TQ

TQ

My father has a diesel and it has its advantages but it all depends on you driving style. I can be more aggressive with diesel and still get good fuel economy. But diesel cars are more expensive to buy, fuel itself is more expensive even though it’s less burdened by regulation fees, they are noisier so they create more noise pollution and finally they are more expensive to service – you have to change parts more often, they are more stressed, etc.

So we have a little helper. If you drive more than 50 thousand kilometers per year and it’s mostly outside city you should buy a diesel. Because just purchase cost of diesel will be paid off after something like 100 thousand kilometers and better fuel economy is most significant at mid speeds. At lower speeds increased weight is just too big difference and diesel cars lose to gas powered ones. And transmissions are not set up for high speeds so you will easily catch up with gas engines above 85 MPH.

I know that bioethanol is not future but you are simply jumping the gun. You (Americans) didn’t give a shit about consumption for years and now instead of adopting new technologies that are ready for market you want to skip to technologies that aren’t even developed yet. Gas in Europe costs something like 2 times more than in USA or Japan. That forced European car manufacturers to make more economical cars, to make diesel cars, to build first serial produced hydrogen cars, to research renewable alternatives for fossil fuels. In 50′ Mercedes Benz started to use diesel engines in personal cars. In 1995 more than 50% of cars sold on european markets are diesel. Nowadays some cars are sold with 90% of diesels and those aren’t some trucks but sedans and coupes. And we already have/are building facilities for LPG, CNG, E85 and Hydrogen. My father had first LPG car in ’96.

Most European car manufacturers think that capabilities of gas and diesel engines have not been exhausted and that it’s worth it to explore it further. Now we can make 2.0 liter engine with 200 BHP and 45 MPG. Add turbocharger and it’s even better. In my country government is already forbidding to build new solar/wind/… power plants in some regions because they make electricity distribution network unstable and prone to failure. You can’t even imagine how big power requirements will plug-in hybrids have – how many (nuclear) power plants will have to be build and how destructive for economy power distribution network failures will become.

I like lot of the ideas but I think that USA is rushing from one disaster to another.

On a side note, Prius 2010 is ready to become plug-in hybrid. The car (at least in European version) has everything needed to be converted to plug-in – connector for additional batteries and mode that allows it to run just on batteries (no starting engine to recharge them). It’s considerably cheaper than Volt or other crazy machines in process of creation and you can still start the engine in a case of power distribution network failure.

My father has a diesel and it has its advantages but it all depends on you driving style. I can be more aggressive with diesel and still get good fuel economy. But diesel cars are more expensive to buy, fuel itself is more expensive even though it’s less burdened by regulation fees, they are noisier so they create more noise pollution and finally they are more expensive to service – you have to change parts more often, they are more stressed, etc.

So we have a little helper. If you drive more than 50 thousand kilometers per year and it’s mostly outside city you should buy a diesel. Because just purchase cost of diesel will be paid off after something like 100 thousand kilometers and better fuel economy is most significant at mid speeds. At lower speeds increased weight is just too big difference and diesel cars lose to gas powered ones. And transmissions are not set up for high speeds so you will easily catch up with gas engines above 85 MPH.

I know that bioethanol is not future but you are simply jumping the gun. You (Americans) didn’t give a shit about consumption for years and now instead of adopting new technologies that are ready for market you want to skip to technologies that aren’t even developed yet. Gas in Europe costs something like 2 times more than in USA or Japan. That forced European car manufacturers to make more economical cars, to make diesel cars, to build first serial produced hydrogen cars, to research renewable alternatives for fossil fuels. In 50′ Mercedes Benz started to use diesel engines in personal cars. In 1995 more than 50% of cars sold on european markets are diesel. Nowadays some cars are sold with 90% of diesels and those aren’t some trucks but sedans and coupes. And we already have/are building facilities for LPG, CNG, E85 and Hydrogen. My father had first LPG car in ’96.

Most European car manufacturers think that capabilities of gas and diesel engines have not been exhausted and that it’s worth it to explore it further. Now we can make 2.0 liter engine with 200 BHP and 45 MPG. Add turbocharger and it’s even better. In my country government is already forbidding to build new solar/wind/… power plants in some regions because they make electricity distribution network unstable and prone to failure. You can’t even imagine how big power requirements will plug-in hybrids have – how many (nuclear) power plants will have to be build and how destructive for economy power distribution network failures will become.

I like lot of the ideas but I think that USA is rushing from one disaster to another.

On a side note, Prius 2010 is ready to become plug-in hybrid. The car (at least in European version) has everything needed to be converted to plug-in – connector for additional batteries and mode that allows it to run just on batteries (no starting engine to recharge them). It’s considerably cheaper than Volt or other crazy machines in process of creation and you can still start the engine in a case of power distribution network failure.

Europeans have completely different problem, car manufacturers here put diesels to everything because some people think that diesel means necessary low running costs.

Turbocharged gasoline engine with electrical engine to compensate accelerating is in city more economical (that’s why all European car manufacturers put lately turbocharged gas engines into city cars).

If I wanted state of the art design I would build E100 or E85 bioethanol engine, maybe with turbocharger, and electrical engine. Bioethanol has more energy in one liter than gas which means smaller engine, better fuel economy and it’s from renewable resource.

In USA you maybe don’t know it but there is whole bunch of manufacturers that make bio engines – for example Volvo with 1.8 and 2.5 turbo E85 engines (which are even capable of combustion of regular gas).

Europeans have completely different problem, car manufacturers here put diesels to everything because some people think that diesel means necessary low running costs.

Turbocharged gasoline engine with electrical engine to compensate accelerating is in city more economical (that’s why all European car manufacturers put lately turbocharged gas engines into city cars).

If I wanted state of the art design I would build E100 or E85 bioethanol engine, maybe with turbocharger, and electrical engine. Bioethanol has more energy in one liter than gas which means smaller engine, better fuel economy and it’s from renewable resource.

In USA you maybe don’t know it but there is whole bunch of manufacturers that make bio engines – for example Volvo with 1.8 and 2.5 turbo E85 engines (which are even capable of combustion of regular gas).