a highway that sell diesel. Even some of the ones the highways go right past, don't.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Neil Boekend]

Efficient or not Diesel exhaust contains a lot of particulate matter. The stuff accumulates in the lungs where it is far more damaging to human health than gasoline's non-particulate components.

Thats where particulate filters come in. They should be manditory.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

sure, 2L 50cv diesel. you need to try to be practical sometime.

however, the part about low rpm is true, and that's why I've stated over 2500 rpm (around, it's not a precise measurement, before some technical troll jumps at my throat)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[commodore64_love]

>>>Efficient or not Diesel exhaust contains a lot of particulate matter (PM).

So does gasoline exhaust, and it's actually more dangerous more gas PM is smaller and can enter the bloodstream (via the lungs). It really should be regulated.

As for diesel, the europeans have developed PM neutralizers, which enabled Ford and VW to pass California's SULEV standards.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Famanoran]

FYI. 2 seconds is the legal and advertised safe gap for dry conditions in some countries, followed by a 4 second gap in wet conditions. New Zealand (where I live) is one such country.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[drinkypoo]

BFE is where the diesel is, because diesels do the real work. Most of the horse people around where I live have F250 Super Dutys with a 7.3 powerstroke, it sucks up plenty of diesel (more than my earlier IDI 7.3!) And there's maybe one station in the county without diesel... hmm, maybe two now I think of it. Most have kerosene, all have propane...

Re:Diesels already do this.

[stewbacca]

Since the diesel Polo is not available in the US, why bother citing US gallons?

And that also answers your question of "WTF is this news?"

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Methuseus]

In cities on FL, less than 1/3rd of all stations sell diesel. So you can find it, but not very easily.

Go out to rural FL, and it's much more common.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Methuseus]

Honestly, you're going to have an easier time finding diesel in rural towns and near highways. I live in a fairly big metropolitan area, and if you get close enough to the beach, there's no diesel for miles. About 1/3rd of stations here have it. But go down the highway outside the metro area and almost every station has diesel.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[afidel]

Yeah because you can get useable torque out of a small diesel it's often the case that the diesel version puts out less CO2 per KM/mile. As an example the BMW x1 xdrive20d (middle diesel option) puts out 153 g/km whereas the 28i (lowest end gasoline option) is significantly higher at 219 g/km while producing 15% less torque at much higher RPM.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[LandGator]

And, let's not forget, you can run diesels on biodiesel fuel unmodded, or, with minor mods, SVO. Result; much less harmful exhaust.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[afidel]

That has to do with tax manipulation, diesel takes more feedstock (it has more BTU's) and modern cracking plants can be tuned more or less arbitrarily so it's taking more barrels of crude to make the same number of gallons and hence is more expensive. As much as many people like to knock the free market, in some instances it really does work efficiently.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[afidel]

Stop spewing worthless FUD, because they are mechanically simpler diesels tend to have LOWER maintenance costs, and with a little maintenance routinely make it to 300k+ miles which is about 50% further than a typical gasoline engine.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[afidel]

CVT's are horribly complex with almost no engineering base. The maintenance interval for Ford's CVT was half the range for their automatic which tells me they have almost zero confidence in the thing. I wanted a 500 4 wheel drive but since the CVT was the only option I wasn't going to gamble on it and instead bought a used Sable with the bulletproof Duratec 3L. So far I'm at 142k miles with nothing but a radiator hose for maintenance items.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[afidel]

There are *different* emissions from diesels than from gasoline engines, more NOx and particulates but fewer VOC's and less CO2 plus there's the anti-knock additives in gasoline that leak into ground water. Overall the significant reduction in overall fuel use and the easier transition to alternative fuels (biodiesel) means that diesels are probably a net win.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a nit pick. It is illegal to use red diesel for road use, it works fine.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[samwichse]

This is the third post saying the same thing in response to his (very good) argument.

Note, the MPG he gives in his post are in US MPG (or MPUSG as per his post).

As per UK consumption:
http://uk-car-fuel-emissions.findthebest.com/detail/4669/Prius

That site shows 72.4 combined UK MPG, which is 60.3 MPG US. He may have used a different year than the 2009 I just linked.

So, he already corrected for that, and his statement that UK readings are more optimistic stands (on that note, both are too low for my driving style).

Sam

Re:Diesels already do this.

[PhinMak]

I tried driving both the gas and diesel Jetta wagons and noted a significant problem with the 0-60 acceleration time in the diesel. We wanted the diesel, but couldn't deal with unsafe acceleration.

I'm trying to find 0-60 references online but finding NOTHING. Even VW.com has a "TBA" on their website. In my opinion, they are hiding this fact.

Gas 0-60: 8.4 seconds. This is normal for sedans. Corolla: 9 seconds.
Diesel 0-60: TBA. My estimate is above 11 seconds. Those 3-5 seconds can be an eternity as you watch a semi grill rapidly approaching your rear-view mirror.

Trying to get on many US highways with that kind of acceleration is borderline suicidal. Especially in a miniwagon. we're not talking about some bus or 18-wheeler where people will get out of your (slow-to-get-up-to-speed) way.

In the end I had to move up to the Passat wagon (~7 seconds to 60) and give up having a manual transmission. I'd rather be driving a car without a soul (automatic) than a deathdrap.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[pnewhook]

But diesel emissions have more particulate (soot), and the particulate is smaller. This results in a pollution that is very easy to inhale. As a result, diesel exhaust has been linked to lung cancer.

Also gasoline engines are easier to start/stop making them much more suitable for use in hybrids.

Even the fuel economy argument doesn't hold water. Pro-diesel advocates say that the energy density of diesel is higher and as a result you get better fuel economy (about 30% improvement in reality). This is true but what is ignored is that it takes 25% more oil to make diesel than it does to make gasoline.

So overall, gas and especially gas/hybrid is superior to diesel.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[afidel]

No, it takes ~14% more oil to make a gallon of diesel and you get ~30% better fuel economy. The technology has a better thermal->movement efficiency. As to the hybrid comment, I think biodiesel is a significantly better longterm solution than putting lots of heavy batteries into a car (the most likely source for future biodiesel is algae reactors).

Re:Diesels already do this.

[Carnildo]

IMHO, all non-CVT vehicles should die off ASAP. You need much less horsepower when you don't get "stuck" in a high gear while trying to accelerate. Not to mention the much more predictable behavior on slick (rain/snow/ice) roads, and less dangerous behavior in cruise control. CVT is so frickin' overdue, it's hard to believe old automatics are still being made.

Continuously-variable transmissions are nice when paired with low-power engines. At higher power and torque levels, they've got durability and slippage issues. There's not a CVT made that can handle a heavy-duty pickup pulling a 25,000 pound trailer up a hill, much less a triple-trailer semi.

Fortunately, CVTs are not the only way to keep the engine operating in its most efficient range. Heavy-duty trucks often have 21-speed or 30-speed transmissions for the same reason.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[MrSenile]

Sadly, this isn't very impressive when cars nearly 20 years ago did the same.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/9765.shtml

Re:Diesels already do this.

[pnewhook]

please read here for the 25% figure

Also diesel has problems with cold weather starts. The last thing I want to do is to burn extra electricity on block heating for a very minor increase in fuel economy.

Diesel does have its place though. Heavy machinery would not b e able to function on gasoline. But for consumer vehicles, gas is the better option.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[afidel]

If it really took 25% more inputs to create a gallon of diesel don't you think it would significantly more expensive, especially since modern diesel has nearly as many additives as gasoline? The fact is without cracking you actually get significantly more middle distillates (diesel, kerosene, etc) than you do light distillates (gasoline and gasses) so without introducing additional energy into the refining process to break chemical bonds you end up with more diesel per barrel. Now once you add cracking today you get more gasoline, but that's because the energy intensive cracking process is tuned to meet the market demand, not the most efficient output chain.

As to the cold weather claims, only a fraction of a percent of the population of the continental US lives in locations that get cold enough for block heaters to be necessary. I live in a place with cold winters (NE Ohio), but even around here modern diesels have no problems starting on #1 diesel throughout the winter.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[pnewhook]

Where I live, diesel does cost more at the pump. In regions where it costs less its because of the difference in taxes between diesel and gas (diesel is usually taxed at a lower rate because it directly affects cost of goods).

And if you research, diesel DOES cost more to produce per volume. I think I read about 12-14% more.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[pixelpusher220]

most cars in the USA are limited to 104

Source? I know for a fact an 87 Accord can sustain 118ish (cruise wouldn't hold it, but if I kept the 'accel' button pressed it would)

And yes, this falls under (very) young and (very) stupid ;-)

Re:Diesels already do this.

[pixelpusher220]

this is exactly what the Volt was *supposed* to be. But now it's coming out that rather than decouple the ICE entirely, they just limited when it would help the wheels. So it's still 'just' a hybrid' unfortunately.

I agree though, seems like the efficiency savings of the electric motors should make this a no brainer of a design.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[nblender]

I live in Canada as well and have a 1990's generation Toyota diesel (indirect injected). I've left my truck at the airport for a week of 25C temps. I came back late one evening, -27C, and after a few prods of the glow plugs, got the truck started. No Ether required... Since then, I've installed a Webasto heater for about $600 used. Now I set the timer to start the heater 15 mins before I leave for work in the morning (or leave for home in the afternoon) and even down at -40C, the truck starts without glow plugs like a warm summer day. Best thing is, the interior heater will blow hot air immediately. The Webasto uses .3l/hour of fuel. It's especially nice when stuck in stop/go traffic because the diesel is so efficient, it will actually get cold when idled for too long on a cold day which means you lose the ability to blow hot air into the cab after idling in 1st gear for 4 or 5 minutes... So I tap the Webasto and in a couple of minutes, I'm heating the cab again.

Re:Diesels already do this.

[nblender]

No. Modern diesels don't require "ultra low sulfur diesel fuel". Emissions regulations require ULSD. injection pump manufacturers are scrambling to produce an injection pump that can deal with the decreased lubricity of ULSD (the process by which the sulfur is removed also reduces the lubricity of the fuel. Injection pumps, to date, have been lubricated by the fuel they're pumping. Reduce the lubricity of the fuel, increase the wear on the IP parts; some of which are machined to extremely high tolerances). Ask VW owners how they feel about their TDI's now that their IP's are failing and VW is not supporting them. My injection pump is 1992 technology (Nippondenso) and would fail very quickly if I didn't add a lubricity additive at the pump whenever I fill up. Fortunately, biodiesel is the best lubricity additive and cheap too.

What modern diesels require is actually a "urea" additive which is pumped into the exhaust somewhere to reduce NOx at a rate of about 8gallons per 10,000 miles. No, you can't pee into the tank. Urine has 5% urea and the vehicle sensors require at least 30% urea...

Improved fuel injection?

[Anonymous Coward]

I though it was well known that modern fuel injectors aren't very efficient. Move to an injector that releases fuel into smaller particle size, increasing fuel-air mixture inside the chamber, and required fuel-air ratios for combustion shift significantly, requiring less fuel.

Citations? Of course not. Why would I want to prove chemical ignition principles on a submission forum.

Re:Improved fuel injection?

[aaarrrgggh]

The Tier-2 Diesels have a high pressure fuel injection system... something along the lines of 1000 psi. There is a lot that can go wrong with them though.

Re:Improved fuel injection?

[hardburn]

Wha? Inefficient compared to what? Carburetors? No way, even the most primitive injectors do a better job atomizing fuel than almost any carb. The one and only downside to injectors over carbs is throttle response.

The improved injection they're talking about is direct injectors (which have been around for a while) combined with a higher compression ratio (which hasn't). Direct injectors up until recently have mostly been slapped onto old engine designs. Which is still an improvement, but it didn't max out their potential.

Re:Improved fuel injection?

[ffreeloader]

Wha? Inefficient compared to what? Carburetors? No way, even the most primitive injectors do a better job atomizing fuel than almost any carb. The one and only downside to injectors over carbs is throttle response.

Agreed. Even the old mechanical fuel injection systems back in the early sixties gave increases in power and mileage over carburetors. The fuel injection systems available to day make them look primitive and are very much a part of the greater fuel efficiency ratings that cars get today.

Suspicious? Well... no.

[Rosy At Random]

Everyone's heard all the rumours of the Automotive Industry crushing amazing engine innovations that would give amazing efficiency. If this was true, and with the current climate making such things very desirable for both the consumer and public image, one would expect to see a startling number of such inventions coming out in a short space of time.

Are we seeing this? I don't think we are. Which makes this comment unprovocative and pointless!

Re:Suspicious? Well... no.

[Rockoon]

I think the actual paranoid argument is that the auto makers buy up the patents for better designs.

The complainer often does not know that patents are public record, and when I inform them of this, they often do not want to talk about it any more until they can "search for these patents" because "they must be there."

Re:Suspicious? Well... no.

[hardburn]

My favorite one being the poster's uncle's-brother's-cousin's-father somehow "stacking" carbs back in the '70s to improve fuel atomization, yet somehow the oil industry always buried the patents. Except that fuel injectors do a better job of atomization than any silly arrangement of carbs.

The origin of this apparently started around 1930. The patent would now be public domain. It was never used, not because the oil companies buried it, but because it does not, in fact, work:

http://www.snopes.com/autos/business/carburetor.asp

Re:Suspicious? Well... no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Car companies do indeed buy up patents for better designs... then a year or two later they suddenly show up in the new cars.
I've always been amused by the notion of hybrids, they are a horrible design. I'd much rather drive an electric motored vehicle that has a gasoline/diesel engine that is only there to charge the batteries. You could run the engine at the ideal operating speed the entire time, and the electric engine wouldn't need such large battery packs, because it has the ability to recharge them on the fly as you drive by tapping into the fuel powered generator..

Re:Suspicious? Well... no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Inventions like that will go around for as long as there are people with more imagination than math skills. Even more questionable is using a lot of electricity (generated by the engine) to split water into a few bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen, and feed that back into the engine, and improve the mpg by a factor of 2 to 5.

So what fuel is needed

[rossdee]

Normally high compression engines require high octane fuel, which costs more to produce. In the past they used to add a lead compound to (cheaply) improve the octane rating. Won't be allowed to do that these days...

It might get more MPG, but if the fuel costs more than teice as much per gallon you aren't going to save $$$

Re:So what fuel is needed

[0100010001010011]

Pre detonation doesn't matter. It's a direct injection engine. Fuel isn't injected until it's wanted, like diesels.

Normal gasoline engines have the air/fuel mixture inserted before the compression stroke.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[spagthorpe]

Well, it's four times what my current car gets. Even if I had to buy premium gas at double the price (it seems to be ~20% higher usually), I'd save quite a bit of money. In fuel anyway.

I save money by purchasing cheap used cars. I'm betting I would have to drive the Mazda a long time before I ever broke even on the purchase.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[Anonymous Coward]

98 octane is marginally more expensive than 95 octane.. I only use 98 octane even for my snowmobile so who cares!

Re:So what fuel is needed

[mapinguari]

In the U.S., at least, premium is nowhere near twice the cost of regular. http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/
It's actually pretty similar to the cost of diesel, currently.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[CAIMLAS]

So it is, in essence, a diesel engine - that runs on gasoline. IIRC, diesel engines are around 14:1-16:1 for a DI diesel. I'd wager a guess that they offer (or will offer) a Mazda 2 overseas with the same engine running diesel (with glow instead of spark plugs, of course).

Re:So what fuel is needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure what fuel is needed, but speaking as a consumer on a VERY limited budget, I don't even bother with the higher octane fuels. While Super Unleaded (octane 95 here, locally) here averages 20 cents per gallon more than Regular (octane 87), and seems a trivial cost, it adds up over a tank, and may mean the difference between whether my family eats meat with rice/ noodles or just rice/ noodles alone for the week. As it is, my car would likely have issues with the higher octane fuels, anyway. My mileage is reasonable, about 32USMPG on average, although I really would wish for better....I have to work with what I got, right now. Such is the state the local economy, it seems, and moving right now is just not an option.

Having said that, a 70USMPG car? IF they can find a way to make it AFFORDABLE on UP FRONT costs in this country, IF the oil companies don't try to block its sale here in the US, IF the politicians can actually CARE ENOUGH to put CONSTITUENTS before PERSONAL MONETARY ENRICHMENT, then MAYBE it'll sell here. Trouble is, people are creatures of habit, from the lowliest potscrubber to the wealthiest CEO, and getting them to break habits, even bad ones, will be like pulling wolverine's teeth in a room full of angry hornets.

I wish them luck, truly, I do.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't confuse 'pre-ignition' and detonation (supersonic combustion), they are different things.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[hardburn]

In addition to what the other poster said about direct injection, there has been some promising work in boosting octane with alcohol or hydrogen additives rather than lead.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[thegarbz]

And in the future they add ethanol which actually has an octane rating of 110. This is one of the reasons oil companies jumped on the idea of offering ethanol blended fuels at the bowsers here despite no government mandate to do so. Ethanol is cheap compared to other high octane blendstocks and gives petrol a nice octane boost freeing up the more expensive components such as Alkylate or Reformate for putting into premium fuels.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[atamido]

I save money by purchasing cheap used cars. I'm betting I would have to drive the Mazda a long time before I ever broke even on the purchase.

Shhh! If you tell everyone the secret, everyone will buy used cards, and the price of used cars will go up so that it won't work anymore.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[ffreeloader]

My experience with higher octane fuels is much different than yours. If I run either of the two gases with higher octane ratings my gas mileage goes up correspondingly. Even + fuel gives me 3-4 mpg greater fuel mileage. At 30mpg on regular and 33 or 34 mpg on + gas I'm getting 10% better mileage and only paying 3% more for the gas at $3.00/gallon which is what I pay here. That's a 7% reduction in fuel costs.

I only buy Standard gas too. No matter what other brand I buy my mileage goes down and my car doesn't idle as smoothly. I've tracked this for about 7 or 8 years now and this has remained consistent over that entire period of time. I've learned it's penny wise and pound foolish to buy the cheapest gas around. .

Re:So what fuel is needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets not make people think detonation is supersonic either. The detonation shockwave travels AT the speed of sound for its environment. The frequency it produces is governed almost exclusively by the size of the cylinder.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[Overzeetop]

Actually, the definition of detonation is the advancement of the reaction front at a speed greater than that of sound in the medium.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[Guppy]

I save money by purchasing cheap used cars. I'm betting I would have to drive the Mazda a long time before I ever broke even on the purchase.

Look at it this way... It's like the old argument people had versus the Prius and Insight -- you'll save more money buying a used, but eventually there will be enough used Priuses and Insights in the market to lower the price.

After enough years pass, future purchasers will also then have the option of buying used Mazda-2's. So maybe not in time for our purchases, but eventually someone will save money both ways.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[Anonymous Coward]

nope, the fuel is injected then compressed, unlike diesels. So pre-detonation still matters.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[tknd]

Not quite. IIRC diesel engines use the heat/compression to ignite while gasoline direct injection engines still require a spark plug. Wikipedia also states that GDI engines can reach compression ratios as high as 65:1 in certain conditions.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[uninformedLuddite]

My car gets 17.5KPL and cost me $800. I have done over 150,000 kilometres so far. Mostly country driving but regardless my break even if I had bought a Prius would have taken quite a while.

Re:So what fuel is needed

[CAIMLAS]

Not quite. IIRC diesel engines use the heat/compression to ignite while gasoline direct injection engines still require a spark plug.

Yes. I said that.

Wikipedia also states that GDI engines can reach compression ratios as high as 65:1 in certain conditions.

Yes, but there are clearly DI diesels with 14:1 compression. I was just saying the physical engine itself could very likely be easily converted to run diesel with different injectors and glowplugs instead of sparkplugs.

My car gets 1000 MPG

[dreamer.redeemer]

It's a human/electric hybrid that weighs under 60 lbs, which makes 1000 MPG equivalent pretty easy to achieve. It's also safer, cleaner, cheaper, healthier and conducive to social/environmental interaction.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Pentium100]

If you get hit by another car, which driver will be more injured? Also, how fast does it achieve 100km/h? You don't need that in a city, but going to another city that's 300km away I sure like being able to drive near the speed limit (in my country it's 90-130 km/h depending on the road).

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Anonymous Coward]

But you look like a faggot!

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it powered by your own sense of smugness?

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Rosy At Random]

"Also, how fast does it achieve 100km/h?"

If hit by another car, extremely damned fast!

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

If you get hit by another car, which driver will be more injured?

I'd rather take the risk of being killed by someone else than the risk of killing someone else. Moreover, I have serious misgivings regarding the morality of the contrary position.

Also, how fast does it achieve 100km/h? You don't need that in a city, but going to another city that's 300km away I sure like being able to drive near the speed limit (in my country it's 90-130 km/h depending on the road).

But how often do you do that? If (like me) you only leave town twice a year, it makes more sense to rent on those occasions.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[dreamer.redeemer]

If I get hit by another 60 lb car, neither of us are likely to be seriously injured, especially if neither of us are going over 40 kph. It's very basic physics, if you're in something that's over 1300 kg (like the average sedan) traveling over 40 kph, any accident has the potential to be deadly. This is why there are on average over 3000 deaths per month due to car accidents in the US. Just because there's a tradition of high speed heavy vehicles doesn't mean it makes sense or is the optimum form of transportation.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Pentium100]

Just because there's a tradition of high speed heavy vehicles doesn't mean it makes sense or is the optimum form of transportation.

However, high speed vehicles overtook horses as a method of transport mainly because of convenience, speed and range. You can travel 300km on a horse, but that would take you more than a day (because your horse will need to rest), but in a car, you can get there in less than 3 hours.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Pentium100]

If (like me) you only leave town twice a year, it makes more sense to rent on those occasions.

For me it's very variable. However, I usually like to buy things (pay money, the item is now my property) than rent (pay (less) money, but have to give the item back).

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[fahrbot-bot]

I'd rather take the risk of being killed by someone else than the risk of killing someone else. I have serious misgivings regarding the morality of the contrary position.

I understand the conceptual issues with moral relativity, but I'd say the misgivings would depend entirely on the "someone else". :-)

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather take the risk of being killed by someone else than the risk of killing someone else. Moreover, I have serious misgivings regarding the morality of the contrary position.

I highly doubt this. Unless of course your collectivist attitude has totally killed off your survival instinct.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'd rather take the risk of being killed by someone else than the risk of killing someone else. Moreover, I have serious misgivings regarding the morality of the contrary position."

As noble as that sentiment is, you should probably make it clear to the other passengers riding in your car that you'd rather kill them than the rest of the folks in all the other cars on the road. And you might want to have that conversation before you drive them anywhere. They might decide to take the bus.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[newcastlejon]

If you're driving 300km at 100 km/h I don't see how the 0-100 time is relevant when you'll be at that speed for well over an hour. If it's 20 or 30 seconds as opposed to 5 or 10, so what?

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Anonymous Coward]

If you get hit by another car, which driver will be more injured?

I'd rather take the risk of being killed by someone else than the risk of killing someone else. Moreover, I have serious misgivings regarding the morality of the contrary position.

Wait... so not only would you rather be dead than have been indirectly responsible for someone else's death, but you think that anyone who doesn't have that attitude is immoral? You have some very skewed views towards self-preservation.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, how fast does it achieve 100km/h? You don't need that in a city, but going to another city that's 300km away I sure like being able to drive near the speed limit (in my country it's 90-130 km/h depending on the road).

But how often do you do that? If (like me) you only leave town twice a year, it makes more sense to rent on those occasions.

I don't know where you live, but I drive 70-90 miles/hour (explicit, I know, but it's necessary here) every single day of my life. I live IN a city (Washington DC) and I spend about 35 minutes in a car every day.

My guess is that you live in your mom's basement, and drive her minivan twice a year.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[ffreeloader]

Well, you could also get drunk, fall off your horse, and break your neck too.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[ffreeloader]

I'd rather take the risk of being killed by someone else than the risk of killing someone else. Moreover, I have serious misgivings regarding the morality of the contrary position.

That's a stand I've never seen before. What you're basically saying is that you consider it unethical to protect yourself. I don't get it. Self-protection has always been considered ethical. Why do you consider it unethical?

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Pentium100]

Well, a low power car might take a few minutes to get to 100 (especially if the 100 is (almost) the maximum speed of the car) :) But yea, if it's under a minute then it's OK.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

"Indirectly"? There's nothing indirect about a car crash.

As for my views regarding self-preservation, we would live in a far better world if they were shared. Let me make it clear -- I have no problem with killing in legitimate self-defense, or killing in the course of a just war... but choosing a heavier vehicle and increasing risk to the lives of innocent third parties just to decrease risk to yourself leads to a snowball effect where everyone is less safe.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Pentium100]

Where I live, the speed limit in a city is usually 50km/h.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Pentium100]

But the horse would not then hit another horse killing the rider.

I have no problem with people driving drunk and hitting a tree or whatever. They chose to do this and they paid for it. However, I have a problem with people driving drunk, hitting and injuring or killing other people.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

My guess is that you live in your mom's basement, and drive her minivan twice a year.

Condo in downtown Austin. Comfortable 10-mile bike ride to work, train a few blocks away.

Given how few folks in New York own cars, I find your claim of "necessity" unconvincing.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[ffreeloader]

LOL. I guess I should have put a smiley in there as you obviously missed the joke. I guess my humor is just a little too obtuse.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

That's a stand I've never seen before. What you're basically saying is that you consider it unethical to protect yourself. I don't get it. Self-protection has always been considered ethical. Why do you consider it unethical?

Taking up arms against someone who intends to unjustly do you physical harm? Absolutely and unquestionably ethical.

Creating a situation which risks the lives of innocent third parties, in the interests of furthering your own safety? That's much further into grey area.

Clearly not everything can be justified under the rubric of "self-protection". Setting traps to blindly kill intruders on your land isn't ethical (or legal). If I walked around in a suit of power armor which could electrocute people next to me, it surely wouldn't get a free pass as "self-protection", and I wouldn't be able to get off scott-free by general agreement that any event that fell out of it was "just an accident".

So -- I don't consider protecting myself unethical, in and of itself. I consider risking the lives of innocent third parties to be an action which requires serious and sober reflection, and don't trust myself sufficiently behind the wheel of a heavy vehicle to justify the act.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

I highly doubt this. Unless of course your collectivist attitude has totally killed off your survival instinct.

It's the first, foremost and primary reason my first motor vehicle was a motorcycle rather than a car -- I honestly was scared that I'd kill someone else -- and one among the many reasons I do most of my commuting by bicycle today. I'm happy to be judged by my actions rather than my words.

(Funny about "collectivist"; when I was younger, I considered elevating the well-being of others above myself part of being a good Christian, and modern western Christians certainly don't tend to consider themselves friends of political "collectivists").

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather take the risk of being killed by someone else than the risk of killing someone else. Moreover, I have serious misgivings regarding the morality of the contrary position.

Well that makes you a Darwin-FAIL.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Sir_Lewk]

I don't know where you live, but I drive 120 mph to 155 mph every day

Of course you do.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[MikeBabcock]

If, like me, you put 1000km on your car in a few days for work driving all over the countryside, its nice to have a vehicle that performs predictably on the highway.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah as a "conventional" Christian it is actually a very logical position to take. By conventional I mean the ones who believe in "follow Jesus's example", "assurance of salvation", "hell for unbelievers" etc.

1) you're saved.
2) the person you accidentally kill might not be.

Lots of Christians can't accept this though. If say a nonChristian person threatened the lives of Christian children, many Christians would still be willing to kill that person. Of course if you are certain he would go on to kill other nonChristians it might be justified to kill him if there was no other way of stopping him.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[drinkypoo]

Given how few folks in New York own cars, I find your claim of "necessity" unconvincing.

New York and San Francisco are probably the only cities where the majority of people can operate on public transportation. And San Francisco has TONS of people simply not served by OMGWTFBBQ routes that can take as long to walk as to ride the bus. For example getting from Bernal Heights to Potrero Hill is faster on foot (for me anyway, at 5mph) than the best speed on the Muni, that is just pathetic.

Now, when I lived in Austin I had a commute consisting of a five minute walk. When other Texas residents heard I was paying $600/mo for 600 sq.ft they all were astonished at how much I was paying, why would I want to do that? Because I don't have to drive AT ALL. But the point here is that unless you live in some astoundingly expensive real estate (by local standards) you're going to need a car in the USA. Where I live now, it would take me probably two hours to walk to town, and I would NOT ride a bicycle because I live on a one lane road where people commonly drive like dipshits at high speed, which connects to a two lane farm road with a 55 mph speed limit, and the route only gets worse from there with a lot of roads with poor visibility and inadequate bike lanes. In a town like this where drinking and driving is a typical pass-time, I think I'll give it a miss. Where I now live you NEED A CAR unless you live right on the lake loop or one of the other highway routes (where the buses run) and have a very boring life.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

If, like me, you put 1000km on your car in a few days for work driving all over the countryside, its nice to have a vehicle that performs predictably on the highway.

Yup. Low-speed and/or low-mass vehicles aren't for everyone; it's selecting something contrary strictly for the safety benefits that concerns me. If you need something big and heavy for your work, carry on -- but please be mindful when operating it. :)

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[ffreeloader]

I guess I still don't understand your logic. Driving a small car puts you at risk for every drunk/high driver out there, and protecting yourself from them is no different than taking up arms to protect yourself against someone who is going to unjustly do you harm.

Controlling a heavy car is no different than controlling a light car, except for the fact that most heavy cars are still rear wheel drive, and a rear wheel drive car is much easier to control because you can use the power of the engine to maneuver/control the car much more easily than you can with a front wheel drive vehicle. There's a reason all race cars are rear wheel drive.

You just have to learn to drive defensively. You just make sure you know what's happening further down the road so you have extra distance to stop. Most people don't do that, they drive paying attention to what's right in front of them. Depending on your speed you pay attention to what's happening anywhere from from a hundred yards to 1/2 a mile ahead of you.

That said, I drive a small car, but I do it for the gas mileage. I greatly prefer a rear wheel drive car for the handling and performance characteristics. They are much easier to control in emergency situations when you're having to drive "on the edge".

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

I was only speaking to the parent (a self-proclaimed New Yorker) about necessity, and didn't mean to make a global statement. (There was a fun article recently about a Vespa racing a Ferrari around New York and beating it handily... but New York is of course a special case).

That said, I don't agree that the statement you're making applies to the whole of the USA (even with exceptions... a list to which Boulder and Portland should also be added), at least if you're referring to folks who don't make lifestyle choices in a vacuum. There certainly are areas like yours, where a safe cycling route simply doesn't exist -- but a 10-mile radius around one's workplace (reasonable even for folks who are less than entirely fit or in a hurry if one is willing to consider electric assist) provides a whole lot of real estate to choose from, enough in most places to be outside of the "astoundingly expensive" area.

Does this mean factoring in your commute choices to other decisions as well? Absolutely. One of the reasons I didn't take a recent job offer very seriously was that it would have been a 2-hour commute by bike. Now, I could have made a habit of taking the motorcycle -- but I didn't trust myself to make a habit of spending time in the gym to make up for the missing commute, a lack of trust I still believe well-placed. :)

Anyhow, short story -- we're well beyond the scope of the grandparent, which was intended only to refer to New York, but:

• Yes, I believe you when you say you don't have a safe commute route from where you live now.
• I'm not sure I buy that it's only a minority who could set themselves up for safe cycle commuting within their current communities if it were a goal they were keeping in mind when choosing places to live and work, even within their existing budgetary constraints and without making tradeoffs they find personally unreasonable. Certainly, though, not everyone can do that right now. However...
• The more people try making a human-powered commute a personal goal, the more roads will be built with usability in mind; accommodating a given volume of cyclists is much cheaper than the same volume of single-occupancy-vehicle drivers (not only in terms of roadway space but also parking -- a particularly huge expense in high-volume areas), so it's very much in a city's best interests to encourage if they can make an argument that such facilities will be used.

(I wonder what the individual who started this thread drives -- a velomobile, perhaps? Could even be an Optibike, as it's their marketing staff who put work into popularizing the "human-electric hybrid" phrase... that said, a velomobile is much more a "car" than an Optibike is).

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

I guess I still don't understand your logic. Driving a small car puts you at risk for every drunk/high driver out there, and protecting yourself from them is no different than taking up arms to protect yourself against someone who is going to unjustly do you harm.

There's a massive difference: Pointing a gun at a criminal invading my home principally increases risk to that criminal, a party who put themselves in harm's way by their own unjust actions.

Driving a heavy vehicle increases risk to everyone else on the road, by no fault of their own compared to the case where I chose a lighter vehicle.

You just have to learn to drive defensively. You just make sure you know what's happening further down the road so you have extra distance to stop. Most people don't do that, they drive paying attention to what's right in front of them. Depending on your speed you pay attention to what's happening anywhere from from a hundred yards to 1/2 a mile ahead of you.

That's risk mitigation, not risk elimination. It's necessary and responsible, to be sure -- but the risk that you're mitigating is risk that you created and imposed on third parties without their consent.

I grant that people know that they're taking some level of risk when they use a public roadway, and that implicit consent exists for the necessary risk imposed as a matter of using this shared resource. However, selecting a heavy vehicle -- as some people do -- principally because they believe its increased mass will "win" in a crash, killing the other vehicle's occupants rather than themselves -- is not "necessary" risk, but rather selfishness to the point of being willing to kill an innocent stranger for the sake of one's own self-preservation.

Moreover, it leads to an escalating effect -- wherein everyone ends up driving larger, heavier and deadlier vehicles (at higher speeds, as a risk compensation effect due to their increase in perceived safety), to the detriment of fuel efficiency, pedestrians and cyclists.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[MikeBabcock]

I drive a G6 GT for the record; its not a small car, it fits my family and vacation luggage nicely, but I refuse to buy a pickup or SUV or other oversized vehicle because they're less efficient and don't handle as well.

Being over 6' tall brings a whole other issue to vehicle selection. Most of the small to mid-sized cars won't allow my knees to enter the vehicle even with the seat set all the way back. Many of them won't let my head in comfortably, even without a sunroof.

While I'm glad vehicle manufacturers are making an effort to be more efficient, the 'smaller car' mantra irks me in that my necessarily larger vehicle selection gets harder and harder to find within a moderate price range.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

Well that makes you a Darwin-FAIL.

To the contrary -- it makes you not current on modern applications of Darwin's work.

The short form is that "survival of the fittest" operates on multiple levels -- not just individuals, but communities. A community with less waste caused by feeding, raising and supporting individuals who are ultimately killed off by chance accidents[*] is more fit than one where individual "self preservation" measures make the group as a whole unsafe.

[*] - "chance", in this context, meaning "not tied to individual fitness"

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

Oops, you're right -- parent was in DC, not New York. Reading comprehension FAIL.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

Just curious -- what is the car you speak of? An electric-assist velomobile, perhaps? Some of those (particularly the 3-wheeled models) look very interesting, though I'm a touch paranoid regarding rear visibility (living as I do in the land of heavy trucks as status symbols). Not that a flag can't do a great deal of good, of course.

(I've been going lower-speed these days -- a Bike Friday Tikit adjusted for riding upright, towing a large CycleTote for the occasional Costco run -- but the Wifely One is pondering an electric-assist conversion for her trike to make it our heavy cargo hauler after her Ma Ferguson is done)

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cynyr]

okay, but can we have high speed and light? or no?

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[Pentium100]

High speed means a powerful engine. And powerful engine is usually big and heavy. If the car is electric, then the batteries for it are also big and heavy.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[drinkypoo]

It's the first, foremost and primary reason my first motor vehicle was a motorcycle rather than a car -- I honestly was scared that I'd kill someone else -- and one among the many reasons I do most of my commuting by bicycle today. I'm happy to be judged by my actions rather than my words.

To me it comes down to two factors. Do I trust myself more than most other drivers? The answer has to be yes, or I might as well stay home. The other is, in an accident in which I am not at fault, would I rather die, or have the other driver die? For you perhaps the answer is that you would prefer to die. I feel the other way about it. I respect your decision but I think that if you are in a collision with another driver who is at fault and you die and they live, that society has been worsened.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[drinkypoo]

Being over 6' tall brings a whole other issue to vehicle selection. Most of the small to mid-sized cars won't allow my knees to enter the vehicle even with the seat set all the way back. Many of them won't let my head in comfortably, even without a sunroof.

While I'm glad vehicle manufacturers are making an effort to be more efficient, the 'smaller car' mantra irks me in that my necessarily larger vehicle selection gets harder and harder to find within a moderate price range.

Try Subaru. This sounds hilarious at first nod but I'm 6'7" and weigh around 300 lbs and of all the Japanese cars I've driven my 1993 Impreza was the most comfortable. Subaru is where the Japanese have been hiding all the headroom. The rear seat was a bit vestigial but it IS the smallest car they were making at the time. Also, four cylinder Subarus are AMAZINGLY easy to work on, must be that rally legacy. They DID design the car to win the WRC, at which it did very well.

And if you're wondering, Nissan has the legroom, or at least they used to. But I didn't have to have the seat all the way back in my Impreza, and that was the smallest it ever was (first year even.)

Of course, the most comfortable vehicle I've yet driven is probably my former 1989 240SX. It fit me like a glove, which is nice if you tend to sit in a sprawl and your legs want to fall akimbo, which is the only thing preventing my pickup from being the most comfortable ever. There's a W140 Mercedes in the local yard, now that it's been rained on maybe I'll see if I can get the (heated, leather, power) seats cheap. And the wheels too, I think they could be put on my W126 if I sleeved the stud holes to accomodate the smaller studs, and ran spacers...

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[drinkypoo]

hmm, I just realized those posts were contradictory. let me expand on this; the 240SX fit me like a glove after I modified the seat by installing a lumbar cushion inside the upholstery, and bent the headrest forward. Then I'd lean the seat well back. But keep in mind also that this was a >3" lowered vehicle with full race suspension, and I was getting sideways in it on a regular basis. This required a somewhat different seating arrangement than the usual. Then again, the Subaru didn't mind getting sideways either...

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[MikeBabcock]

The legroom problem I often have is the distance from my kneecap to my hip, not the traditional full leg length issue. I find in many cars that when sitting in the seat after getting into the car, I cannot swing my leg comfortably into the driving position without smashing it against the underside of the dash or the steering column. In many cars, even if I manage to contort myself into position, my knee continually rubs against the underside of the dash, causing great discomfort.

I pay my $15 to go to the Toronto International Auto Show every year to climb in and out of all the various manufacturer's cars until I have a list of the ones that fit at all. Its often a very very short list.

On a note of entertainment however, I fit perfectly in a SMART car. I can't stand them, but I do fit. Headroom, legroom, kneeroom, etc.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[cduffy]

okay, but can we have high speed and light? or no?

See Jeff Radke's Speed Costs Power for a scholarly discussion on the subject.

Short answer -- not really. Which, for urban use, is pretty much fine.

Re:My car gets 1000 MPG

[dreamer.redeemer]

By most standards it's not a car, I was just tired of being ignored the moment the word bicycle was used. Obviously this didn't work as I was instead immediately modded irrelevant then flamebait, both of which not only confounded me but also deepened my fear that humanity is Screwed (despite considering myself an optimist). The car I was referring to is indeed an electric assist bicycle which receives somewhere short of 50% of its power from my legs. Though the electric conversion has been blowing my mind and that of the few intelligent people around me, I'm already ready to cede that a century of brainwash has made irrefutable fact of the notion that any distance further than across the street, or any cargo greater than a candy bar, or any weather at all requires a car. As such, I've begun the design of a four wheel, two seat electric assist velomobile just shy of a Miata in stature, with the intent of tricking people into thinking it's a car.

Golf Diesel

[Snowblindeye]

I wonder if a real-life-real-drivers 70 mpg car is what will actually arrive, or if such promises will dissolve like Chevy's promises about the Volt did.

I used to drive an 85 VW Golf Diesel, that Car reliably got (actually got, under real world driving conditions) 47 mpg (5l/100km). That's a car that was build 25 years ago. Volkswagen also sold the Lupo 3L which got 78 miles per US gallon or 94 miles per Imperial gallon

It boggles my mind that 25 years later most cars I can buy in the US get half of what my 25 year old car got. If that. It also means that getting 70 shouldn't be impossible. Thats 3.3l/100km, and it's been done.

Re:Golf Diesel

[couchslug]

Older cars were so economical because they were so light. Newer cars are far more robust in an accident.

Safety or economy, choose one.

Re:Golf Diesel

[cduffy]

Have a look at the IIHS crash test ratings for the Smart Fortwo.

It's modern engineering features that make for safer cars -- not just pure mass.

Re:Golf Diesel

[johnkzin]

17 year ago, when I drove a Geo Metro (manual transmission, no AC), it was rated for 49/50 MPG, and that's exactly what I got. However, it spoiled me for other cars. I hear people rave about how great their cars do... at 28-30 MPG, and I think "that's TERRIBLE". For various reasons, for this year only, I'm stuck in a Ford 500. I average 20MPG. I feel guilty every time I start the engine.

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to have a 3 cylinder Honda CVCC (Predecessor to the Civic) that reliably got 80-100 mpg. I say that cause in the City I got around 80 and on the highway (even being a teenager and driving 85 everywhere) I still got right at 100 mpg. When I kept it around 60 I got even better, but I didn't do that often enough to generate any meaning full mpg numbers.

Re:Golf Diesel

[Pentrant]

My 1986 Golf Diesel gets a reliable 42 MPG, with mostly city driving conditions. It's old but still kicking, and I'm really sad that it's coming time to move on. VW made a good car in the mid-80's.

Re:Golf Diesel

[foetusinc]

No, it's because for the last 25 years automakers have catered to people's very marketable desire to go faster over their only recently discovered desire to go "green". Fuel was more expensive in Europe, and money less plentiful in the rest of the world, so they focused more on efficiency. Over here in the states we had plenty of money, and plenty of cheap gas, so we designed our cars for that environment. All engines have gotten more efficient over the years, but where a Euro might use that extra efficiency to save gas, we used it to go faster. What's worse is that American drivers now think that if their basic commuter car can't outrun a sports car from 25 years ago, they're getting cheated somehow.

1984 Porsche 944 - 150hp, 2900lbs
2011 Honda Accord EX - 190hp, 3300lbs

There's zero reason for a commuter car to have a 0-60 time 8 seconds, or a top speed of 120mph+, yet that's become a totally normal performance envelope. You have to push boundaries that would have been muscle car territory not that long ago to officially be considered "sporty".

Re:Golf Diesel

[hardburn]

The Honda Civic today gets about the same mileage as it did 30 years ago, despite the modern one having an engine with a lot more displacement, and having to lug around at least twice as much weight due to combination of safety equipment and creature comforts.

If you want a 100mpg car, you can put one together yourself by removing all the stereo equipment, airbags, soundproofing, and replacing the seats with lawn chairs. It will be noisy, uncomfortable, and a deathtrap, but you'll get 100mpg.

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

There's zero reason for a commuter car to have a 0-60 time 8 seconds,

Unless you want to be able to merge on to the highway.

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

Had a 92 Honda Civic VX that got nearly 60 mpg on the freeway, 36 MPG city. Would still be driving it if it had not been stolen-- damn kids! 18 years later, we finally start seeing fuel economy numbers like this again.

Re:Golf Diesel

[CAIMLAS]

It boggles my mind that 25 years later most cars I can buy in the US get half of what my 25 year old car got. If that. It also means that getting 70 shouldn't be impossible. Thats 3.3l/100km, and it's been done.

You're forgetting something significant: emissions laws/regulations.

Modern vehicles would be getting signfiicantly better mileage if it were not for all the emission-saving devices we've strapped to our vehicles in the meantime, because system efficiency has improved quite a bit. Diesels seem the most crippled by these things: you can easily gain 20-40% fuel economy improvements by removing or disabling the "emission controls" on a newer diesel engine, which is already getting comparable performance to your 85 Golf diesel.

I've got a friend with an 80s military Blazer with a diesel engine. He gets about 18-25mpg in it. It's got 1 ton axles and weighs quite a bit - yet still manages to get similar mileage to the newer, half-as-heavy (or less) hybrids and crossovers which utilize modern tech gas engines. Keep in mind that diesels have always had better MPG due to the energy density superiority of diesel, so comparing a diesel engine to a gas engine has never been (and never will be) fair to gas engines. (On the other hand, maybe that's the way it should be - gasoline takes more energy to produce per gallon than diesel does).

Re:Golf Diesel

[phantomfive]

There's zero reason for a commuter car to have a 0-60 time 8 seconds

Oh dude, you have no idea. Stepping into a car that goes 0-60 in 5 seconds is a pleasure like none other. Good performance makes your commute that much nicer.

And before you jump all over me about the environment, I walk to work. So my carbon footprint is rather small. But when I drive, I like to drive in style.

Re:Golf Diesel

[CAIMLAS]

Are you serious? Have you actually seen an accident before? How about a vehicle made in the 90s or 80s?

Those older vehicles were not light. The bodies were made from cold rolled steel, with solid I-beam construction. They were much, much safer than most modern unibody designs, if only due to mass. They got similar or better fuel mileage due to the lack of restrictive emission add-ons.

Furthermore, newer cars aren't "safer". They handle better and are more controllable due to innovations in suspension and steering, and have a safer compartment resulting in better safety, but the vehicles themselves are less likely to survive even a 'mild' fender bender without thousands of dollars in a rebuild.

I've yet to see a modern passenger vehicle in a collision that didn't total the modern vehicle. A friend's 91 suburban was hit by a modern Honda Odyssey (late model): the Honda hit his rear passenger side quarter section. After replacing two sheered bolts and redoing the rear body panel, his Suburban was as good as new.

The Honda, on the other hand, looked like a box of legos had exploded all the way back to the middle passenger seats. It was a complete write-off, though I suppose you may have been able to salvage the rear gate and the seats. (The children in the back had to crawl out the rear gate, because the side doors would not open due to the frame twisting from the impact).

Meanwhile, a full-size 80s conversion van with an inline diesel is going to:
* get over 20mpg, possibly 30mpg is you turbocharge it

I've also been in, or seen several other accidents. My dad had someone rear-end his '78 Oldsmobile Delta 88 a number of years ago: his bumper got bent in. The newer half-ton pickup was totaled.

I had someone crash into my van a couple of months ago in a parking lot - while I was parked and standing outside the vehicle. They hit my front bumper as they pulled into the spot across from me, probably no faster than 10-15mph (but not paying attention). How you can miss such a large vehicle is beside me, but whatever. Their late-model Civic was totaled.

Their hood crinkled like a tin can, their bumper was ripped to the ground, and the cap was torn off their radiator/their radiator was damaged/etc., and there was fluid everywhere. Thank God there were witnesses, because I doubt the cop would've believed what had happened on my account alone. My van had no damage other than some of the paint from their car scraping off onto mine (yay, chrome).

Re:Golf Diesel

[moonbender]

Citation needed. We're getting massively reduced fuel economy (up to a third?) and consequently much, much worse emissions -- because of emissions controls? That's just crap. I've found info about some particulate filters leading to an increase of fuel usage of 3 to 8% -- but even that was 5 years ago.

Re:Golf Diesel

[pavon]

Those older vehicles were not light. The bodies were made from cold rolled steel, with solid I-beam construction.

That was my first reaction too, but I looked it up. The VW Golf debuted at under 1900 lbs, and stayed under 2200 through the mid 80s. The current Golf weights over 2900 lbs. Older economy cars were definitely lighter than the current ones, which is what he was talking about.

They got similar or better fuel mileage due to the lack of restrictive emission add-ons

I don't buy that. The emissions add-ons were the worst in the 70's right after they were first required, and have gotten better since then. My parents got 50% better gas millage by removing the air-to-exhaust-injection system and catalytic converter on their Jeep J-10 pickup. Loosing the catalytic converter on a current Toyota Tacoma had negligible affect on fuel efficiency.

Furthermore, newer cars aren't "safer". They handle better and are more controllable due to innovations in suspension and steering, and have a safer compartment resulting in better safety, but the vehicles themselves are less likely to survive even a 'mild' fender bender without thousands of dollars in a rebuild.

In other words they are safer in every way, but they sacrifice durability to obtain it.

Re:Golf Diesel

[foetusinc]

BS. This is always the next argument - "I can't get on the freeway without a billion horsepower!" or "An underpowered car is too unsafe. I once had to outrun an avalanche while driving a carload of orphans down a mountain pass, and my bi-turbo V8 saved our lives!". Speed is not a safety feature, and if slow acceleration was all it took to keep vehicles off the highway, interstate trucking and Greyhound would have collapsed a long time ago. It's not that fast cars aren't fun - they're incredible fun. But we've let ourselves be sold the idea that they're a necessity instead of a luxury, and it's costing us dearly.

Re:Golf Diesel

[DaleSwanson]

The fact that modern vehicles often are in much worst shape after minor accidents is a trade off for the driver in them being in much better shape after major accidents. Many people with new vehicles will have full coverage and would rather their car be totaled in a fender bender than themselves be killed in a major accident.
1959 Chevrolet Bel Air and 2009 Chevrolet Malibu in 40 mph frontal offset crash test
Video
1959 Bel Air after crash
2009 Malibu after same crash

I realize that is a greater difference in years, and safety features, than you were specifically talking about, but the principle still stands.

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

From the IIHS, in a press release about the SmartCar:

"The Institute's test results generally demonstrate how well vehicles stack up against others of similar size and weight. Frontal ratings can't be compared across weight classes, meaning a small car that earns a good rating isn't safer than a large car that's rated less than good."

They go on to say that they expect heavier cars to offer more protection in general, note that in 2006 there were 1.5x as many deaths from accidents in minicars than regular cars, each normalized to the proper registered vehicle base (e.g, 106 driver deaths per million registered minicars, compared to 69 per million registered regular cars).

The IIHS tests are also single-vehicle against a fixed mass. Two-car accidents, one with a large mass and one with a SmartCar, and things will look very different.

The IIHS goes on to say that SmartCars might be fine for some scenarios - low speed city driving - but that it would recommend something like the Prius in most cases if one is looking for fuel efficiency, because of the safety benefits.

Soure: www.ihs.org/news/rss/pr051408.html

Re:Golf Diesel

[spinkham]

Also, the emissions equipment lowered fuel efficiency. We focused on safety and decreased emissions, not fuel economy, and we got safer and much lower polluting cars with the same to worse gas mileage. Surprise!

Re:Golf Diesel

[foetusinc]

Sure, fast cars are fun. I've owned my share, and they have their place. There's no replacement for displacement, as they say.

But it's like volume: if the only thing that makes your music listenable is to turn it up louder, you're probably listening to bad music. If the only thing that makes your car enjoyable is adding horsepower, you're probably driving a crap car.

Re:Golf Diesel

[nanoakron]

Older cars were so economical because they were so light. Newer cars are far more robust in an accident.

Safety or economy, choose one.

Absolutely false.

Older cars were heavier than new ones AND new ones are safer.

This is because of a number of improvements - new alloys, plastic internals, seatbelts, airbags, roll-cages and crumple zones.

How on earth did the parent get a +5, insightful?

Re:Golf Diesel

[DeadboltX]

"Marty, he's in a '46 Ford, we're in a DeLorean. He'd rip through us like we were tin foil."

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said! Plus a car designed for that level of performance can be safer in the right hands. Shorter stopping distance, quicker response/avoidance. Driving a "fast" car has kept me out of several collisions because I could safely avoid the other car that did something stupid.

Re:Golf Diesel

[jelizondo]

Hey, dude! Getting down to your mom's basement doesn't count as "walking to work"!

Remember that at ./ we know!

Sorry for the joke. I completely agree with you, a nice V8 has no comparison in sound, acceleration and moving a large, massive car.

Re:Golf Diesel

[rrohbeck]

When did driving get any faster? It's still 65, right? OK, maybe 80 at times. So everybody is running their engine at maybe 10% of rated power, with heavy throttle losses, driving the efficiency into the ground.
That's why today's big gas engines are so inefficient and need hybrid tech. You control a Diesel (and maybe a DI gas engine, dunno) by injecting less fuel, not by throttling its air intake.

Re:Golf Diesel

[rrohbeck]

Sure, if you can't drive and are unable to adjust your speed while you're on the on-ramp.

Re:Golf Diesel

[electrosoccertux]

Sure, fast cars are fun. I've owned my share, and they have their place. There's no replacement for displacement, as they say.

But it's like volume: if the only thing that makes your music listenable is to turn it up louder, you're probably listening to bad music. If the only thing that makes your car enjoyable is adding horsepower, you're probably driving a crap car.

In spite of that being a car analogy, I'm still completely lost as to the parallel. Can you explain why more horsepower = more fun is a problem?

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

"Those older vehicles were not light. The bodies were made from cold rolled steel, with solid I-beam construction."

Actually, the weight of an average car has not changed significantly. Look it up. Be sure to compare similar classes of vehicles. Older cars were best described as hollow. They looked big but had no substance. And what substance they had killed their occupants.

"They were much, much safer than most modern unibody designs, if only due to mass."

You are incredibly ignorant. And completely wrong. Unibody designs are much safer. They are designed to absorb energy rather than transmit it. It saves lives. Mass does not save lives. Mass can certainly take lives.

"They got similar or better fuel mileage due to the lack of restrictive emission add-ons."

This is true. Emissions equipment adds weight. And reduces mileage. Also reduces pollution and respiratory illness and death. Newer cars also weigh more because of all the comfort features we have added over the years. And the safety features. And we insist on driving larger cars.

"Furthermore, newer cars aren't "safer". They handle better and are more controllable due to innovations in suspension and steering, and have a safer compartment resulting in better safety, but the vehicles themselves are less likely to survive even a 'mild' fender bender without thousands of dollars in a rebuild."

My mistake, you aren't just ignorant. You are prime grade stupid. Do you even bother to read what you write? How exactly can vehicles that have better safety features not be safer? Vehicle survivability has nothing to do with safety (see Nascar and Formula 1).

Re:Golf Diesel

[Burz]

Older cars were so economical because they were so light. Newer cars are far more robust in an accident.

Safety or economy, choose one.

My 2001 Golf TDI gets the same 47MPG mileage, and it certainly isn't as light as the 1985 Golf.

Re:Golf Diesel

[w0mprat]

It's not all about power and speed. The most fun car I've ever owned was also the smallest and most underpowered, was a 1977 Mini Cooper. 0-60 time of about 12 seconds after some modification, but compared to just about everything I've ever driven it was the most fun by far. Somehow it felt fast, and did everything with personality.

Oh and it got 50mpg around the city with a good tune up. That's 'green' for you. Interestingly the next owner had it sorted out with a 1600cc fuel injected honda motor. 0-60 in 4 seconds! 45mpg.

Cars to today are more like flying sensory deprivation tanks that do everything possible to hide the sensation of travelling, and the amount of fuel your burning hauling a whole lot of necessary car around.

Re:Golf Diesel

[sincewhen]

and my bi-turbo V8 saved our lives

It's a V6, you insensitive clod!

Re:Golf Diesel

[zippthorne]

Furthermore, newer cars aren't "safer". They handle better and are more controllable due to innovations in suspension and steering, and have a safer compartment resulting in better safety, but the vehicles themselves are less likely to survive even a 'mild' fender bender without thousands of dollars in a rebuild.

In other words they are safer in every way, but they sacrifice durability to obtain it.

Indeed. I'll take an accident I can walk away from, over one where my heirs can still sell the car. I fail to see how the latter could in any way be called "safer."

Re:Golf Diesel

[w0mprat]

Are you serious? Have you actually seen an accident before? How about a vehicle made in the 90s or 80s?

Those older vehicles were not light. The bodies were made from cold rolled steel, with solid I-beam construction. They were much, much safer than most modern unibody designs, if only due to mass. They got similar or better fuel mileage due to the lack of restrictive emission add-ons.

Furthermore, newer cars aren't "safer". They handle better and are more controllable due to innovations in suspension and steering, and have a safer compartment resulting in better safety, but the vehicles themselves are less likely to survive even a 'mild' fender bender without thousands of dollars in a rebuild.

Have you actually been in an accident? Those older vehicles (80s and earlier) wouldn't crunch up, while they look better after an accident, the occupants would be worse off. They were quite simply, death traps. Even wearing seatbelts people died in accidents that are highly survivable today. All other things being equal the road death tolls have come down a long way due to car design. So I know what I'd pick over repair ability any day.

Mass? Yeah that helps kill the other people and not you. Then If you hit something hard, or hit something of equal mass you're just as screwed. Modern cars are designed to transfer as little momentum as possible to the occupants through crumple zones, intrusion beams, other crash-deforming structures. Older cars were simply did not have any of this you'd be killed by colliding with the inside of a car.

Newer cars ARE safer, there's plenty of hard facts and living people to attest to that. Newer drivers are the problem. Higher attainable speeds and making use of them really un does advances in safety.

I've yet to see a modern passenger vehicle in a collision that didn't total the modern vehicle. A friend's 91 suburban was hit by a modern Honda Odyssey (late model): the Honda hit his rear passenger side quarter section. After replacing two sheered bolts and redoing the rear body panel, his Suburban was as good as new.

Not really the best example? How about comparing two vehicles of equivalent mass? You're forgetting how cheap it is to replace the whole Honda :)

Re:Golf Diesel

[Gordonjcp]

There's zero reason for a commuter car to have a 0-60 time 8 seconds,

Unless you want to be able to merge on to the highway.

I can safely say that in about 20 years of driving I have never needed to accelerate from a standstill to merge into 60mph traffic. If you find yourself doing that so often that you need to buy a racing car just to get to work, you may have a problem with your traffic engineering.

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

There's zero reason for a commuter car to have a 0-60 time 8 seconds,

Unless you want to be able to merge on to the highway.

Technically speaking if there is a car on the on-ramp you are required to move to the left lane (or slow down) and allow them to merge.

Acceleration is a result of horsepower vs. mass. If you put the engine from a VW bug on a lightweight frame you can make it accelerate just as fast.
The problem is people want massive vehicles which perform like tiny sports cars... plus fuel economy. Pick two, but only two. Damn you, physics!!

There's a couple reasons why an Indy car can hit a wall at 200+mph and the driver walks away. The major factors are mass, and a body designed to fragment and thus disperse energy in the form of momentum. There's not any really good reason why regular passenger cars can't be engineered to similar standards (at regular speeds, not Indy speeds). The root of the problem is that we consider driving to be a recreational activity (all the while maintaining that it is a necessary activity), and in reality it is nothing of the sort. If we really want to be serious about safety, then we should require fire suits, 5 point harnesses, safety cages, helmets, on-board fire suppression systems, and driving tests that consist of more than "Ok, now pull the car around the block twice and then parallel park once. Cool, here's your license, just in time for your 16th birthday."

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

Come to Toledo, OH, USA and take the Willy's Pkwy on-ramp to i75 southbound at 7:40 am or so on a weekday. The guy who designed the on-ramp must have been psychotic as it merges into the FAST LANE!
At that time of day there are always some bozos driving minivans doing about half the speed limit near the top of the on-ramp and a bunch of semi trucks (who can't slow down or stop quickly because they are heavy) cruising in that lane.
I promise you, you will be a believer in high power/weight ratios (to give you the option to zip ahead into an open slot) at that point.

Re:Golf Diesel

[drinkypoo]

SOME older vehicles were a lot heavier. My 1960 Dodge Dart (a land yacht, not the compact people think of when they hear Dart) weighed over 4000 lb.

In a low-speed collision between two vehicles the classic tends to win big.

In a high-speed collision between two vehicles, the driver of the classic tends to be pulped.

The Diesel passenger van with the best mileage is the E250 with 7.3 IDI diesel (late eighties/early nineties.) People get real-world mileage over 20 MPG by taking it easy. You are NOT going to get 30 mpg by turbocharging, although you MIGHT get 30 mpg by switching to a 3:1 axle (stock is typ. 3.55:1, sometimes 3.73:1, occasionally 4.11) and by driving it like a little girl.

I have a 1982 MBZ 300SD which would be the peak of safety if I had all the possible airbags. Actually I don't think they got side curtain until the long wheelbase model. It's a 3475lb car with crumple zones. Depending on who you talk to it's also the last real S-Class (Some say W140.)

Re:Golf Diesel

[bhtooefr]

More horsepower = more fun isn't a problem.

It's when less horsepower = !fun (as opposed to less horsepower = less fun) that there's a problem.

I'll use my 1992 Miata as an example for that. 116 horsepower new, something like 90 left with the worn out engine with a partially dead cylinder.

Still fun as hell (until the timing belt tensioner broke, but that's another story.) It'd still be fun with a 50 hp engine, because what makes it fun isn't the engine, it's the chassis. In fact, adding a lot more power can make it LESS fun in some situations, because then you mat the pedal for a few seconds, look in your rear view mirror, and see blue and red flashing lights, and that's not fun at all. The Miata is a weird case where, to a point, less horsepower can = MORE fun, but still, a car being fun should be defined by more than just how much power it has.

Re:Golf Diesel

[bhtooefr]

Your 2001 Golf TDI also has a far more thermodynamically efficient engine than that 1985 Golf.

A 2001 Polo weighs about as much as said 1985 Golf, and a 2001 Polo 1.9 TDI (same drivetrain as a 2004-2006 US-spec Golf) was rated at 3.9 L/100km (60 MPG) on the highway, and 5.5 L/100km (43 MPG) in the city.

Re:Golf Diesel

[bhtooefr]

There are numerous reports of pickup trucks going from 12-14 MPG to 18-20 MPG just by removing the emissions controls. (Part of that is because of the badly engineered emission control systems, but it's far from all of it.)

The trick is, what emissions do you want to control? Particulate matter and NOx are the ones that the US wants to control, and reducing NOx basically requires making the engine less efficient. (And then it requires burning more fuel in a catalyst instead of in the engine to burn off the particulate matter and trapped NOx.)

If you want to control CO2, like Europe does, then you need to lower fuel consumption. If you just care about lowering particulate matter, lowering fuel consumption will probably work. But NOx is a weird beast. The hotter things get (read: the more efficient things get,) the more NOx you generate.

Re:Golf Diesel

[throbber]

This one is pretty good too:

http://www.streetfire.net/video/5th-gear-crash-test-between-a-old-car-and-a-new_134903.htm

Re:Golf Diesel

[electrosoccertux]

Sorry, but I disagree. Acceleration is the most fun part.

Re:Golf Diesel

[couchslug]

"American-business-talking-point-regurgitator or autonomous thought, choose one."

Owner of various A1 and A2-bodied VWs, and experienced mechanic. :)

Re:Golf Diesel

[couchslug]

"Those older vehicles were not light."

The very economical cars like the VW Diesel ARE light! You are comparing the tanks of that era, not the econoboxes like the Rabbit.

"Furthermore, newer cars aren't "safer"."

Crash tests (and casualty rates) beg to differ. That are different from "fender benders" where heavily built vehicles win at low velocity impacts.

I have a 1986 crew cab C-30 wrecker with a push bumper made of I-beam. The cross brace is one-piece of railroad rail which is a counterweight for towing. It isn't soft, but the OTHER systems that truck doesn't have, such as a robust cab, air bags, etc matter greatly in crashes.

I've cut up and parted out at least a couple hundred vehicles including MANY wrecks over the years. One sees far fewer bloody vehicles, or interiors showing impacts from flail injuries, nowadays. (I like my 1970s/80s trucks, but wouldn't like to flail against that metal interior in a crash.)

"They handle better and are more controllable due to innovations in suspension and steering, and have a safer compartment resulting in better safety, but the vehicles themselves are less likely to survive even a 'mild' fender bender without thousands of dollars in a rebuild."

That compartment works well, as does the design which sacrifices the "crush zones" to protect the passengers by absorbing energy. The "crew" lives, the vehicle is expendable. A total loss (which often is merely an insurance writeoff, I've repaired enough of them) of vehicle is preferable to increased injuries to passengers. (A similar philosophy is used in mine-resistant vehicles, where the suspension is designed to be blown off so it doesn't tamp blast.)

"Crushed" crush zones mean the vehicle did its job. Scattered plastic such as bumper covers reflect that the metal went into the unibody or body and frame.

Re:Golf Diesel

[m85476585]

I can think of one time I was in a situation where more power would have been necessary for safety. I was getting back on the interstate after stopping for gas in west Texas, where the speed limit is 80mph, and the idiot in front of me decides to go 25mph. This is obviously an unsafe situation with traffic coming up behind me at 80mph, and only one other lane for them to move into. If someone wasn't fully paying attention or expecting something unusual, they might not have reacted until it was too late, and it's easy to loose focus when you are driving on an absolutely straight, flat road all day.

So I only had a few choices. I could keep following this guy, which would not be smart, or I could pull off into the emergency lane, which wouldn't put me in any better of a position later (I wouldn't want to accelerate in the emergency lane- too much debris), or I could pass this guy. Luckily traffic was light enough that I could pass safely, even in my economy car. It took a while, but I eventually hit 80mph. Had there been more traffic, I would have been stuck, at least for a while.

That is the only situation I can think of that I've really Needed more power, but there are plenty of less extreme situations where it's nice to have. On my regular commute to work, for example, there's a road that comes to an intersection with a highway, but doesn't have a ramp- it's just a regular intersection with a stop sign only for the side road. The speed limit is 70, and traffic can be heavy at times. I can either pull out quickly or wait many minutes for a big enough opening, while the people behind me get impatient.

Now I'm not saying we all need to drive muscle cars, and even my Honda Civic is not that bad (clearly I'm still here), but a car with only the minimum horsepower it takes to get to highway speed would not be good enough.

Re:Golf Diesel

[m85476585]

I can adjust my speed just fine. It's the idiots in front of me that can't. It's frustrating that every time I get on the highway, the person in front of me gets up to about 45mph-50mph, when traffic is flowing at 55-70mph. This is the worst when the on ramp has to immediately merge with highway traffic, and is a source of traffic jams when traffic is heavy. Some guy merges onto the highway going really slow, so the cars on the highway have to slam on their brakes, and everything comes to a stop. A good portion of the people on the road shouldn't be allowed to drive at all in my opinion.

Re:Golf Diesel

[moonbender]

Interesting. I've found a few articles about the impact on fuel economy when using NOx reduction catalysts. Still, I think if removing the emissions controls gains you 40% in fuel economy then something is broken.

I compared the California emissions standards to the European ones. The California one is supposedly the strictest in the US. The two standards are very close, for current cars it's something like 60mg/km in the EU, and 50-70g/mile in the US. That said, the EU does have a much higher NOx limit for diesel cars (180g/km). (Note that it's km vs. miles. Different limits apply to heavy vehicles. The EPA Tier 1 standard seems to be 400mg/mile for gasoline, 1000mg/mile.)

Given these numbers, it's fairly clear that low NOx (and PM, CO, etc) emissions and a good fuel economy don't need to be mutually exclusive with a new car and engine.

Re:Golf Diesel

[rrohbeck]

Then 200+ hp won't help you much either.

Re:Golf Diesel

[CAIMLAS]

Get rear-ended often enough and you'll change your tune. For whatever reason, my wife and I have the worst fortunes in this regard. Insurance companies do not like it, and it has made our rate go up as a result. Assholes in sports cars running red lights, people not stopping for a red light at all, or even just a mild fender bender at a stop sign - almost invariably, the damage to a modern car seems to be in the 2-3k range.

For similar accidents, I'll take an old solid vehicle any day of the week. More often You might get the other vehicle's paint on your bumper or a dented quarter panel. For every potentially fatal accident, you'll have 50+ mild ones (guessing). More often than not, the injuries are incurred from the airbags, not the the accident itself.

I've seen people carted away in an ambulance with severe cuts and blood everywhere due to the front of their vehicles caving in on them like a tin can - modern cars, of course. I've seen these accidents: an older vehicle may have been (mostly) damaged, and there might be broken limbs, but certainly nothing requiring more than a paramedic.

Re:Golf Diesel

[CAIMLAS]

This is true. The safety of all vehicles is not the same, however. But then, I'm likely subconsciously thinking "old truck" vs. "new sedan" in terms of safety, not "same model of a different year".

Re:Golf Diesel

[CAIMLAS]

And we insist on driving larger cars.

Not true. In the past 10 years, SUVs have gotten significantly smaller. The large vehicles in 1990 were larger still (as were the medium-sized ones). A 4-door sedan from 1980 would more comfortably seat 6 than a modern "sits 7" minivan or SUV.

To get any sort of size, you're going to have to get one of the largest vehicles available today. Hell, you could easily fuck in the back seats of some of those sedans - laying down.

Re:Golf Diesel

[CAIMLAS]

The Diesel passenger van with the best mileage is the E250 with 7.3 IDI diesel (late eighties/early nineties.) People get real-world mileage over 20 MPG by taking it easy. You are NOT going to get 30 mpg by turbocharging, although you MIGHT get 30 mpg by switching to a 3:1 axle (stock is typ. 3.55:1, sometimes 3.73:1, occasionally 4.11) and by driving it like a little girl.

I wasn't thinking stock; I was thinking custom E150 - different trans, different engine. Something like a turbo'd inline 4 Windsor on a manual 5 speed or a Cummins 4BT.

I really wish Ford had come out with that 4 cylinder powerstroke for the Ranger.

Re:Golf Diesel

[CAIMLAS]

Crash tests (and casualty rates) beg to differ. That are different from "fender benders" where heavily built vehicles win at low velocity impacts.

Maybe. I've seen these older vehicles hit some pretty immovable objects (1500lb+ bull cow) at high speeds without destroying them. In fact, a little radiator goop and new headlamps (in the above case) and the vehicle drove away. The passenger was fine.

Re:Golf Diesel

[drinkypoo]

I really wish Ford had come out with that 4 cylinder powerstroke for the Ranger.

If it was the same kind of lemon as the 6.0 powerstroke then you wouldn't have been happy anyway. Consider a Mercedes OM617 swap :)

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern vehicles crumpling like tin cans is intentional, the car crumpling up absorbs the energy that would be transmitted to you otherwise with the more rigid frame on an old car. You have just happened to be in accidents that are minor enough that you wouldn't be injured in any car, no matter how poorly designed.

Highway deaths are at their lowest in 60 years, despite much higher speeds and speed limits in many states, much larger cars (at least since the 80s), much more powerful cars (a V6 Camry has more power than a mid 90s V8 Camaro), and greatly increased traffic and road use. Clearly these "tin can" cars are doing something right. You can't just disregard decades of progress in engineering like that.

Re:Golf Diesel

[cynyr]

a light weight car with 110HP @10k rpm, short gearing and a well tuned suspension will be much more fun to drive than a Mustang. Sure you won't be able to go 200+MPH in it but taking one of those 270 degree entrance ramp at 50MPH is fun. as is any undulating road. Give me a car with a top speed of 100MPH but with enough torque to do it very quickly and I'm a happy camper.

So a huge car with mushy suspension and 4000HP, long gearing and the ability to do 300MPH will be very little fun outside of a track, and even then the mushy suspension will kill it.

Re:Golf Diesel

[cynyr]

./ ?? what site is that? and how do they know?

We here on /. have to go outside to get to the cellar door...

Re:Golf Diesel

[cynyr]

we here in the USA love the 270 degree on ramps like the ones at Hwy 169 and I394 here in Minneapolis MN. The on ramp is ohh 3 car lengths long total, and you have car merging both left and right at the same time, half trying to slow down and the other half trying to speed up.

I'd link google maps but pasting on /. is broken in chrome.

Re:Golf Diesel

[cynyr]

something something conservation of energy something something thermodynamics something something follow the laws.....

Re:Golf Diesel

[drinkypoo]

Most pickups are horribly unsafe. They have the absolute worst side impact protection... well, except for the Neon, the most unsafe car sold recently in America. The only way you get any safety is to lift it so that you're above everything, and then you're at an increased risk of rollover.

Re:Golf Diesel

[drinkypoo]

There are numerous reports of pickup trucks going from 12-14 MPG to 18-20 MPG just by removing the emissions controls. (Part of that is because of the badly engineered emission control systems, but it's far from all of it.)

Are we talking about diesels with fuel-injected catalysts here? That would be believable. Unfortunately I don't believe it makes sense to electrically preheat a catalyst unless you have a hybrid, because of the power drain. I know systems exist which do it already but I suspect that they are a bad idea. None of them have been in service long enough to be sure.

Re:Golf Diesel

[stewbacca]

While I can second your sentiment about going fast and improving your commute (accelerating ahead of all the morons going 15 miles under the speed limit in the left lane, for example), I have to admit that I've gotten used to my Mazdaspeed3 acceleration.

Now I need more ;-)

Re:Golf Diesel

[stewbacca]

Those older vehicles were not light. The bodies were made from cold rolled steel, with solid I-beam construction. They were much, much safer than most modern unibody designs, if only due to mass.

Thanks for perpetuating one of the lamest myths in history.

Re:Golf Diesel

[stewbacca]

The Honda Civic today gets about the same mileage as it did 30 years ago

I owned a VI in 1990(?) and it got nearly 60 mpg. No Civics since then have come close.

Re:Golf Diesel

[mk2mark]

I take offence to this. There are plenty of cars both in Europe and the States (and beyond) that are low powered by anyone's definition. The choice is there, and a reasonable statement is that a lower powered car will be cheaper. People can choose these cars if they wish. However, if they don't why does this amount to gross denial - and who are you to dictate someone's requirements to them? It's a perfectly valid argument that a more powerful car makes certain situations safer - this doesn't amount as you say to someone arguing that they can't drive on the freeway.

Also a Euro is a unit of currency, when you call me one it conjures an image of a die-hard republican spouting about commies - except the polar opposite. Although no less ignorant.

Re:Golf Diesel

[Laurence0]

You're sort of right... It's not straight line acceleration that's fun, but cornering, which as any physicist will tell you is also an acceleration. Not having to slow down for corners is even better.

(I also have an MX-5, or Miata to the Americans in the audience, although mine's a bit newer than the GP's and still has most of its 140 horsepower)

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you drive foetusinc? I'd like to know so I can think about moving there. Fact of the matter is I regularly have to accelerate quickly to get up to speed because of other drivers. "Slowing down to let the jerk pass" is not good enough when its not just 1 person doing it.

Take a drive on I5 in Washington (state) sometime. Unless there is a police officer around (in which case everyone magically slows down to the speed limit) over 90% of the drivers are doing 5-10 over. 6-8% are doing 15 over. I really wish I was exaggerating. There are exceptions (time of day mostly, sometimes bad weather) but every day I'll be doing 10 over the posted limit and be keeping pace with cars in the middle lane. People in the left lane will be pretty much passing me on a regular basis.

One of the primary interchanges is SR-14 W to I-5 N. This ramp is posted as 45 mph. Unless there is A) the one random person who drives the speed limit in front of you or B) a semi truck / something with a trailer you will be going 50 mph on this ramp. Even in the rain. Once you start going down the ramp you are in an exit only with 60-70 yards before you can't get on I-5. The speed limit on I-5 here is 50 mph but every for the last mile or so has been driving 60-65 mph anyways and are about to ramp up to 70 mph. You will likely have a semi truck moving at this speed in the right hand lane and your choice is to slow down to 25 mph and try to get in behind him (likely someone riding his ass at 50 mph) or to stay in the exit only and try to get back on the freeway.

Oh and mind you, this exit is the primary freeway entrance/exit for a major community college. So if you're at certain times of day you can expect to be stuck there for a while.

Considering this Interstate was designed for 70-75 mph I suppose its only natural people end up going that fast without thinking about it. But some acceleration IS important in daily driving I experience. Every time I follow the rules to the letter I end up not being with the flow of traffic, which is more dangerous in my opinion. Now race car acceleration times are a bit overkill, but my i4 engine I used to have wasn't quick enough when I had passengers for "normal" driving.

This sounds like some crazy bullshit to you probably but its true. This happens on a daily basis from what I've seen in the last 5-7 years driving up here. So where do you live so I can relax more? I like racing, but I prefer it on the track. not my daily commute.

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

The point about safer is modern cars are because they are designed to fold in a controlled way to protect the occupants. That means more accidents right the vehicle off; but the survival chances of occupants in a modern car versus 10, 20, 30+ year old cars is way higher. So safer is applied to the people in the car it doesn't mean the car is cheaper to repair. So you are right modern cars are safer in every way (generally).

I put generally because I'm sure new failure modes have been brought in and also wonder about the results of road arms race. Yes a small Aygo is safer than an equivalent of its kind from 30 years back but are you safer in one now than they were then given that you are competing with so many big vehicles?

Re:Golf Diesel

[toddestan]

You mean on the onramps that were designed and built in the 1960's and have been used for decades for all kinds of different vehicles?

Re:Golf Diesel

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. An 18 wheeler or a bus can get on the Interstate at a slow speed because the cars have to get out of the way (or get pushed or crushed). Whereas for a car -- at least in the Chicago metro if you can't gun it from 20mph to 60mph in 5 seconds, you can't merge in and will get rammed by some honking SUV. There is a reason why people buy those big vehicles -- self defense. So if you drive an econobox -- you better be able to accelerate or they WILL run you right off the road.

woo

[Anonymous Coward]

go mazda

http://www.carsuk.net/seat-ibiza-ecomotive-does-100mpg/

Car in Europe have been doing that for years...

[JDmetro]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Fortwo

Re:Car in Europe have been doing that for years...

[0123456]

From what I remember the >70 mpg European Smart cars are diesel, not gasoline.

Is the ICE always running?

[tftp]

Please wake me up when this engine can stop and start on demand, like it does in current hybrids. Burning fuel while stopped can never be a good thing.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[JDmetro]

Stopping and starting an engine also wastes energy.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please wake me up when this engine can stop and start on demand, like it does in current hybrids. Burning fuel while stopped can never be a good thing.

Considering that Porsche sells a model that does exactly this, I don't see too many reasons why they wouldn't be able to apply similar technology to this Mazda.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[0123456]

Burning fuel while stopped can never be a good thing.

Yeah, right. Try starting and stopping the engine at every stop light when it's forty below zero outside... even aside from the lack of heat inside we quite often see cars that have stalled in those temperatures and simply won't start again.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[TooMuchToDo]

Code fix. If external_temp -20F, don't shutdown. Wow, that was *extremely* difficult.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[tftp]

Stopping and starting an engine also wastes energy.

It's certainly true if you repeatedly start and stop a car made in 1960's.

But it won't be true if the ICE is designed for that. For example, Prius has no 1900-era DC brush starter, and the ICE can be started with electrical energy or the mechanical energy produced by the inertia of the car. The energy "wasted" to compress the air in the cylinder before first ignition is returned thousandfold in a millisecond.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[0123456]

Code fix. If external_temp -20F, don't shutdown. Wow, that was *extremely* difficult.

Which part of 'burning fuel while stopped can never be a good thing' are you having a hard time understanding?

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Europe some cars you can actually buy already does this.

http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/technology/efficiency-and-bluemotion-technologies

"The innovative start/stop system turns the engine off when you're idling in traffic and restarts it when you're ready to move while the recuperation mechanism uses some energy usually lost during braking and deceleration to pass additional charge to the battery. The outside of this range is equally as crafted as the inside: from the low rolling resistant tyres which reduce road friction to the specifically designed aerodynamic styling, BlueMotion means less fuel consumption, lower emissions and a better driving experience."

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[Anonymous Coward]

I misunderstood it. Sorry.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[tftp]

Yeah, right. Try starting and stopping the engine at every stop light when it's forty below zero outside

It's a trivial engineering task. Prius, for example, has auxiliary electric heaters, and it maintains the engine temperature (and battery charge) automatically. If it's -40C outside the ICE will run a bit more, and that's all. This shouldn't be of any concern to the driver unless he lives in Alaska; then he'd be getting worse MPG than people in California do.

And on the subject of starting a cold ICE in cold weather. Hybrids start the ICE at higher RPM, and they have 100x power of a standard starter. So if the ICE in a hybrid doesn't start it's because something is broken, not because your battery is frozen solid and the starter barely spins the crankshaft.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[0100010001010011]

Were you awake in 1999?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Lupo

The Lupo 3L was a special-edition made with the intent of being the world's first car in series production consuming as little as 3 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres (78 miles per US gallon or 94 miles per Imperial gallon). To achieve this the 3L was significantly changed from the standard Lupo to include:
1.2 litre 3-cylinder diesel engine with turbocharger and direct injection (61 hp, 140 Nm)
Use of light-weight aluminum and magnesium alloys for doors, bonnet, rear-hatch, seat frames, engine block, wheels, suspension system etc. to achieve a weight of only 830 kg (1,830 lb)
Tiptronic gearbox
Engine start/stop automatic to avoid long idling periods
Low rolling resistance tires
Battery location moved to boot for better weight distribution
During the period of series production of the Lupo 3L, Volkswagen also presented the 1L Concept, a prototype made with the objective of proving the capability of producing a roadworthy vehicle consuming only 1 litre of fuel per 100 kilometres (235 miles per US gallon).

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[klazek]

This function is typical in BMW 1 series Deisels and Mercedes A and B class Diesel cars in Germany. They've been pushing it on TV for a couple of years now. Too bad they don't send those models to N. America. Cars are pathetic here. Do they think we would never buy the good ones? Maybe they're right.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[tftp]

Engine start/stop automatic to avoid long idling periods

The key word is "this engine", not some other engine. Unless you imply that Lupo 3L, back in 1999, used exactly this Mazda engine.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[Anonymous Coward]

You lost the debate - you are wrong on what counts (practical and technical solutions) so you resort to THAT kind of a response?
Being a smartass and *deliberately* disingenuous fools no one, but if that's the mental cover you need before sticking your head in the sand, so be it.

The GP suggested the obvious technical answer to an exaggerated problem. Advanced engines have solved the "cold" problem ages ago. Not that it would matter, as you are looking for problems that don't exist, and rely on your "gut" rather than having any sense of curiosity and not curious enough to google for them.. Try Google if you want to know how things work. Reflexively dismissing science is foolish, but it's a point of pride for many in backwards states.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[MichaelSmith]

The honda civic hybrid I test drove seemed to stop the engine only after it reached working temperature. So your 40 below conditions would presumably just make it stop the engine less. A pure electric would be more reliable in those conditions but it won't give you free heating.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[CAIMLAS]

Why would you run a vehicle if you're stopped? Just turn it off when appropriate.

That said, there are reasons why you might actually want to keep running your engine. For instance, if it's -20F below, and you'd like to keep the interior temperature comfortable enough to only wear a jacket and hat.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[tftp]

Why would you run a vehicle if you're stopped? Just turn it off when appropriate.

Traditional cars are just not designed for frequent restarts. The starter motor has a very limited resource (its brushes wear out) and the 12V battery can start the engine only so many times before the charge drops too much. The charging circuit is also pretty weak, just a notch above the trickle charging. There is also that gear that has to move to engage the starter's mechanical connection... and the starter's RPM is pretty low, which is not good for emissions at the first second or two after starting. Finally, this is yet another task for the driver, and given that the starting is a manual job that asks for some good timing, it will become tiresome very quickly. I did turn off the engine at long stops, like at the railway crossing; but if you do so at every red light you can become an impediment to traffic.

Hybrid ICEs are designed differently, and they start and stop on their own, invisibly to the driver. Most importantly, if the ICE is stopped the car still can be instantly moved - there is enough current from the battery to get moving without waiting for the ICE to spin up.

As a few people noticed, more and more cars appear in Europe that are, actually, built with engine restart in mind. I don't know how well those perform, but if engineers want this feature they certainly can implement it right, even if the car is not a hybrid. But being a hybrid helps because most of the machinery that you need is already there.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[zippthorne]

The part where you want to start moving again when the light turns green...

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[drinkypoo]

Traditional cars are just not designed for frequent restarts. The starter motor has a very limited resource (its brushes wear out) and the 12V battery can start the engine only so many times before the charge drops too much. The charging circuit is also pretty weak, just a notch above the trickle charging.

That's not true at all. Anything not used by the accessories is "put into" the battery (for the purposes of this conversation.) Old-ass cars would have at least a 40A generator. Anything from the 80s or later will probably have at least 65A. Anything with power everything typically has minimum 90A. Anything with power everything and additional optional accessories probably has 125A or more. (I swapped an alternator from a 1994 V6 Taurus into my 1992 F250 because my alternator died and mine was 95A while the Taurus had 130A due to heated seats and windshield etc.) I have personally seen batteries in cars bubble over because they were discharged too deeply (but still had enough juice to start!) and the recharging happened too fast. You can prevent this kind of overcharging by a) not running the battery down so far or b) turning on all the accessories to draw down the power. That has negative ramifications for your alternator though, so you should never do that second one. The amperage rating for the typical alternator is NOT something that it can do at 100% forever. Most passenger vehicle alternators have a 60% duty cycle or so...

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[bhtooefr]

And Mazda's been developing starter-less stop-start technology, that looks at where the engine is in its rotation, to determine the correct cylinder to fire some fuel and a spark in, to start the engine without using a starter.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[bhtooefr]

They think that the costs of certifying the good ones (hint: EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE,) as well as the costs of training dealers to service them, versus... American preferences... would not make it worth it.

If certification were cheaper, then things may be different.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[Firehed]

And having a stalled car at a busy intersection also can never be a good thing. Pick one.

Or get a bicycle. Which neither stalls nor burns fuel while stopped, though it's certainly impractical in that kind of weather.

Re:Is the ICE always running?

[stewbacca]

This is a common and highly exaggerated statement. Starting a modern car uses a negligible amount of fuel, and if anything, far less fuel than leaving an engine at idle.

Similar has been done just not in a production car

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always been possible gasoline engines are extremely inefficient. Hybrids always had a lot of potential if the hybrid was a separate engine producing electricity to charge batteries and run the electric engine. It allows the generator to run at peak efficiency. I remember on Top Gear Jeremy Clarkson proved you could out perform a Prius with a sports car if you drove them under the right conditions. Hard to say what this new engine will do in the real world but it sounds likely to be a massive improvement.

Re:mpg? wtf?

[0123456]

More importantly, how much is it in furlongs per fluid ounce?

patents

[Colin Smith]

I don't see too many reasons why they wouldn't be able to apply similar technology to this Mazda.

I do.

BMWs already do this

[Colin Smith]

Called "auto start stop".

http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/efficient_dynamics/phase_2/technologies/auto_start_stop.html

US 70 mpg = EU 3.3 l/100km

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so the Europeans here can read this article a bit faster:

US 70 mpg = EU 3.3 l/100km
US 70 miles per gallon = EU 29.7600595 kilometers / l

Other cars that can do a lot of KM's with just some Liters:
Benzine: http://www.anwb.nl/auto/kiezen-en-kopen/tips-en-advies,/kiezen/groen-en-goedkoper/Top-10-zuinige-auto-s-benzine-overzicht.html?popup=true
Diesel: http://www.anwb.nl/auto/kiezen-en-kopen/tips-en-advies,/kiezen/groen-en-goedkoper/Top-10-zuinige-auto-s-diesel-overzicht.html?popup=true

Re:US 70 mpg = EU 3.3 l/100km

[i-am-will-i-am]

A good, user based, overview is available on this site from Germany (english) Sprit Monitor.de

1989 CRX-HF

[future assassin]

Could get 50mpg backin 1989. Yes 70 is pretty nice but its taken 21 YEARS to improve 20mpg.

Re:1989 CRX-HF

[Anonymous Coward]

How long will it take for "old cars got good fuel economy" idiots realize that they got good fuel economy because they were SMALL and LIGHT. Crash head-on with another vehicle in a 1989 Honda CRX and you are DEAD. Do the same in ANY modern car, regardless of the class, and you have a *SIGNIFICANTLY* greater chance of surviving. It is easy to get good fuel economy if you don't give a crap about safety. And don't even get me started on emissions. That CRX may get good fuel economy, but you are putting out hundreds of times more CO2 and other pollutants for every litre you burn than modern cars.

Re:1989 CRX-HF

[vtcodger]

***Crash head-on with another vehicle in a 1989 Honda CRX and you are DEAD.***

No, I'm 98% sure that the CRX was unibody construction with crumple zones just like modern cars. Not as safe probably although it actually did pretty well in NHTSA safety testing. Cars have improved some. But not as much as you seem to think.

***but you are putting out hundreds of times more CO2 and other pollutants for every litre you burn than modern cars.***

I doubt it. CO2 in particular should be almost directly proportional to Miles per Gallon. The CRX almost certainly emitted less than your modern car, not more. Other pollutants, probably a bit worse than today's cars. Modern cars have some improvements like On Board Vapor Recovery, but the CRX would surely have had the biggies -- PCV, catalytic converter, EGR.

See -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CR-X

Re:1989 CRX-HF

[moonbender]

Isn't the amount of CO2 a direct consequence of the amount of fuel (and the type of fuel) you burn? I doubt a 1980 car would emit more CO2 at 60 MPG than a 2010 car. The other pollutants, you're probably right about that.

Re:1989 CRX-HF

[drinkypoo]

***Crash head-on with another vehicle in a 1989 Honda CRX and you are DEAD.***

No, I'm 98% sure that the CRX was unibody construction with crumple zones just like modern cars. Not as safe probably although it actually did pretty well in NHTSA safety testing. Cars have improved some. But not as much as you seem to think.

Actually the CRX is a fucking deathtrap. It's super easy to get pinned inside of it and it has no mass worth mentioning. Some people forget that all else being equal the heavier car is safer. SUVs and other tall vehicles are potentially dangerous because of the increased rollover risk, for example. There are full-size cars with crumple zones out there, too.

***but you are putting out hundreds of times more CO2 and other pollutants for every litre you burn than modern cars.***

I doubt it. CO2 in particular should be almost directly proportional to Miles per Gallon. The CRX almost certainly emitted less than your modern car, not more. Other pollutants, probably a bit worse than today's cars. Modern cars have some improvements like On Board Vapor Recovery, but the CRX would surely have had the biggies -- PCV, catalytic converter, EGR.

Honda is the master of automotive emissions. They were the only company to produce a car capable of meeting CA emissions standards without a catalyst once such restrictions were in place (CVCC hatch.) Today the successor to the CRX HF is a zero emissions gasoline vehicle. So yes, the CRX puts out dramatically more crap. You're right about the CO2, but the HF will spew a lot more NOx and CO than the modern replacement.

Re:1989 CRX-HF

[DigiShaman]

I used to own a black 91 CRX Si, and loved driving it every day. It even had a nice stereo with four 3-way speakers and two 10" subs. Sometimes, I'd just sit in the car just to play music! For the longest time, I've been a huge fan of the CRX. I was one of those cult followers of this car and like many others, *begged* honda to re-release it. Ya, it was that fun to drive and had lots of engine pep.

About 7 years go in Austin, TX. I was involved in a minor multi-car pile up on the freeway (chain reaction). Both the front end and rear got crushed like an accordion in 10MPh speeds. I was perfectly safe, but the car was fucked. Because of it's uni-body design, the structural integrity had been compromised. With much bitterness, I had to claim it as "totaled" by my insurance provider.

I never did buy another CRX. But the CRZ is supposed to be a bastardized hybrid of the CRX and Insight. That's as close as you'll ever get to that experience in a new car. And not a very good one if the negative reviews of the CRZ are to be believed. Oh well, legends are born and fade away. So too shall we let go of a dream and move on.

Re:1989 CRX-HF

[cynyr]

what does small and light have to do with keeping the driver safe, See World rally cars, and Formula 1 cars. F1 cars are ~600Kg, so 1300lbs and I've seen all sorts of crashes with no injury. Mark Webber's red bull car giving him wings for example.

Or Mikka Hirvonen crashes a few rallys ago(Findland) and ending up hitting a tree.

Re:1989 CRX-HF

[drinkypoo]

IIRC the Insight IS a CRX by name... though nothing else. And I think they dropped that after the first run?

I've often dreamed of having an AWD CRX, I hear you can do it with accord parts and a custom driveshaft. Just for offroad, though.

Re:1989 CRX-HF

[DigiShaman]

Na, the Insight wasn't a true CRX. It was close, I'd admit that. Still, there are as many similarities as there are differences. 91 was the the last year of the CRX. Honda released an entirely new car called the Del Sol. In Japan however, it was still called the CRX. It wasn't a CRX except in name and classification (size, power, weight ratios).

Speaking of Japan, their CRX Si had the DOHC. Stateside, our Si was only the SOHC. While I've never done it, I've known people to shoehorn in an Integra (VTEC?) engine.

Re:1989 CRX-HF

[drinkypoo]

People definitely put 2 liter VTEC teg motors into a Honda. It's a super-common swap since the motors are so very cheap. It's even legal in California so long as you bring over enough equipment (filter to cat, but you can replace anything in there with approved performance parts and a CARB-approved header is cheap) because we have the same engines here, but the engines are cheap because they come from Japan.

Along the same lines, Subarus have complete swap compatibility except for the SVX motor. The 3 liter from the Outback will fit into any Impreza (without ABS, the pump interferes.) I've always dreamt of an Impreza with the Legacy Blitzen powertrain (including Porsche tiptronic.)

"real-life-real-drivers"

[nurb432]

You mean everyone doesn't always drive down hill, with a 200 mph hurricane wind at their backs?

Oh, and that sail? Well, we call that 'bling'. What do you mean you don't have one too?

Re:mpg? wtf?

[qmaqdk]

Give them a break. They just converted from rods per hogshead.

Re:mpg? wtf?

[Rockoon]

At sea level, at the equator, facing west, or someplace else?

Probably not on regular gas

[istartedi]

A high-compression ratio engine is a classic situation where your are recommended, even REQUIRED to fill up with premium. Nevermind mpg, what about dollars per mile?

Re:Probably not on regular gas

[sjames]

A high compression carbureted engine (or indirect injected) requires premium. Direct injected engines don't.

Re:Probably not on regular gas

[istartedi]

I read back up through the comments and saw that. I'm 0 for 2 on car stuff here on Slashdot lately. It might have something to do with not having worked on anything later than mid-80s. I guess I should just restrain myself on car tech remarks here, or learn more...

Re:Probably not on regular gas

[fnj]

Classically, yes. With designs like the one under discussion, not any more.

This is a direct injection design. Direct injection does not mix fuel with air prior to compression in the cylinder. It injects the fuel under great pressure directly into the combustion chamber in a pulse at the precise time when it is intended to combust. Since there is no fuel in the chamber prior to proper ignition time, there cannot be any preignition. Detonation is likewise controlled by the design of the injection system. Hence the two reasons necessitating high octane are removed. It's the same idea as a diesel, with the main difference being that you still have a spark plug, rather than relying on heat of compression plus a glow plug to ignite the injected fuel.

It's about damned time.

[karlandtanya]

I've got a 1998 Nissan 200SX in the garage right now.
This was the cheap POS Nissan at the time--more of a student's car than a smugmobile.
40MPG without even trying, and I can get 42 out of it if I keep the speed down and coast a lot.
WHY, 13 years later, do I have to pay $40K for a giant toxic battery that will wear out after 5 years in order to get the same damned mileage I already get?

I don't believe the 70MPG claim. If they made a car where trip odometer / gas pump number = 70 every time, they'd tell us it was a hundred. If the damned thing gets fifty, that's an improvement.

I could give a shit about the super duper pooper scooper engine. Is it functional and durable? Safe and effective?
The rest is lies from managers and salesmen.

Sure--I'll buy one. After they've been out for a year or two and we see what's the truth and what's a lie.
And definitely not before the wheels fall off of the Nissan.

Re:It's about damned time.

[nxtw]

40MPG without even trying, and I can get 42 out of it if I keep the speed down and coast a lot.

Are you driving your car using the exact route and procedures as used in the new EPA fuel economy tests?
I think you are not.
Drive a modern vehicle of similar size and displacement in the same way you drive your Nissan, and you'll probably get better fuel economy than the 200SX.

Re:It's about damned time.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're saying EPA lowballs these things?
Let's compare apples-to-apples.
The new car is a little less powerful and requires a little less (but not as much less as the drop in HP would suggest) fuel to operate. So, no, there's no improvement to date.
And the yet-to-be delivered car contains a lot of hype and promises severely lacking in credibility. Again, nothing new.

13 years after Nissan built my 200SX, we see Mazda produce a vehicle with about the same exterior dimensions (lxwxd is ~3% less) and a 13% smaller engine. (200SX is 4364x1692x1377mm, 115HP, vs Mazda2 at 3949x1694x1475mm , 100HP).

They get--using NEW EPA numbers and the NEW EPA 55/45 city/hwy spread...wait for it...about 7% better mileage. (200SX@29.5 vs Mazda2@31.7)

This is what 13 years of incremental improvement have achieved? 13% smaller engine for 7% improvement?
And Mazda wants me to believe that a shiny new EBCIDIC engine is going to deliver, in one shot, a 120% improvement? (from 31.7MPG USEPA to 70 MPG Japanese).
By taking the 70MPG(J) as 70MPG(USEPA) I'm erring on the conservative side. "Most vehicles will achieve higher fuel economy on the U.S. test cycle than on the European or Japanese cycles.". If Mazda is to be believed, USEPA will give them a rating above 70MPG.

So, I'll say it again--an idiot would believe their promise of 70MPG. If they get an EPA 50 MPG that would be wonderful.

To your point, if these people deliver 70 Japanese MPG, I should see at LEAST 85 they way I drive. While this would be consistent with the grandiose claims from Mazda (and their ilk), past experience suggests that I should wait and see.
And the same experience tells me what I'm likely to see is no significant improvement in efficiency or performance.

Re:It's about damned time.

[nxtw]

So you're saying EPA lowballs these things?

No, that's not what I said. I said that the EPA ratings are estimates and you need to drive in the same way as their tests to get the same results.

The new car is a little less powerful and requires a little less (but not as much less as the drop in HP would suggest) fuel to operate. So, no, there's no improvement to date.

Across the board, manufacturers have been making bigger, more powerful, and more efficient engines.

They get--using NEW EPA numbers and the NEW EPA 55/45 city/hwy spread...wait for it...about 7% better mileage. (200SX@29.5 [fueleconomy.gov] vs Mazda2@31.7 [fueleconomy.gov])

Old vehicles were not retested with the new EPA tests; the new EPA estimates are guesses based on the previous test results.

By taking the 70MPG(J) as 70MPG(USEPA) I'm erring on the conservative side. "Most vehicles will achieve higher fuel economy on the U.S. test cycle than on the European or Japanese cycles." [ornl.gov]. If Mazda is to be believed, USEPA will give them a rating above 70MPG.

This document is from before the new EPA tests were created.

Re:mpg? wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'd tell you if I knew, but I'm too busy downloading ft.-fetish porns to do the conversion.

So what ...

[garry_g]

I already run my 03 Volvo S60 2.5L Diesel at around 50MPG highway ... (even better sometimes) and that car is not a small city car ...

While this would be great...

[Anonymous Freak]

I'll believe it when I see it.

Too many foreign cars have promised really high mileage, only to be dropped significantly once U.S. requirements are tacked on.

Personally, I just want to see engine auto-stop added to all cars. It would require only a slightly bigger standard 12V battery, and a slightly bigger starter. And you could cut city gas usage by a decent amount. Heck, assuming 70 MPG means highway, it could probably hit at least 60 MPG city with engine auto-stop added.

Re:While this would be great...

[moonbender]

What's stopping you from manually shutting off the engine when you're at a red light (or in a traffic jam) and expect to wait for a while? My parents have been doing that for 30 years. Turning the key isn't exactly hard work. It seems like the right thing to do, even though I really doubt the average emissions reduction is anywhere as big as you imagine. I also don't buy that US requirements significantly reduce the mileage, unless you're talking about the requirement for cars to be bigger, heavier, more (horse-)powerful, etc.

Re:While this would be great...

[Anonymous Freak]

What's stopping *ME* from doing it is nothing.

What's stopping *EVERYONE ELSE* from doing it is ignorance or laziness.

I remember reading a report when the first Honda Insight and Prius came out that about half of their city energy mileage improvement came from the fact that they shut off their engine while stopped. (Or, in the Prius' case, also when it's just coasting.) Merely turning the A/C on on the Insight (which forces the engine to stay on,) would drop its mileage to about the same as the old CRX that it was obviously based on.

The US requirement one is based largely on the SMART fortwo. Before it came to the US, it was touted as a cheap, small, highly-efficient car. By the time it came to the US, it was a mid-priced, small, middlingly-efficient car. With mileage no better than a four-place Honda Fit. I don't know what they did to it to kill the mileage, but they did. (It was implied before it came over that US-testing of mileage it would get 60 MPG. Once they modified it for the US market, it only got 40.)

Re:While this would be great...

[moonbender]

Wikipedia reports 36 MGP according to EPA and 50 MPG according to the EU measurements (I'm assuming the EPA number refers to the gasoline and not the diesel model). The difference in the numbers is simply due to the different testing methodology. Fuel economy is an abstraction either way, so unless one of the methods is very broken, it shouldn't matter: a car that ranks well in one should rank well in the other.

From what I can see on the EPA site, those numbers compare favorably to other cars. The only cars with a better economy are hybrids. The numbers could still be better considering what a tiny and (sanely) low-powered car it is.

Of course in Europe the diesel model with far better fuel economy (even taking into account the higher energy density) is more widely available. The diesel Fortwo is among the cars with the least emissions (88g CO2/km) available, on par with a Prius 3. It's also way less expensive. (No clue about US pricing.)

Hah. They lied. FTA:

[karlandtanya]

While the EPA hasn't rated 2011 cars for gas mileage yet, Mazda expects it to come in at 28 mpg city, 35 mpg highway with the five-speed manual, and 1 mpg less on highway mileage with the automatic.

Not even close to what we got over a decade ago.
WTF happened? Environmental restrictions?
I have to get my car smogged every 2 years in the county where I live. It passes first time every time.
What's the problem with the new cars?

That's 37mpg based on the US test cycle

[mrvook]

70mpg is misleading for this automobile, as is the article. These numbers are based on the Japanese test cycle, which also states the Toyota Prius achieves 89 mpg).

src : http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/mazda-next-generation-mazda-2-will-get-70-m-p-g/

-- cut --

The Mazda release said the car would achieve 70 miles per gallon, but that number was based on the Japanese test cycle, meaning American mileage would be lower. A 15 percent increase from the existing Mazda 2 would result in a combined 37 m.p.g. (For comparison, the Toyota Prius, which gets a combined 50 m.p.g. from the Environmental Protection Agency, achieves 89 m.p.g. in the Japanese test.)

-- cut --

Re:That's 37mpg based on the US test cycle

[zippthorne]

Eh.. where are testing them, on a ski slope?

Re:That's 37mpg based on the US test cycle

[Anonymous Coward]

70mpg is misleading for this automobile, as is the article. These numbers are based on the Japanese test cycle, which also states the Toyota Prius achieves 89 mpg).

Lies! You work for teh ebil oil companees!

Re:That's 37mpg based on the US test cycle

[w0mprat]

Why the discrepancy? Japanese driving conditions? Japanese driving style? I'm sure they think their test accurately represents the local conditions. This suggests the Japanese are doing something right...

Re:That's 37mpg based on the US test cycle

[bhtooefr]

Or their test is "what a test driver will get," not "what you will get unless you drive like our test driver."

For a decade or so, US fuel economy numbers were "what a test driver will get." Those are the CAFE numbers (and when the government says that they want "62 MPG by 2025," they mean 62 MPG CAFE average, not 1985 EPA average or 2007 EPA average.) The 1985 EPA standard was to knock that down another 10 percent in the city and 22 percent on the highway. The 2007 EPA standard includes some new tests, although on older cars they have a skew formula to guess at what the new tests do.

Meh... kicking a dead horse.

[repetty]

I'm not knocking progress but...

This merely represents an improvement in dead-end technology (burning things to go places).

--Richard

Re:Meh... kicking a dead horse.

[FrameRotBlues]

You are the very first commenter I've seen that actually brought this to light. Many others are comparing CO2 emissions of gas ICE vs. diesel, or miles per gallon... but it's all a moot point.

We might as well talk about the new titanium horseshoes in production.

Re:Meh... kicking a dead horse.

[khallow]

I'm not knocking progress but...

This merely represents an improvement in dead-end technology (burning things to go places).

Doesn't matter, if the technology gets put to good use over the next few years. Remember we do many other things than just use dead-end technologies in a particular brand of car.

Re:Meh... kicking a dead horse.

[Anonymous Coward]

This merely represents an improvement in dead-end technology (burning things to go places).

Burning things to go places is how your body works.

Re:mpg? wtf?

[hardburn]

I dunno. How many acres does it get?

Absolutes never hold in all situations

[name_already_taken]

Code fix. If external_temp -20F, don't shutdown. Wow, that was *extremely* difficult.

Which part of 'burning fuel while stopped can never be a good thing' are you having a hard time understanding?

Probably the part where that statement is always true in all situations. Absolutes are rarely correct.

At extremely low temperatures, you need the waste heat from the engine to provide passenger compartment heat for defrosting the windows. If your heater doesn't work correctly around here in the coldest part of winter, it's very possible to have frost form on the inside of the windows as well as the outside.

Battery performance is also lower in extreme cold weather, so you really need the alternator producing power to keep the battery charged. Winter driving here often means your lights are on during the daytime, the heater blower is running at one of the higher speeds and the rear-window is being electrically heated. Without power from the alternator, you wouldn't get very far.

In those cases, turning fuel into electricity is a really good idea.

Because of the short (3 mile) drive to work and back, I had problems the last three winters with the battery not being quite fully charged and I had to put it on charge at home. I'd notice it the next time I'd start the car that the starter would turn the engine a little slower each time. I had the alternator and battery tested and they both were working at their rated capacities (they have some fantastic lead-acid battery analyzers now). This year I changed to an AGM battery that will accept the charge faster (draws more Amperes of current from the alternator), upgraded to a high-output alternator (250A) and changed the wiring between the alternator and battery to heavier gauge wires.

Had the engine shut down at each stop, I'd have either developed hypothermia or just not made it to work.

Rotary?

[bradgoodman]

Is this a rotary engine, or the piston kind?

Re:Rotary?

[Burz]

Is this a rotary engine, or the piston kind?

That's what I'd like to know. The very high compression ratio makes me think it is rotary.

Re:Rotary?

[bhtooefr]

Wankels actually can't hit high compression ratios in practice due to their design - the highest compression Wankels are usually in the 10:1 area, and they would have seal issues at higher ratios.

This is a piston engine.

Mass matters

[d3xt3r]

See this crash test of a Smart for Two and a Mercedes C Class.. The C Class rated good, the Smart rated poor.

Re:Mass matters

[cduffy]

You can point to some random Italian group I've never heard of, but I'll take the IIHS numbers any day -- being a group of insurance companies, they're the people who are actually laying down money on the matter.

Re:Mass matters

[bhtooefr]

And if you actually watch the video uploaded by the "random Italian group," it becomes clear that... the video was made by the IIHS, the group that you trust.

In fact, here's the article that the IIHS wrote about that: http://www.iihs.org/news/rss/pr041409.html

The IIHS numbers that you're referring to are for hitting a stationary object. So, when you run into a parked car at 45 MPH (IIRC, that's the speed,) the ForTwo does pretty well. Just like most modern cars.

When you run into a car that's bigger than a ForTwo at 45 MPH, and it's also coming at you at 45 MPH, it's not pretty for you. Basic physics in action.

Of course, it's my opinion that safety is overrated, #1 because quite a lot of people are driving old "deathtraps" and somehow aren't dying, #2 because the world's overpopulated, #3 because safety encourages bad driving, #4 because excessive safety means excessive weight, which means everyone else needs to make their cars bigger to survive in a crash against everyone else, which means that everyone's using a LOT more fuel, which will trigger World War III. And, you get cars that are heavier and can't avoid the accident in the first place nearly as well.

Re:Mass matters

[cduffy]

I stand corrected; thanks for the response!

Re:Mass matters

[cynyr]

Yep, looks to me like the C class is deadly... to everyone else.

Even then I see very little cabin deformation, and little protrusion into the cabin. Both cars are totaled, so who cares if the Smart bounced around a bit more? Have a video of the same 64kph offset frontal between 2 Smarts? how about a Smart T-boning a Honda Fit or a family sedan?

Re:Mass matters

[cynyr]

if you look on the side of the Merc, you'll notice that it is a video of a IIHS test.

Not real world experience

[name_already_taken]

Yeah, right. Try starting and stopping the engine at every stop light when it's forty below zero outside

It's a trivial engineering task. Prius, for example, has auxiliary electric heaters, and it maintains the engine temperature (and battery charge) automatically. If it's -40C outside the ICE will run a bit more, and that's all. This shouldn't be of any concern to the driver unless he lives in Alaska; then he'd be getting worse MPG than people in California do.

You obviously don't own a hybrid car and live in a cold-weather area.

I live in the Chicago area. I've been told by residents of the Anchorage, AK area, that we get colder low temperatures than they do. I'm not sure I believe them, but we did have a few -16F temps last winter and plenty of sustained below-0F temperatures. I have a number of friends who own hybrids (including a couple of Priuses), and they have told me that the engine basically runs most of the time in extremely cold weather, and on short trips the engine just won't shut off. The Prius does have a thermos-like insulated coolant bottle that keeps the coolant warm between engine runs, but when you are trying to heat -20 air to defrost windows, you need the waste heat from the engine or to have electricity from the engine-driven alternator portion of the hybrid system to provide heat.

Comparing the performance of non-hybrid cars' batteries to the huge battery pack in a hybrid doesn't make any sense. I'm not sure that's worth discussing.

Re:Not real world experience

[Methuseus]

I actually did a study on this in high school. I lived just north of Chicago at the time. Average temperatures between October and March are colder in many parts of the midwest than in Alaska. One article I found said this is because of the ocean keeping the land warm, since people live mostly near the shore in AK. And Anchorage is right on the water.

I know I had my fuel lines freeze completely solid in I think 04, when it was 15 below at noon for over a week.

Lighter is better

[Thelasko]

When talking about fuel economy, team Edison2 have proven, light weight and low drag beat hybrids with heavy batteries.

Re:Lighter is better

[FishTankX]

Can they also prove that in a vehicle certified in crash tests?

Re:Lighter is better

[Thelasko]

While the vehicle has not been crash tested, it is designed with safety in mind. The Edision2 website states:

Innovations that allow drivers to walk away from high-speed crashes, such as collapsible space not available in other cars and a shape that deflects rather engages on impact, enhance safety in our low-mass vehicle.

Keep in mind, this vehicle was designed by engineers that used to work for racing teams. They know how to make a car that's both light weight and safe.

Re:Lighter is better

[Just Some Guy]

When talking about fuel economy, team Edison2 have proven, light weight and low drag beat hybrids with heavy batteries.

Do you have to choose only one?

Doesn't sound amazingly impressive

[Andy Smith]

70mpg sounds good. But is it a huge leap forward? I have a 4-year-old Toyota Corolla Verso 2.2-litre turbo diesel and I get 66mpg cruising.

Re:Doesn't sound amazingly impressive

[Anonymous Coward]

It's *DIESEL*. Don't compare the two, they are not the same. You can't put regular gas in your diesel, right?? Or shall people start comparing their "Plutonium Engine" gets 1,000,000/litre fuel?

Re:Doesn't sound amazingly impressive

[BrianRoach]

We rented a Mazda2 diesel in 2005 when visiting the UK. Drove it for a week and got 50mpg (average for the week) on diesel with the tiptronic transmission.

Re:Doesn't sound amazingly impressive

[raynet]

You can put some regular gas in your diesel. My Mercedes 200D diesel manual recommends using 50/50 solution of diesel and gasoline on very cold days.

Re:Doesn't sound amazingly impressive

[bhtooefr]

In your old indirect injection diesel. (And, my 1985 Jetta and 1986 Golf called for a maximum of 30% gasoline in emergencies only. Your Mercedes had a much more overbuilt fuel pump designed for trucks that was lubricated by engine oil, my Jetta and Golf used a cheaper pump meant for cars and was lubricated by fuel.)

Doing it to a modern diesel is incredibly stupid, the higher fuel system pressures require better lubrication.

All Together Now

[carrier lost]

Can you say "Wankel"?

Re:All Together Now

[wonkavader]

"Wankel"! "Wankel"! "Wankel"!!!!!

I loved my RX7. I only got rid of it when I got married and we needed a "sensible" car. I still miss that car.

I only did a 180 in it once, but it was the second day I owned it. The Wankel has a huge amount of power for the weight of the engine. That means the wheels disconnect from the road when you turn under power.

I ran out and bought really expensive tires and 25 pounds of nails to put in the back trunk. Solved that problem.

I REALLY miss that car.

Re:All Together Now

[carrier lost]

I've never had a car that powerful. That sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.

My original comment was in reference to all the hype about how the rotary engine was going to "change the world" back when it was introduced. It reminded me of the breathless tone of this announcement.

If I remember correctly, the Wankel rotary had some serious seal problems which were fixed quickly, but ended up dooming the engine commercially - sort of like the Vega's aluminum block.

Re:All Together Now

[wonkavader]

No, don't get me wrong, it wasn't that powerful. It was LIGHT. Nimble. Smooth. No piston vibration.

It was low to the ground and very well designed. I Urge you to find one used and indulge yourself. But it was NOT powerful. It went 70 and made you feel like you were going 90. In normal driving, it accelerated fine, but not spectacularly. However you could absolutely FLOOR it and not worry about ripping the engine to bits because there was NO vibration. No opposed cylinders. Just faster rotation.

It was so sweet.

Re:All Together Now

[wonkavader]

Oh, and on the seal problems and such, it sounds like you know more than I do. However, I can tell you that there was a firm trying to move the Wankels back into airplanes because they can be amazing performers -- they're essentially a cylinder horizontally, so you can stack and arbitrary number of cylinders along a crankshaft. More cylinders = more power. You can get some insanely powerful engines, and with no real extra engineering: once you get to 2 cylinders, you get to 5 for free.

And the power to weight ratio is fantastic. Nutty compared to a piston engine. Plus theoretically less failure prone, so it's ideal for aircraft. That said, I did have one engine just die on me. No fuss, no sputter, just quiet. Had to get a new engine, but turned out the dealer who said so was completely incompetent. I suspect I could have saved myself a few grand by going to some corner garage.

So, yeah, lots wrong there, including failures, cost and the dealer system. A modern version could have tremendous advantages, though.

Because it really was incredibly sweet.

Re:All Together Now

[carrier lost]

Well, actually, it sounds like you know more than I.

But I have to say, I'm not sure I'd be too crazy about an aircraft engine that just dies, "no fuss, no sputter" :)

Re:All Together Now

[badkarmadayaccount]

Who the hell says that's not a sensible car? What's wrong with it? MPG? Is the alternate choice with better MPG?

Re:All Together Now

[wonkavader]

Dead stick landing!

Well, it's so light, you don't have to worry about you engine failing. You just carry a spare!

Mazda and new engine? How 70's! Everybody sing:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Piston engine goes: boink-didda boink-didda boink-didda boink-, but a Mazda goes Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!"

Didn't the introduction of the Wankel engine in production cars almost put Mazda out of business back then because they were so unreliable? My school-freind's mother had a Mazda with a Wankel engine and it was forever in the shop for repairs, iirc.

Re:Mazda and new engine? How 70's! Everybody sing:

[icebike]

Yeah, I wondered about that too.

Why does this company have a penchant for introducing weird engine technology and then abandoning it.

Wankel just sort of slipped quietly away in the night. Nobody knew how to fix them, and they always needed fixing.

Re:Mazda and new engine? How 70's! Everybody sing:

[Wordplay]

Only the first-gens really had this problem, and even then it was only particularly bad in the first couple/few years. Second-gen RX-7s and beyond have had very reliable Wankel powertrains (albeit with a need to do a fairly expensive overhaul at around 100k miles to renew the apex seals). Mazda's problems on the later ones had much more to do with electrical and accessories than with the Wankel.

Re:Mazda and new engine? How 70's! Everybody sing:

[Vegeta99]

I think you just answered your own question! There's probably 5 mechanics within car-pushing distance from my apartment, and probably 0 that could rebuild a wankel in a few days.

Re:Mazda and new engine? How 70's! Everybody sing:

[fractoid]

Wankel just sort of slipped quietly away in the night. Nobody knew how to fix them, and they always needed fixing.

Oh, Wankel engines are alive and well. These days they seem to have most of the early problems sorted.

Re:Mazda and new engine? How 70's! Everybody sing:

[Anonymous Coward]

Use a ceramic turbine for coupling to the generator instead of a Wankel or a standard piston engine. The issues of turbines in normal cars are not present in coupling to a generator. Making the turbine out of a high-temp ceramic can potentially make it be dirt cheap and able to handle much higher temperatures (hence higher theoretical max efficiency.)

Re:Mazda and new engine? How 70's! Everybody sing:

[russotto]

Why does this company have a penchant for introducing weird engine technology and then abandoning it.

Because they are willing to take risks? Mazda still makes rotary-powered cars; while they aren't fuel efficient they do have a great power-to-weight ratio, and they also screw with some governments' per-cylinder taxes. Mazda is also a pioneer in the use of Miller-cycle engines in cars, which has worked out better (than the Wankel) for them, but apparently costs too much to put into general use.

The good thing about this is that if Mazda says they're going to introduce some wacky new engine technology, there's a much better chance of them actually doing so in a production car than if, e.g., GM says so. The bad side of it is if you buy it, you might end up with an orphan.

green-nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

which is greener..... saving a couple of gallons per mile or having a vehicle with 1/10th the life? Cars used to be an item which people expected to purchase and keep most of their lifetime. 20-30 year life on the vehicle was one of the major factors in the relatively large sticker price. GM, Chevy, Ford and others started churning out cars that died in 5-10 years.....or you could pay half-again the initial price of your vehicle just to get it running for another 3-5 before another large gouge.

When you look at all of the materials, effort, and energy that go into manufacturing a vehicle, the true "green crime" is that they are designed to fail. With today's engineering, there is absolutely NO REASON that you couldn't get a vehicle that'd last 50 years. Take a look at the Toyota Hilux:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TGHiluxDestroyed.jpg

But you can't buy those models in the US for the price they can make and sell it to most of the rest of the world. You can't buy a vehicle actually made to last in the US, because the companies know US citizens have been trained to only expect them to last 3-5 years.

Re:green-nonsense

[roc97007]

I have to agree. The best thing you can do for the environment is to make higher quality purchases and then keep them for as long as practical. The major contribution to waste is not the technology you buy, but how soon you dump it for something new.

I shop appliances and vehicles carefully, and then keep them until it's no longer practical to fix them. My friends, who lease vehicles, or buy a new vehicle every 3 years, think I'm crazy for not doing regular updates to get the latest technology or the best gas mileage (usually a difference of only a few miles per gallon, if you compare apples to apples). But I figure everything I throw away or trade in has to go somewhere, so it might as well stay with me until I'm through with it.

I'm pretty ignorant

[spleen_blender]

But I thought when oil was refined that both diesel and regular as well as a bunch of other products just by the nature of how the hydrocarbons separate.

I guess another way of saying it is after diesel is created in its maximum quantity per unit of oil, can the byproducts be further refined into other fuels including regular gas?

Excuse me....

[Windwraith]

I don't understand much about the topic, can someone make some example...like a car analogy?

Wait...

nice

[luther349]

i always liked mazda cars. they seem to have a car for everyone unlike gm who makes cars based on fads. as for the 70mpg mazda-2 as long as they make it cheaper then your hybred they got something. as for the light wight low drage it also can be done on hybred cars. in fact they got a hybred for sale in cali that gets 300mpg for around 35k. it uses light batterys and a light body with low drage. and a simple electric motor with a generator strapped to it.. but lets face facts if the big 3 all of a sudden made 150mpg+ hybreds it would trash the oil profits.

Where Prius and other hybrids win or lose

[dbIII]

Hybrids are made for stop-start driving. They do better per trip than a conventional vehicle in those conditions. Out on the highway they don't have an advantage over similar vehicles with conventional engines.
A simple mpg comparison doesn't work unless it's under the same conditions. "Reality" is a test as close as possible to how YOU are going to drive it, which is why UK and Japanese figures are different to US ones.

that's a different measuring scale

[YesIAmAScript]

On the EU measuring system, the Prius gets 62mpg combined, which is still more than that Polo. And it's larger. And since it uses gas instead of Diesel, it is using less energy to do so (gas is less energy dense than Diesel).

This Mazda will still get about the same mpg as a Prius, so 44-50mpg. So it's not nearly as remarkable as it might seem from the 70 figure.

14:1 compression?

[taustin]

What kind of dope are these people smoking? Raise the compression and you need a higher octane to prevent pings (which will destroy the engine). At 14:1 compression, they've created a car that requires gasoline that isn't available in the US (at least, not legally for road use). I helped a guy build a mud racing truck that ended up about 13:1, and we had to buy av-gas at an airport to get 100 octane (and sign wavers that we wouldn't be using it on any public roads because no road tax was charged on it).

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Who is going to buy a vehicle they can't buy fuel for?

Re:14:1 compression?

[Alioth]

It won't knock or detonate, it uses direct fuel injection, so on the compression stroke all that's being compressed is air. Different technology to most cars (older, carburettors, newer, indirect fuel injection).

Re:14:1 compression?

[nblender]

My diesel has a compression ratio of 22.7:1. It doesn't pre-detonate. I have no idea what you're talking about... Oh, you think your hillbilly engineering is representative of engineering done by people who understand physics...

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot indeed.

Time for the "does it run linux" question.

[wonkavader]

This is getting good mileage under indeterminate load. Does anyone know enough about the tricks that they're using to answer this: "How well would it run on a static load, as in a generator configuration in, for instance, a HYBRID?"

My Mazda 3 Diesel 5.1/100 Ltr/km

[jobst]

No news to me, been getting BETTER results for years. Next car will be the Golf TDI, same deal.

The subject result was taken driving to Geelong from the eastern Suburbs in Melbourne to the city part of Geelong and back, 2 Adults, 2 Kids, two big dogs plus some toys, so 1/3 of the journey was city driving, the other 2/3 freeway.

Fast-burn dope

[Latent Heat]

Combination of faster burn rate and direct fuel injection into the cylinder right before ignition.

Fast burn has been around for some time -- how do you think they got compression ratios up to around 10.5:1 from the power-anemic 8.5:1, all on 87 octane no-lead gas.

Direct injection has also been around for some time -- it has been a question of cost and that you could run gas engines at 10.5:1, heretofore premium-leaded-gas '60's muscle car territory.

My Uncle Laszlo at Ford Motor who had worked on fast-burn and direct injection going back to the 1960's was of the opinion that an "optimal" compression ratio was 13:1 -- higher than that and you started boosting engine friction. The pre-chamber auto engines ran something like 22:1 (early VW Rabbit Diesel), but they needed that for starting, but the newer direct-injection (DI and TDI) Diesels run much lower.

Japanese are slimmer than Americans

[turkeyfish]

They'll never get this to work in the land of fried Chicken but the deep south has shades of blue in the Bluegrass State, where Toyota has a plant in Kentucky. They will have to work harder for production level cars in Mississippi.

Which is why gov't fuel standards exist

[rsilvergun]

for the individual it doesn't make sense. When applied nationally it's huge. Just like switching everyone to florescent light bulbs. You save $20/yr, but the power company saves billions because they don't have to open a new plant to meet peak demand.

Re:Which is why gov't fuel standards exist

[TheKidWho]

When applied nationally it also has the effect of seriously affecting supply/demand for diesel fuel in this country. Considering diesel fuel prices are directly tied to the price of almost every single good(transportation is primarily diesel)it's not as cut and dry.

Neat car

[UttBuggly]

I have had several Mazdas and my son is driving a 2004 Mazda3 currently.

Just last week, I took a look at the current Mazda2, which is indeed rated 35mpg for highway driving. I really don't care if a 2013-14 model gets 70mpg as 35mpg is better than the 25mpg I get with my current car.

I have an 80 mile round trip commute to work, so the "extra" 10mpg is something to consider.

Mostly, I just like the way it looks and drives and it's $3-5000 cheaper than the Ford Fiesta. They're not siblings like the Ford Fusion/Mazda 6 cars; the Mazda2 and Fiesta only share a few parts.

Not new by any rate, google for Volkswagen Lupo 3L

[drolli]

A real car, produced from 2003,

http://www.vwvortex.com/artman/publish/printer_319.shtml

The U.S. won't see it

[itguy01]

I'm willing to bet the U.S. won't see these types of cars for a looooong time. My logic is that our government is so corrupted by big oil now that they are more than likely preventing these things from happening in the U.S. Think about it, whenever you hear about a car with super mpg's why does it never happen in the U.S., you never see articles about a U.S. car company coming out with this before another country does. Hmmmmmm.

My 89 Corolla gets 42 MPG

[PotatoHead]

And it's rather primitive tech by the standards of today.

Carburetor fuel / air delivery to engine, 2200 pound chassis, etc...

I've had that car a very long time, and it will get that performance even after 300K+ miles. I've only done the recommended maintenance, timing chains and such to prevent catastrophic failure, along with the usual assortment of regular replacements, not including the carb, but including alternator, fuel filter, etc... No major work, other than the timing chain replacement.

Driving that car has easily saved me 50K, over what I would have spent doing the newer car dance over time.

That car was designed, at the time, to seriously compete with the rather heavy and clunky American cars. Some American cars...

Recently, I drove a Ford Focus and was able to get between 40 and 50 mpg on a long drive in CA. It's the first of the fuel injected cars, that are ordinary consumer cars, able to reach a nice low fuel cruise state like my old car will. Liked it, and it's sort of clunky, like our cars generally are.

Good for Mazda. IMHO, it's not earth shaking, just a well executed, modern design, optimized for fuel economy. When that's done, we generally get a very frugal product for the time. Problem is, it's just not often done, because people want the zoom! (and they will pay for the zoom, with less value added, than otherwise)

FYI, a old 78 Chevette, modified to a much longer gear ratio, easily got 35 - 45, and I drove that for years. 4 speed, first good to 25, second good through nearly 45, third 70-80 or so, with fourth gear being more or less overdrive. That car had plenty of torque, and was geared horribly low. Typical GM. Great car, shitty execution.

For our US car makers to compete, they need to look at that kind of stuff. Not sure why they won't do it, or will only do it on vehicles sold in the EU. Probably a greed / cost thing, where they can give us the shaft, so they do.

Just a bit of stuff

[uninformedLuddite]

I was reading a little bit about Rudolf Diesel the other day and he actually built a model that ran on coal dust. Don't know why I am telling you I guess it just seemed like a neat trick back in the late 1800s (and you may have been interested).

Re:Just a bit of stuff

[RAMMS EIN]

One interesting characteristic of Diesel engines, especially older ones, is that they aren't very picky as to what fuel they run on. Almost all of them will happily run on biodiesel, and many will run on straight vegetable oil after modification (for which kits are available, ranging in price from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars). Both of these have short CO_2 cycles (you emit the CO_2 that was recently absorbed by the plants used to make the fuel) and reduced emissions of many pollutants, except for NO_x.

Some Diesel engines, as you mentioned, can run on peanut oil, coal dust, and a variety of other things you wouldn't necessarily think to put in your engine. However, recent Diesel engines are generally a lot more picky and may suffer serious damage when the wrong fuel is put in (which may include, for example, the Diesel fuel we had before we got low-sulphur Diesel). My understanding is that this is particularly due to the injection system and the particulate filter.

Re:Just a bit of stuff

[uninformedLuddite]

I have made biodiesel myself(methanol/lye recipe) and our diesel generator loved it at 80Bio/20Die (was winter in South Australia(does get cold)). I actually have a lot of used veg oil floating around just waiting for when I get around to making my biodiesel reactor.
Like my Swedish autonomous robotic Inga I haven't got round to it yet.

Re:Just a bit of stuff

[RAMMS EIN]

``I have made biodiesel myself(methanol/lye recipe) and our diesel generator loved it at 80Bio/20Die''

Well done!

Re:Just a bit of stuff

[Gordonjcp]

Diesel engines will run on anything that will spontaneously combust at the temperatures achieved in the cylinder. Unlike a petrol engine, there's no throttle because air-fuel ratio isn't important - you want as much air getting shoved in as you can, which is why turbocharging is so much more effective on a diesel. One (fairly rare) failure mode of diesels, usually caused by neglect and poor maintenance, is "runaway" where if a fault develops it starts drawing up engine oil through failed oil seals or the crankcase breather, and running on that. Even with the fuel turned off, it will continue to run on the oil vapour and droplets. Of course, people then panic and run away and the engine over-revs until it fails totally, which is stupid. The correct course of action is to put it into top gear, plant your foot on the brake and gently let the clutch up until it stalls.

Re:Just a bit of stuff

[bhtooefr]

Of course, on the VW TDIs, you often end up bending rods with a runaway even if you can get it stopped. (A few things happen - the huge uncontrolled mass of oil acting as fuel causes very high cylinder pressures, the oil itself is incompressible so that causes hydrolock, and because there's nothing limiting the fuel, the RPM usually goes well above what's safe.)

Re:Just a bit of stuff

[uninformedLuddite]

We have a generator with a Honda 411cc diesel engine. The governor is mechanical and has two counterweights. One of the counterweights decided to throw itself off into the big end. I know from experience just how hard a diesel can rev before going kaput. This was only a few weeks ago and was on a unit that had only run 900 hours (and cost $5500) - OUCH!

Re:Just a bit of stuff

[drinkypoo]

Some Diesel engines, as you mentioned, can run on peanut oil, coal dust, and a variety of other things you wouldn't necessarily think to put in your engine. However, recent Diesel engines are generally a lot more picky and may suffer serious damage when the wrong fuel is put in (which may include, for example, the Diesel fuel we had before we got low-sulphur Diesel). My understanding is that this is particularly due to the injection system and the particulate filter.

There are actually a number of issues involved in alternate fuel suitability. The most important ones are as you say the catalyst, and the injection pump. Diesel catalysts are actually injected with fuel to preheat them, on short trips this actually reduces economy but then you should never make a short trip in a diesel anyway, they don't like that. (Modern tiny engines come up to temp faster so it's not so much of a problem.) Injecting an altfuel can kill your cat. The other main issue is the injection pump. The best motor for altfuel is an indirect injection diesel with a manifold-type (NOT rotary) injection pump, preferably one cooled by more than the fuel. The next best is a common rail system without a catalyst. Next down the chain is an IDI with a rotary pump, and everything else is in a group together at the end with a sign saying "suitable only for biodiesel". And even then you will probably want an additive for lubricity. I like Power Kleen Diesel Service, and they have a formula specifically for biodiesel.

The reason why a rotary pump is unsuitable is that they do not deal with other viscosities of fuel well. This does not mean you can't run them on other fuels, but their typical lack of cooling DOES mean you DON'T want to be preheating fuels, since the pump is cooled by the fuel. This makes running vegetable oil in my IDI Ford a bad idea, while running it in my IDI Mercedes is a fine idea; the Ford has a crappy Stanadyne DB-2 rotary pump which sits in the valley while the Mercedes has a gorgeous inline Bosch unit NEXT to the motor on the opposite side from the manifolds.

On the other hand, you can premix your fuels. One person I know who runs a lot of waste motor oil says that he premixes and filters because he's discovered that a lot of the stuff in suspension in WMO falls out when you mix it with diesel. You can run various mixtures of WMO and Diesel or indeed gasoline to achieve specific levels of viscosity appropriate for injection. Waste oils are ideally filtered down to one micron before injection.

Burning WMO sounds gross but in a nicely tuned turbo diesel it actually burns pretty clean, and anyway this is what will be done with it if you DON'T put it in your diesel. Some of it goes to power plants and some goes to other stuff like steam trains. (!)

Re:Just a bit of stuff

[afidel]

Another use for WMO is in cement kilns, actually all types of waste oil products can be used in kilns. In fact until some stupid NIMBY's get wind of it that was the way the EPA was dealing with with PCB's, the kilns burn hot enough to completely break down the PCB's which are otherwise very difficult to destroy.

Grammar Nazi requested

[uninformedLuddite]

to fix my appalling punctuation for me

Diesels...

[JonnnnY]

I have feeling, that some people are bit misinformed about diesels. And as I live in eastern Europe where half of cars are diesel powered, here is some of my experience...

Emissions
There is no black smoke from new diesel cars since EURO 4 emission standard (2005+). Yes, they still smells, but now the EURO 5 are coming so even the smell will probably be the history.
Lots of cars are now equipped with DPF (diesel particulate filter) as standard, so there is no black smoke at any circumstances. Cars without DPF runs lean with lots of recirculated exhaust gases and it has some disadvantages. Mainly no torque off boost and slow reaction at throttle. DPF has problems too (regenerating conditions for the filter, and its plugging)
There are only a few cars with NOx reduction system (MB, BMW, VW... cars sold in US) but with EURO5 coming there will be more. Some tests suggest, they have lower consumption than same car without deNOx system. The engine don't have to run near the stoichio. with huge amounts of recirculated exhaust gases, which spoils the efficiency. It just runs extremely lean.

Reliability
Modern diesel engines are (to say it diplomatically) "fragile". It takes huge amount of technology to made modern diesels as good as they are, and modern technologies tends to break. And they are braking. Some European automakers has lots of problems with it.
Modern Common Rail diesels (and as VW killed the PD, there is nothing else than CR) uses high pressure. And as "high pressure" I mean 1600 to 2000 bars. That is like 23'000 - 29'000 psi
So the pumps producing this pressure are extremely sensitive to lubrication. And with low quality diesel fuel, it can ?grind? (sorry I don't know the right word) and produce microscopic metal particles. As the metal particles comes to the injectors, they brake them sooner or later too.
The injectors alone are fragile too. They can break after around 120-150'000 miles.
Still it hugely depends on quality of the diesel fuel. Lubrication, cleanness, amount of water and more...
Next, we have turbocharger. Diesel engines has tiny turbochargers spinning at huge revolutions (usually 150-250'000 rpm) to reduce or eliminate lag. And of course they break from time to time. Turbos commonly have variable geometry turbine (vgt) and it tends to stop working too. Common effect are, that when driver require maximum acceleration, the turbo cant deliver required amount of air, ECU diagnostics it as a malfunction and falls into emergency mode with reduced power. And if this happen while overtaking, than you are screwed... (It can also happen because of broken injectors, and low pressure in common rail system)
DPF filter. They require specific condition for regeneration. Something like constant speed and load (around 40-50mph), engine at working temperature, warm catalytic converter, working brakes and more. But in usual driving, it can be problematic to reach all required condition, DPF becomes plugged and you are on the way to the service station. This applies only for cars where the regeneration works trough later injection, where the unburned diesel fuel burns comes into the exhaust and burns the soot in DPF. It also requires more frequent oil changes. There are systems with independent injector in front of DPF and there could be fine.
Next. Dual mass flywheel. It smoothen the power coming into tranny. But if you are driving at too low revs you can brake it. And as most of cars here has manual gearbox and most of people are not aware of it...
Ok, that is probably everything important ( = expensive). Fuel pumps costs usualy 700 and more euros, at least 400 for one injector, 700 and more for turbocharger, and around the same for DPF or dual mass flywheel. Bigger, more expensive or luxury car, and the prices will double. Or tripe.
Sulfur in diesel fuel are big problem. It will ruin the catalyst, and some diesel engines uses special cylinder coating (nikasil or similar), witch will be destroyed by sulfur.

It is no longer true, that diesel cars are more re

CRap their on to my used car only until hybrids ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap their on to my used car only until hybrids get over 100 miles per gallon strategy. Buy a car for $1,000, new used engine with 10K - 40K miles on it for $800, new paint job for under $1,000 and you have a viable car with a long life for well under $4,000. Why would I want to pay more for any vehicle that still forces me to get gouged at the pump at the whim of oil/gas companies.

The definition of insane is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Is there anyone that does not believe gas will reach over $5.00 a gallon and stay there this time/

Even better, give me a car that runs on compressed air, water, anything but oil/gas. Better if I can produce it without them, say solar for electrical.

I can pick up a used car from under $4K, where a new car usually costs above 16K, even more if it is a nicer car.

...what am I going to do now...eek. Well what I am NOT going to do is start buying cars, even if they get 100+ mpg if they cost north of $10,000. I will just keep limping by with used cars until a non-oil/gas alternative comes to mind. In case you did not realize it, I equate combustible bio-fuels to be as bad as oil and gas. I want real alternative energy options to gas/oil....not just another fuel turned into an oil/gas.

Re:mpg? wtf?

[12WTF$]

More importantly, how much is it in furlongs per fluid ounce?

70 mpg = 4.375 furlongs per fluid ounce (US)

70 mpUSg
= 70*8 furlongs per US gallon
= 560 furlongs per US gallon
= 560 furlongs per 128 US fluid ounces
= 4.375

I just fail to see WHY it is important, unless maybe with Peak Oil price inflation you will need to buy petrol in affordable fluid ounces?

Looks like the Smart passengers survive ok

[Anonymous Coward]

From the video it looks like the Smart car passengers survive ok, the cage around the passengers and the windscreen both hold up. Engine and fuel is in the back in this car so not necessarily any leaking gasoline and flames either. For sure the car is a mess but as long as you walk away ok, I think this is the main thing.

Mind you you'd expect better quality from a Mercedes C class (approx price 25K GBP) compared to a Smart For Two (approx price 10K GBP) - Mercedes have to be spending some of the 15K difference in price on something apart from profit margin and a better music system.

I am not sure I like this "mass matters" argument as this leads to US-style thinking that everybody should drive a frontline tank to work or at least require a Hummer to buy a pint of milk... my bias is that we should be trying to make everybody safer not just think about ourselves when on the road. Bit of a failure strategy, that latter one in my opinion.

Meanwhile the rest of us drive the second hand cars we could afford or cycle rather than drive brand new Mercedes, anyway....

Nowhere close to 70 MPG in the US drive cycle

[dhollist]

Here's a snippet from a New York Times article, explaining that the 70 MPG number was achieved using the Japanese driving cycle, and that US customers can expect significantly less. 4:51 p.m. | Updated An earlier version of this post said the next Mazda 2 would get 70 miles per gallon. A Mazda spokesman clarified late on Thursday that the result was achieved from the Japanese test cycle. Fuel economy numbers will be lower in the United States. ... The Mazda release said the car would achieve 70 miles per gallon, but that number was based on the Japanese test cycle, meaning American mileage would be lower. A 15 percent increase from the existing Mazda 2 would result in a combined 37 m.p.g. (For comparison, the Toyota Prius, which gets a combined 50 m.p.g. from the Environmental Protection Agency, achieves 89 m.p.g. in the Japanese test.)

Carnot thermal efficiency, taming high compression

[beachdog]

The thermal efficiency goes up rapidly when the engine compression ratio is increased.

What Mazda has accomplished is the continued refinement of the art of burning gasoline in a very very high compression setting.

The problem is high compression engines are hard to start and hard to make durable.

I compared an 1999 or 2000 Prius product leaflet with the same year early Toyota Echo leaflet. Same body, different engines. The Prius had 10.1:1 compression ratio and the Echo 9.1:1. (Maybe I have the numbers off by .1 )

So the story of why the Prius gets good mileage changes: The trick of the big electric motor and engine computers is to quietly start the high compression engine. The other trick is to keep the high compression engine from destroying it's pistons.

In this view: regenerative braking is a minor contribution to the thermal efficiency of the Prius.

The real trick is a honking big starter motor without a screaming pinion gear noise. Plus lots and lots of computer power managing each cylinder ignition event.

So Mazda's accomplishment? Stratospheric levels of engineering artistry. Probably a super duper gasoline injection device and even more direct control of each individual combustion event.

Here is a toast to the long forgotten 4 cylinder alcohol fueled Offenhauser engine Indy car!

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Wish I had some mod points. This is perhaps the most important piece of information to note in the thread. If you simply take the US versus Japanese mileage estimates for the Prius, and use the same ratio for these Mazda2 claims, you get just a little under 40mpg.

everything together = 100 mph

[peter303]

diesels, hybrids, continuous transmission, computer value injection, brake recovery, etc.

Verizon

[koolman2]

Unless you're Verizon, then it'll take 150,000,000 miles to pay back

Small cheap compressed-air cars from India

[billstewart]

The trick with the recent small cars from India is that most of them are made to run in India city conditions, where the streets are way too crowded to go faster than about 35mph, so even if they can go faster than that, they aren't made for high-speed crashes, and won't necessarily even win in a collision with a motorcycle, much less a truck.

On the other hand, if your compressed-air car is running low and you're desperate, almost any US gas station that does car repairs has a compressed-air pump and you might be able to pay them for some air. There are also pumps for inflating tires, but those are usually reduced pressure so they don't explode your tires.

Re:Small cheap compressed-air cars from India

[drinkypoo]

On the other hand, if your compressed-air car is running low and you're desperate, almost any US gas station that does car repairs has a compressed-air pump and you might be able to pay them for some air. There are also pumps for inflating tires, but those are usually reduced pressure so they don't explode your tires.

I rate it as somewhere between highly unlikely and fucking impossible that the local gas station will have more than about 150 psi on tap, and that's only for those which do repairs, the typical tire fill being maybe 100 psi tops as some heavier light trucks will use up to 80 or so PSI (only about a max of 65 PSI for me, and I have what may be the heaviest light pickup truck ever made... hmm no, the four door version is probably heavier, I have a super cab.) The MDI air car technology runs on over 3,000 PSI. You're not refilling your air car from shop air.

Re:Diesels work well on highways

[billstewart]

The best conditions for diesel engines are when they're hot and running for a long time. Back in the 80s I took an airport limo that got 35+mpg on diesel, when most American gasoline-based cars of that size were under 20mpg, partly because the guy spent all day driving up and down the turnpike, occasionally going on neighborhood streets to pick up a passenger and get back on the turnpike, so the car never cooled down.

My 1985 Toyota Tercel wagon got 27mpg

[billstewart]

I'm in the market for a car that gets better gas mileage than my 1987 Chevy Van (:-), which is still a great car for telecommuting except that it's an old beater. It's annoying that most cars on the market don't get better mileage than the car I had 25 years ago.

Re:My 1985 Toyota Tercel wagon got 27mpg

[Vegeta99]

You're right. But, that 2000 Jetta has heated seats, heated mirrors, electric windows, locks, moon roof, front and rear ABS disc brakes, traction control, and even in 10F winter never lets a waft of anything save CO2 and water out the tailpipe. It also has four airbags, shoulder belts in the front AND back, and collision bars in the doors.

I'm with ya - cars now should be getting better mileage. They do, however, already have better creature comforts.

Re:My 1985 Toyota Tercel wagon got 27mpg

[drinkypoo]

You're right. But, that 2000 Jetta has heated seats, heated mirrors, electric windows, locks, moon roof, front and rear ABS disc brakes, traction control, and even in 10F winter never lets a waft of anything save CO2 and water out the tailpipe.

All gasoline cars without a preheated catalyst allow unburned fuel to come out of the tailpipe until at minimum the heated O2 sensor starts transmitting, and most of them continue to run like crap until the coolant comes up to temperature. It does not appear that the 2000 Jetta has a heated catalyst. They are likely to become mandatory emissions equipment on future vehicles, and are already present on some, but are by no means ubiquitous. You can also get all that stuff on a 1996 Taurus but it's still a piece of shit, just like any VW not made in Wolfsberg. That's why there are so many in junkyards for F-series owners to nab alternators from, and also why so many VWs have been on the side of the road in recent years... Hecho en Mexico no es bueno. I don't know why Mexicans cannot correctly assemble VWs, but it has been repeatedly proven that they cannot.

Re:My 1985 Toyota Tercel wagon got 27mpg

[Vegeta99]

Hecho en Mexico no es bueno.

No estoy de acuerdo! Mine's a Mexican build, and it's been awesome. The worst trouble I had with it was a sheared transmission mount bolt and a blown radiator. The radiator was a bitch. It will be needing a new timing chain soon. At 200k, that's to be expected. And I think you're right about the unheated catalyst. At start, an air pump adds outside air to the exhaust charge before hitting the catalyst for about a minute to aid the cold catalyst in getting started.

The interior, however, is a different story. I'm heading out to a junkyard today to seek out a new glove box latch, a cupholder, AND a center console armrest. By the time the car is finally dead, I'll be sitting on a seat on top of the engine and the two drive wheels up front. My MAIN point was (like you saw) that basically any newer car has "creature comforts" that 30 years ago would have been unheard of or prohibitively expensive.

Re:Diesels prices and problems

[billstewart]

If you're buying "petrol" instead of "gasoline", then you're in a market with much higher fuel taxes; here in the US, diesel prices have varied widely over the years but are seldom much more than 20% higher than regular gasoline, and some years have been lower. I've never owned a diesel car, but I used to have oil heat, and the differences between heating oil and diesel fuel are (1) lots of tax, (2) red dye in the heating oil so they can catch you if you put it in your truck to avoid taxes, (3) a bit of detergent and such in the diesel, and (4) if you run out of heating oil in the middle of the night, you can drive out to the gas station and buy 5 gallons of diesel, which will keep your house warm for a day or two until the heating oil truck comes by with a refill.

The pollution problems with diesel aren't so much the CO2, but the particulate carbon, sulphur, and maybe NOx. Most new diesel engines are cleaner than the old ones.

Why US Gallons?

[billstewart]

Because it's not available in the UK or Canada either, and everybody else has the sense to use liters? So you're clarifying that it's US mpg, not UK mpg, and it's obviously not km/l or whatever.

Highly unlikely - diesel is home heating oil

[billstewart]

Diesel isn't significantly different from home heating oil - the price is much different because of highway-funding taxes, home heating oil has red dye so they can catch you if you use it in your truck to avoid taxes, and diesel has a few additives to make engines run a bit better, but otherwise they're basically the same. I doubt jet fuel is a significant fraction of the diesel market compared to trucks or home heating.

Re:Highly unlikely - diesel is home heating oil

[afidel]

While it used to be true that #1 diesel and home heating oil were primarily the same that is no longer the case, on-road diesel has to meet ultra-low sulfur ratings which means it can't be made from many crude stocks without significant equipment at the refinery to remove sulfur content. Automotive diesel also has a non-trivial amount of additives to add to lubricity and detergents to clean fuel injectors. Oh, and jet fuel is closer to kerosene than it is to diesel, both are heavier distillations than gasoline but they are different enough that I doubt the two markets compete other than for the tuning of cracking towers at the refinery.

typical ranting

[spage]

A hybrid shuts off at a standstill and recovers energy otherwise lost while braking, its electric motor is fundamentally more efficient than a gas engine, and if it has a good power blending system (basically Toyota's ingenious HSD electronic continuously variable transmission that Mazda licensed in March) it can run its engine on a more efficient load more often. The best implementation so far enables a practical reliable mid-size car (larger than your Mazda 3) to achieve 50mpg on the EPA cycle, something no other internal combustion engine car has done since the two-seater 58 mpg Honda Insight was discontinued. It's comical to see people getting so emotional over a significant engineering advance, especially when it leads them to spout crap to discredit it, such as:

huge toxic batteries

Neither nickel-metal hydride nor lithium-ion are particularly toxic, unlike the lead acid batteries in all cars. All three kinds of batteries are recycled, and there's no comparison between the pollution from making a few hundred pounds of batteries vs. the TONS of gasoline they'll save over 120,000 miles in a well-engineered hybrid.

Loremo

[Neil Boekend]

peh, 70 miles to the gallon isn't the best in the timeframe they are probably talking about. See the Loremo. 120 mpg in the cheapest version.

Rubbish twice over.

[Anonymous Coward]

One BMW 320d Eco Dynamics does 0-62 in 8.0 seconds. A 2 litre diesel. The 2l petrol BMW does it in 7.9s.

So bollocks on one: the diesels can't manage sub-10s times.

Second, the 1.6 petrol engine in the Volvo S40 takes 11.8 seconds to get to 62. The 1.6 diesel version does it in 11.3 seconds.

So bollocks on the "no true petrol" doing more than 10s unless they're from Korea.

UK diesel is taxed higher.

[Anonymous Coward]

UK diesel is taxed higher. Much higher. Despite being cheaper to produce, 1 litre of Diesel is 2-3p more expensive at the pump.

So, no, it's not because taxes of fuel is higher in Europe.

So where's the Dodge doing 0-60 in 5s?

[Anonymous Coward]

So where's the Dodge doing 0-60 in 5s?

Oh, you're talking bollocks. Sorry.

Diesels punch out as much hp per litre as petrols do and 60% more torque, despite doing so at less than 75% of the revs.

see, i knew they could do it.

[hesaigo999ca]

There never was really a need for them to make these engines as fuel efficient as they could, until now....

Re:Diesels work well on highways

[drinkypoo]

It doesn't matter so much if they run all the time so long as they never cool down all the way. I can come back to my pickup truck (7.3l IDI with turbo) three or four hours later and get an instant start with glow or a 3-4 second start without. My MBZ 300SD (3.0l IDI with turbo) doesn't hold the heat as long but it's the biggest 3 liter I've ever seen so it's longer than you'd think. And... it gets 30 mpg on the freeway, while still having hill-climbing power etc.

Nice, how about selling to the US?

[stewbacca]

This is nice and all, but I think there is one practical diesel model on sale in the US (Jetta), and it has average-below-average reliability.

I watched an episode of Top Gear (season 12) where they drove from Italy to Blackpool on ONE TANK OF GAS. Hamster drove a Polo (no thanks), May a Volvo/Subaru (can't remember) and Clarkson a big twin turbo diesel Jag (of course).

All of them got more gas mileage than the best hybrid in the US market. None of them are available here.

Re:Diesels prices and problems

[Muad'Dave]

if you run out of heating oil in the middle of the night, you can drive out to the gas station and buy 5 gallons of diesel...

I've done that a few times! Just so you know, you might want to look on your burner for a placard that says, "No. 1 or No. 2 heating oil (ASTM D396) only" or something similar. On an example burner, page 5 of their user's manual shows the little sticker. If you have such a sticker, you _might_ (IANAL) be able to safely run 1-K kerosene instead of diesel. I did it back when I had oil heat, and it sure smelled better and was easier to handle than the old black diesel. The new ULSD is pretty nice, though. It's blue!