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Yeah, just wondered why we didn’t go more for the biofuels
Cost - it's hugely expensive to grow and harvest fuel instead of just pulling it out of the ground in huge quantities. Also remember that crude oil is refined to produce a huge range of valuable things - rapeseed oil is just for motor fuel.
The other more problematic point is that when you use good arable land for fuel so you can drive to a trail centre on a weekend, it's not being used to grow food that a family can eat. In the US the corn farmers are happy to have corn made into ethanol for fuel cos it makes their crop more valuable. But this drives up the price so that then corn farmers in Mexico sell it to the US for fuel instead of to poor Mexicans to eat.
Also shipping is notoriously bad. The stat is something like the 10 biggest container ships in the world pollute more than all the cars, motorbikes, vans, trucks and buses in the entire world. Depressing.
You need to be careful with your daily wail headlines! Firstly the stat is the 16 biggest container ships in the world (not 10) - but also they don't "pollute more than" - which would suggest all pollutants - but their sulfur emissions are as much as all the cars in the world (second bit of exagerations there - only the cares not the busses or trucks) - but their CO2, NOx etc are not . comparable. I'm not saying it is something to celebrate - but equally don't trick yourself into believe cars are not a major part of the problem.
This massive u-turn on promoting diesel as the way forward for personal mobility. Anything to do with the mahoosive investment Saudi Arabia have made in their diesel production by any chance?
We can quote all that the scientists say about pollutants but who funds the research? Might that be western governments who need to wrestle control of oil supply from an area that really don't like western influence?
Perhaps by reducing Saudi oil revenues, the west think they can exert pressure on them to toe the line? Only a fool repeatedly bangs their head against the wall expecting a different result...
Slackalice, have you been smoking what Jivehoneyjive smokes?
The u-turn is because of changing science. New stuff has come to light. Are you suggesting you would not expect to change policy in response to new science? Or are you calling all scientists bent for no reason?
Hmm, I'm about to dump a smoky Euro4 galaxy, choice is Volvo D3 engine or Hyundai 1.7cdti..... Should I?
I'm not calling scientists bent! Do some reading into the issues in the area we know as the Middle East from the mid C20th to date.
Anglo Persian oil company, the USSR, the USA and particularly the British have tried again and again to regain control of the oil production and supply from this region. Again and again, the countries involved have objected to the exploitation (OPEC), again and again, the countries wanting to secure supply have supported one government and another with arms and munitions, often supplying rebel forces to overthrow an incumbent administration only to find the successors even more opposed to supplying the west with the black gold.
Iran, the Shah and Khomeini, Iraq and Saddam Hussain, to name two, there are plenty more.
Surveys and research will always support those who fund them, statistics are like that, easily manipulated.
I dont dispute the pollutants, what I'm suggesting is that there is more to this than the simple let's look after the planet. Those in power don't give a **** about the planet, all they give a **** about is their own personal wealth
EDIT: Don't believe the immediate 'truth' being given to you...
Ah this makes sense. I had an MOT last Thursday and had a Smoke Test certificate handed to me. It may have had them before, but I hadn't remembered it.
0.43 is the opacity value. Is that good?
BioDiesel has negative side effects, not quite cutting down the Borneo rainforest to grow for Palm Oil but negative none the less
All a nightmare really, I have only ever bought 1 diesel car but its quite hard to buy some used car models and nkt go diesel as petrol varients are rare or non-existant.
Friends have a very nice A5 with “that” VW 2tdi engine and they have had zero interest on Autotrader despite a decent price. How VW have got off the hook in UK/Europe is a disgrace
I reckon my van is screwed come next MOT.
I think if you're doing a reasonable mileage, with plenty of long runs then diesel is always going to be hard to beat. The only risk as I see it is relatively higher increases in fuel duty on Diesel in the future.
Think of changing my 2002 Audi A6 1.9tdi in for a newer 2011 diesel. I’m doing under 10k a year and mostly only use it at weekends on the motorway.
Would I be better off considering a petrol engine considering the bad press on diesels?
Update: after some jiggery pokery my car has squeaked through its mot
question still remains as too next car choice, short term I'm going to wait and see how the new mot standard impacts the pass rates
on a positive note, the delay in car buying brings forward bike buying! New job means I can commute by bike two or three days a week... so whatever car I buy it will get less use (that probably means a petrol is the smart choice)
Using a diesel less is not the issue - using it for short trips is the issue.
Yeah, just wondered why we didn’t go more for the biofuels, not necessarily used chip fat but proper stuff manufactured to replace diesel but it seem mc answered me with some science.
The reason (or another reason) bio diesel didn't make it as a fuel source was the move to common rail injection. Around 1997 diesel engine design changed to be more like petrol engines in that they atomized the fuel at very high pressure before combustion. Vegetable oil was unsuitable or less suitable for this than straight diesel.
Tinfoil hat time - I had a lengthy rant on here a long time ago about this and how performance gains in diesels seemed negligible, or certainly not that great. Perhaps common rail was invented to make diesels cleaner, perhaps it was to make them more powerful, I don't know but I don't really understand or see any huge performance benefits. Older diesels like my Hilux still run fine on straight vegetable oil.
jimjam, your hilux won't manage 80+bhp per litre though.
Common rail injection made a huge difference to diesels, as it allowed multi-stage injection, and far finer atomisation. Which translated to smoother running, cleaner burn, and the ability to get more power for less soot.
Around 1997 diesel engine design changed to be more like petrol engines in that they atomized the fuel at very high pressure before combustion. Vegetable oil was unsuitable or less suitable for this than straight diesel.
It's my understanding that whilst veg oil could be used it requires heating. Biodiesel on the other hand is fine. The big issue is with DPFs and active regen resulting in unburned oil coating the cylinder walls, ending up in the sump then eventually polymerising turning your engine oil in to jelly.
The big advantage of common rail diesels is the ability to vary injection timing arbitrarily - and have multi stage injection. So you can make it run more quietly and smoothly under light load. VW PD engines (like mine) have higher injection pressure than CR but they can only inject over a narrow range of timings. The old mechanical PD engines had essentially no timing adjustment which is why you'd get a huge lump of torque all at once then nothing.
CR also allows fuel to be injected in the exhaust stroke to pass hydrocarbons to the catalyst in the DPF to heat it up enough to burn the ash off. Also not very possible without CR. It definitely made them more efficient. I had an old school VW TD engine for a while with mechanical indirect injection which would run briliantly on veg oil. Only did about 45mpg though as compared to 62mpg or so in the PD, and it was noisy as hell. The PD engine has 50% more HP too. And CR are even better still.
No.
Reason being the new vehicle will not even register on the machine.
Just had my 14 plate VW engined car MOT'd by an old work college and it was reading zero. I didn't think Euro 6 was fitted to cars, only Commercial vehicles? Could be wrong on that one.
Anyway my car would only free rev to 2.5k and the reading was zero. My tester also told me that they no longer bother testing the newer Wagons as its a waste of time. As an ex tester myself I see his point and he had no reason to lie to me.
Typical media hysteria.
<div class="bbp-reply-author">mc
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<div class="bbp-reply-content">jimjam, your hilux won’t manage 80+bhp per litre though.
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Well no but my point was old diesels will run on anything.
It’s my understanding that whilst veg oil could be used it requires heating. Biodiesel on the other hand is fine. The big issue is with DPFs and active regen resulting in unburned oil coating the cylinder walls, ending up in the sump then eventually polymerising turning your engine oil in to jelly.
Heating isn't a big issue, you can buy inline fuel heaters to adapt older diesel to run on straight vegetable oil if you live in colder climates.
CR also allows fuel to be injected in the exhaust stroke to pass hydrocarbons to the catalyst in the DPF to heat it up enough to burn the ash off. Also not very possible without CR. It definitely made them more efficient. I had an old school VW TD engine for a while with mechanical indirect injection which would run briliantly on veg oil. Only did about 45mpg though as compared to 62mpg or so in the PD, and it was noisy as hell. The PD engine has 50% more HP too. And CR are even better still.
I'm not denying that CR was an improvement. Apologies as I'm not going to google this to back it up, but iirc the first generation CR engines didn't really show any great improvement over the generation of tdi engines they replaced. Example, Toyota replaced the 2.4 tdi in the Hilux with the 2.4 d4d, producing almost exactly the same power and torque. And there were other similar examples. Yes they may have evolved over time to the point where today, 20 years on, they are significantly more powerful, more refined and more efficient but with the exception of heavy duty applications there's a petrol engine that will do the job better.
I feel as though engineering common rail egr dpf adblue diesels to make clean efficient diesels was an evolutionary dead end that could have been solved by cutting tax on petrol.
Hilux with the 2.4 d4d, producing almost exactly the same power and torque. And there were other similar examples.
But what about economy and emissions? They can more or less choose they power they want - they choose the power levels according to what the market wants, not what's technically possible. That's why you had VW TDIs of the same size with 140 and 170 and now 150 and 180 bhp. They just chose to fit smaller or larger turbos and injectors and charged more for them.
I feel as though engineering common rail egr dpf adblue diesels to make clean efficient diesels was an evolutionary dead end
Don't think so. It's allowing diesel engines to get the full potential from the fuel without the pollutants. Nice idea, a much better one than EGR.
But I reckon plug in hybrids are the way to go in the short term. Or range extended EVs. The tech exists now, and with plugins the batteries are small enough that supply should be less of an issue.
But what about economy and emissions? They can more or less choose they power they want – they choose the power levels according to what the market wants, not what’s technically possible.
Yes but the upshot slight increase in economy, less co2, but more dangerous particulates. Take a Skoda Superb as a suitably bland example. 2001 PD engine 2.0 tdi, 140bhp, 236lbs ft . Same year 2.8 petrol engine 196bhp, 207lbs ft. Fast forward almost 20 years and the 2.0 tdi still produces 140bhp, 250lbs ft. It produces less bhp, and is slower 0-60 than a 20 year old normally aspirated petrol engine.
Yes the diesels are more fuel efficient but they are still heavy smelly engines that belch out soot and particulates. What was the net gain in tax breaks to get everyone into diesels to then suddenly start to tax them out of them?
I've never owned a diesel and most likely never will so the question the OP posed doesn't really apply to me.
But I do use a few hire cars through work and have noticed that we only get petrols now over the last few months. We always ask for a diesel as we can fill the tanks up from our delivery van/truck pumps avoiding the £2/ltr charge for refuelling but each time now since the hire co got a new fleet we've been told there aren't any available (talking cars up to the size of a Focus/small SUV's etc). If this is happening across the majority of hire fleets then that will impact what cars are available at the car supermarkets on a year or so, this will drive the switch away from diesel more than anything I think.
DEFRA have stopped ordering diesel cars of any kind.
The EGR failed at 160,000 miles on my 2015. Replaced for <£300 (with labour at indy)
Passed MOT 2 weeks ago with no advisories.
Nearly all my journeys are 25+ miles.... most use is way longer so no real wish to change.
Fast forward almost 20 years and the 2.0 tdi still produces 140bhp, 250lbs ft. It produces less bhp, and is slower 0-60 than a 20 year old normally aspirated petrol engine.
Not sure you appreciate what's happening here. The TDI produces 140bhp because that's all they want it to produce. It's NOT because that's the maximum of which it's capable. They've just increased the economy. The marketers have decided 140 is a sensible amount, so that's where it stays. People who buy large petrol engines on the other hand don't care about economy, so they have been increasing the power steadily.
And you can't compare a 2.8 petrol with a 2.0 TDI, they're created for totally different purposes and sold to different people. This is not a technological issue.
What was the net gain in tax breaks to get everyone into diesels to then suddenly start to tax them out of them?
You know they still emit less CO2 don't you? And in any case - diesel didnt' get a tax break - low CO2 got a tax break. The lowest still being petrol hybrid. I feel your rant lacks focus somehow 🙂
If you read past the headlines and read the actual guidance its clear they are targeting remappers and EGR/DPF deleters. Theres gonna be alot of VAG cars failing mot on emissions with their remaps.
even buying 3 years old now your buying euro 6 ... youll be grand till the end of the cars life im sure.
what i wouldn't buy now is a NEW diesel car - or anything post april 2017.. - they are the ones that are going to face the biggest tax increases quickest under the new regime.
Its all good and well saying ill buy petrol ill buy hybrid.
i went out with that mindset.
once i narrowed it down the cars that fitted my needs and went out to buy a petrol.
I was left with a choice of a 1.2 puretech that is noisy,vibrates like a lumbering v8 at idle and did not even get close to advertised economy..... think low 30s rather than 55mpg advertised. - or a 1.6 old style petrol.... which due to high emissions was also in the higher tax bracket and still only did 40mpg....
Worse still if i wanted either i had to buy NEW - even nationally there were none for sale in the 3-5 year old market.
MY next car im sure will be hybrid im sure but thats a while off.
molgrips
Not sure you appreciate what’s happening here. The TDI produces 140bhp because that’s all they want it to produce. It’s NOT because that’s the maximum of which it’s capable. They’ve just increased the economy. The marketers have decided 140 is a sensible amount, so that’s where it stays. People who buy large petrol engines on the other hand don’t care about economy, so they have been increasing the power steadily.
Molgrips, I've noticed that whenever you're debating, whether it's intentional or not you regularly suggest that your sparring partner doesn't understand your argument or point of view. I completely understand the point that engines come in different states of tune and that 140bhp is not the maximum possible bhp for a 2.0 tdi but it's moot to my point because prior to common rail, turbo diesels weren't in their maximum state of tune, nor is any production petrol engine.
In 20 years vag went from a pd turbo diesel that produced 140bhp and 173 g/km to a CR making 140bhp and 117 g/km. But we know that the test is completely unrepresentative of real world driving conditions and that manufacturers cheated the tests so what what are those figures worth?
And you can’t compare a 2.8 petrol with a 2.0 TDI, they’re created for totally different purposes and sold to different people. This is not a technological issue.
They are sold to different people because they've been marketed to different people and that's targeted based on the fact that there's 60p per litre tax on petrol and the ved was designed to incentivise people to buy diesels. Everywhere else in the world a 3.0 petrol engine is a perfectly normal generic, basic standard engine to put in a 5 door saloon car. We've been conditioned to think they are some kind of sexy high performance toy because of punitive taxes.
You know they still emit less CO2 don’t you? And in any case – diesel didnt’ get a tax break – low CO2 got a tax break. The lowest still being petrol hybrid. I feel your rant lacks focus somehow
Diesels did effectively get a tax break because co2 alone was targeted. I agree, perhaps my rant isn't consistent, perhaps I'm argueing too many points or trying to join up too many dots but we don't know where vegetable oil fueled turbo diesels could have gotten to because manufacturers shut down that line of inquiry chasing pointless metrics that incentivized them to build cars that met unrealistic tests and still poisoned us. Now the public is cottoning on to what manufacturers likely knew all along, so now we have to ditch diesels and buy petrol hybrids. If they'd incentivized people 20 years ago to buy petrols and developed petrol engines to their optimal potential we wouldn't be having this discussion.
The buying public in Europe have been piggy in the middle here while legislators and manufacturers pissed about and made up the rules as they went along.
So is buying a used 6 year old (2012) diesel still a wise idea? Need to change my car this year. Currently looking at VW Passat 2lt CR diesel estate
Everywhere else in the world a 3.0 petrol engine is a perfectly normal generic, basic standard engine to put in a 5 door saloon car.
I'm really not sure that's true at all. I've certainly never been anywhere that's the case. It's not the case in the USA even. Such things are certainly more common, but the days of big NA V8s and four speed autos are gone.
But a 3.0 petrol engine is for people who want to go fast and don't care about fuel. A 2.0 TDI is for people who do care about fuel and want to go just fast enough. You cannot ignore the fact that a 3.0 petrol emits much more CO2 than a TDI. CO2 is still important, as NOx is.
If they’d incentivized people 20 years ago to buy petrols and developed petrol engines to their optimal potential
But they have been developed greatly in recent years. The small eco-boost type petrol engines, they are a huge advance. The amount of engineering in those is comparable (or greater) than a typical diesel, for better or worse. My Dad's Golf had an air/water intercooler for example you don't get those on standard diesels.
Re the development of diesel - that started in the 70s oil crisis. VW's initial white paper was published in something like 1977 where they set out their goal to develop passenger diesel cars.
we don’t know where vegetable oil fueled turbo diesels could have gotten to because manufacturers shut down that line of inquiry chasing pointless metrics that incentivized them to build cars that met unrealistic tests and still poisoned us.
I disagree. Veg oil for fuel is simply not an option and never will be - nothing to do with technology, it's to do with the supply of fuel. We can't grow enough oil seed rape, nowhere near. People are working on other sources of biofuel, and yes I agree that it needs much more investment. But it's not really a car company issue since the fuels will work in most engines with a little tweaking. The technology to use such fuels anyway certainly isn't an issue - the technology to create them is.
So is buying a used 6 year old (2012) diesel still a wise idea? Need to change my car this year. Currently looking at VW Passat 2lt CR diesel estate
I'm in the same boat, I have an 05 diesel which sails through MOT's and is a lovely engine, but the interior and body work have seen much better days.
I think it might be possible to get a better deal with all this negative press and misunderstanding of what it means!
So is buying a used 6 year old (2012) diesel still a wise idea? Need to change my car this year. Currently looking at VW Passat 2lt CR diesel estate
I’m in the same boat, I have an 05 diesel which sails through MOT’s and is a lovely engine, but the interior and body work have seen much better days.
I think it might be possible to get a better deal with all this negative press and misunderstanding of what it means!
Before xmas I bought a 2013 VAG turbo diesel. As a 4 year old car it was £2000 cheaper than the equivalent petrol version of the same car (with similar kit and mileage)
To sell/trade in in 5+ years either car will be worth less than £2000 total, regardless of emission regulations, so my dirty diesel might lose me a couple of hundred at this point. (net saving approx £1800).
For the next 5 years I'll enjoy £20/year tax (or slightly more if they bump the rate, but they never retrospectively change tax band) along with 60mpg hwy 50mpg city. Car handles well and does 8.0 secs 0-60.
Annual saving on fuel and tax = several hundred over equivalent petrol.
On the environmental issue, car already exists and is too young to be realistically scrapped, therefore someone will be driving it for the next 5 years, may as well be me.
So is buying a used 6 year old (2012) diesel still a wise idea? Need to change my car this year. Currently looking at VW Passat 2lt CR diesel estate
I would say buying a VW isn't a wise idea, never mind the diesel issue. I still have no idea why people flock to VAG group cars.
I agree, perhaps my rant isn’t consistent, perhaps I’m argueing too many points or trying to join up too many dots but we don’t know where vegetable oil fueled turbo diesels could have gotten to because manufacturers shut down that line of inquiry chasing pointless metrics that incentivized them to build cars that met unrealistic tests and still poisoned us. Now the public is cottoning on to what manufacturers likely knew all along, so now we have to ditch diesels and buy petrol hybrids. If they’d incentivized people 20 years ago to buy petrols and developed petrol engines to their optimal potential we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
The manufacturers really don't care what fuel so long as they are on a level playing field or better still one tilted towards them.
Vegetable oils are not intrinsically cleaner than diesel and as pointed out they diesels are not specifically cleaner than petrol...its all a matter of how they are designed and also how they are used
My mother used to have a tiny little Fiat 500 ... over 300 miles on a motorway it would burn a litre of engine oil... all of that is spat out with no EGR and no DPF... my diesel goes 12,000 miles between services without topping up the engine oil, let alone a litre! The volume of fuel burned is not dissimilar.
I can't see any way a car burning 1L of engine oil can be producing less pollution than my diesel on the same trip.
Anyway, the manufacturers just want to sell cars.... they will sell the ones that legislation makes most attractive.
molgrips
I’m really not sure that’s true at all. I’ve certainly never been anywhere that’s the case. It’s not the case in the USA even. Such things are certainly more common, but the days of big NA V8s and four speed autos are gone.
Go on Autotrader usa and take a look. If you search for a diesel ford all you'll see is pages and pages of giant pickup trucks. You can search by cylinders and again you'll see that 6 and 8 cylinder engines outnumber 4 cylinders hugely. For example 4 cylinder Audi returns two pages. 6 or more cylinder Audi (petrol) returns 12 pages. You couldn't even buy a 1.0 ecoboost focus there till last year but we've had them since 2010 or 2011.
But a 3.0 petrol engine is for people who want to go fast and don’t care about fuel. A 2.0 TDI is for people who do care about fuel and want to go just fast enough. You cannot ignore the fact that a 3.0 petrol emits much more CO2 than a TDI.
No a 4.0 or 5.0 or 6.0 petrol engine is for people who want to go fast. A 3.0 petrol engine is for people who can't afford a V8.
CO2 is still important, as NOx is.
Now it is. Nox didn't seem to be an issue to the public until 5 or 6 years ago.
The small eco-boost type petrol engines, they are a huge advance. The amount of engineering in those is comparable (or greater) than a typical diesel, for better or worse. My Dad’s Golf had an air/water intercooler for example you don’t get those on standard diesels.
I've been raving about them for must be four years (I've owned one for three). Every time I brought it up three years ago people (including you) instantly poo-poo'd the idea because look, I can get 65+ mpg out of my ancient diesel. Why did manufacturers suddenly start investing in small capacity petrol engines though? Why didn't they just spend that money on diesels? What did they see that led them down the development path toward microscopic petrol engines with variable geometry low intertia turbos? I'm cynical.
I disagree. Veg oil for fuel is simply not an option and never will be – nothing to do with technology, it’s to do with the supply of fuel. We can’t grow enough oil seed rape, nowhere near. People are working on other sources of biofuel, and yes I agree that it needs much more investment. But it’s not really a car company issue since the fuels will work in most engines with a little tweaking.
Can't supply everyone with veg but what if was just for a certain sector of the market? Perhaps supply wouldn't be an issue if diesels were limited to appropriate applications (lorrys, vans, trucks, boats) and much more suitable petrol engines had been favoured in small passenger cars instead of being taxed out.
Can’t supply everyone with veg but what if was just for a certain sector of the market?
Why would you want to?
Perhaps supply wouldn’t be an issue if diesels were limited to appropriate applications (lorrys, vans, trucks, boats)
Those are types of vehicles not applications as such.
Diesel is applicable to towing heavy loads and coating on motorways
and much more suitable petrol engines had been favoured in small passenger cars instead of being taxed out.
Petrol is more suitable for light loads and short journeys and urban driving
Not using a car is even better
The problem is that the legislation mis-sold cars or drive the mis-sale of cars.
My own diesel car is far more eco-friendly than a tiny petrol car for short journeys ... because I use a bike. If I intended driving less than a few miles on any regular basis I'd get a small petrol or electric but its perhaps once a month I do less than 25-50 miles.
My main concern is I just don't want to be spending £6- £7K on a car that I'm going to struggle to sell if I ever need to change it.
I am loving the VW UP GTI. It's the only thing that would tempt me away from a diesel car.
My main concern is I just don’t want to be spending £6- £7K on a car that I’m going to struggle to sell if I ever need to change it.
I spent 6k 70,000 miles ago. I did spend another £1000 isn on leather and alloys but even adding that I've had 6 years and 70k and theoretically could sell the leather and wheels....
I wish I'd got an estate but other than that I've no plans to sell or change for another 70k...
I have a diesel Euro 6 with no ad-blue so it’s not essential to passing the test*
I have noticed that my 2017 diesel returns worse mpg than my 2012 and 2008 diesels if the numbers on the dash computer can be believed.
*whatever that means
Go on Autotrader usa and take a look. If you search for a diesel ford all you’ll see is pages and pages of giant pickup trucks. You can search by cylinders and again you’ll see that 6 and 8 cylinder engines outnumber 4 cylinders hugely. For example 4 cylinder Audi returns two pages. 6 or more cylinder Audi (petrol) returns 12 pages.
I'm not looking at Autotrader, I'm looking at the roads when I go there, which is often. Diesel trucks are a bit of a speciality. Most of them are bought buy people who need to move large equippment - much more common than it is here, because there seem to be more self employed contractors owning their own kit. By far the most common diesels are pickups, and they aren't that common. Audis are also not representative because they are mostly premium cars and in that respect, NA petrols are more common engines. Try searching for Chevrolet, Hyundia, Nissan, Toyota etc. You'll probably find far more 4cyl petrols.
But that's a huge digression. The reason that diesel isn't more popular there is partly due to import tariffs and marketing but also significantly to do with far more stringent NOx limits that go much further back, because of their smog problem which is much greater than ours due to climate.
Now it is. Nox didn’t seem to be an issue to the public until 5 or 6 years ago.
That's because it wasn't apparent how much of an impact diesel was having on towns and cities until recently. Evidence appears, and changes policy. I see no reason to be cynical here.
Why did manufacturers suddenly start investing in small capacity petrol engines though?
My guess would be the development of direct injection petrol making then possible, and the anti-diesel feeling brought on by DPF/EGR/DMF failure worries. That's what started this thing, not NOx levels. The manufacturers would have seen an opportunity to sell something with added value over the standard boring 1.6 NA petrol. People usually don't give much of a crap about pollution do they?
Perhaps supply wouldn’t be an issue if diesels were limited to appropriate applications (lorrys, vans, trucks, boats)
Those are types of vehicles not applications as such.
Diesel is applicable to towing heavy loads and coating on motorways
Pedantry just for the sake of pedantry and yet still agreeing with my point. Impressive STW'ing. Do you think I didn't realise they are types of vehicles or did you just miss the point that generally the application of those vehicles is to move heavy loads? Gah.
I’m not looking at Autotrader, I’m looking at the roads when I go there, which is often.
Right, don't look at any kind of overview...just base your opinion on what you see when you visit your mother in law. Seems legit.
That’s because it wasn’t apparent how much of an impact diesel was having on towns and cities until recently.
But .....if the Americans knew about it "way back" as you put it, then that doesn't add up either.
My guess would be the development of direct injection petrol making then possible, and the anti-diesel feeling brought on by DPF/EGR/DMF failure worries. That’s what started this thing, not NOx levels. The manufacturers would have seen an opportunity to sell something with added value over the standard boring 1.6 NA petrol.
In that case improving diesels would have been the correct move. People are now conditioned to think diesels = green and economical. Petrols = inneficient and polluting. Just look at the absolute shite that gets spouted when someone asks about a small displacement petrol engine. Now manufacturers have to reverse that conditioning. Somehow they managed to produce petrol engines that now reliably produce 150bhp+ from a litre, similar torque, 60mpg in a few years of development.
I’m not looking at Autotrader, I’m looking at the roads when I go there, which is often.
I'm guessing you usually go to the same place(s) though. I was quite surprised but ...
http://uk.businessinsider.com/best-selling-cars-trucks-vehicle-america-2016-2017-1
Compact-car sales fell 6.1% last year. At the same time, its mid-size counterpart saw sales plummet 11.2%.
In its place, the dominant force in the marketplace is the compact and mid-size crossover SUV. Combined, these two segments account for 35% of all cars and trucks sold in the United States. At the same time, America's insatiable appetite for full-size pickup trucks is alive and well. Even though the segment is made up of just six models, total sales topped 2.2 million.
But …..if the Americans knew about it “way back” as you put it, then that doesn’t add up either.
The USA gets lots of very hot still weather in places. And with increasing car mileage and traffic back in the 70s they had huge, very visible, very obvious photochemical smog problems - far worse than our windy cold countryside gets. So they had to act, because people's eyes and noses were streaming. In this country though it is nowhere near as bad - and mostly only people with breathing problems are affected. The difference is that nowadays we have stricter standards from the EU, and we give more of a shit about vulnerable people. The situation with the US in the 70s was more like the UK in the 50s with coal fires.
Incidentally one thing they did was introduce EGR to petrol engines which made them much less efficient, which is why they ended up with big engines with low BHP.
People are now conditioned to think diesels = green and economical. Petrols = inneficient and polluting. Just look at the absolute shite that gets spouted when someone asks about a small displacement petrol engine.
Never seen anyone spout shit about these - where are you looking?
Somehow they managed to produce petrol engines that now reliably produce 150bhp+ from a litre, similar torque, 60mpg in a few years of development.
A few years of development? They might've been on the market for a few years, but I'll wager they were in development for a lot longer than that. They are all direct injection petrol I think, and I suspect that took a lot of effort to develop, probably requiring some high tech computational modelling. So it could be a case of requiring lots of other engineering tech to be developed before it could be made to work reliably. See also Mazda's direct injection petrol engine. That idea has been around for many years, but the solutions have taken time to arrive at.
I’m guessing you usually go to the same place(s) though.
Nah, we drive all over the place. And I'm always looking at the cars. And my father in law is a petrol head so it's mostly all we talk about. There's a split - people either buy big trucks or SUVs, or they buy normal cars with 4cyl engines, it seems.
Pedantry just for the sake of pedantry and yet still agreeing with my point. Impressive STW’ing. Do you think I didn’t realise they are types of vehicles or did you just miss the point that generally the application of those vehicles is to move heavy loads? Gah.
But its not the same. In addition to trucks diesel is a good choice for anyone that does 95% of their driving doing long motorway miles whilst small petrol engined car's are not. It's a fundamental of the energy that is stored in diesel vs 95 or 98 octane...
But …..if the Americans knew about it “way back” as you put it, then that doesn’t add up either.
Because NoX isn't the be all and end all... though it is very relevant for urban driving because it is a local pollutant vs CO2 which is pretty harmless but is a global pollutant vs trace metals used in Ni Hydride cells that are a someone else's problem localised pollutant.
I'm more inclined towards petrol being redundant in some ways... with diesel hybrids ... using diesel on long motorways and electric in urban... but we will be more likely into fuel cells before that happens.
I’m more inclined towards petrol being redundant in some ways… with diesel hybrids … using diesel on long motorways and electric in urban… but we will be more likely into fuel cells before that happens.
The problem with fuel cells is you still need electricity or fossil fuels to generate the hydrogen for them. And you still need to distribute and store that hydrogen.
It could be a solution to the pollution problem, but I don't think it's significantly better/worse than electricity, and we already have almost perfect infrastructure for electricity (most houses have at least a 13kW supply and if it takes off then there isn't much stopping councils installing charge points in every lamppost which could be a nice earner for them offsetting the lost tax on fuel. Where hydrogen would have to start from scratch (and have new refineries built to produce it, and the cars still have less range than a Tesla (which can charge about as quickly as you can drink a coffee in a service station).
A fuel cell is still a battery, it's USP is that one half of it is quickly re-fillable (hydrogen) and the other half is air. There are other batteries in development that use air as one half of the electrochemical reaction but can be charged in-situ, the advantage of that is you get rid of most of the battery weight, which means it can be bigger, making it's range more than people will ever need, although even a Tesla will get you to the alps with fewer stops than the Human bladder is designed for!
SCR reduces the NOx from diesels greatly - if you set it up to inject enough AdBlue to deal with the NOx, that is. Let's say manufacturers were forced to do this, with proper MOT testing - would diesels still be a 'bad thing' ?
But its not the same. In addition to trucks diesel is a good choice for anyone that does 95% of their driving doing long motorway miles whilst small petrol engined car’s are not. It’s a fundamental of the energy that is stored in diesel vs 95 or 98 octane…
Diesel actually produces more CO2 per kW than petrol (which is more than LPG etc). It's the difference in efficiencies of the direct injection that makes them better.
Direct injection petrol on the other hand should beat diesel. Toyota's next generation of direct injection petrol engines are their most efficient ever.