4 ms·

So after VW's issue and now this, it makes me wonder--is diesel actually as attractive as some of these manufacturers had made it out to be? Or was that all inh

• hwillis 9y ago
  According to VW documents they were really optimistic, but as development costs rose and rose they were unable to meet expectations. Deisel is not currently attractive as you need to either hobble the engine or spend more on urea. Of course, hobbling the engines in all cars would be a good idea- you only need like 40 horsepower to do 80 mph. Base model cars have 200 horsepower just because it's more fun.
  • cmrdporcupine 9y ago
    Well it's torque that is attractive to consumers not top speed, though that does sell car. And there is _some_ advantage to good torque like what diesel (or even better, electric) gets you -- helps on the freeway with merging or passing, or some emergency maneuvers. But yeah, you're right. From a strictly technical POV consumers don't need all the power they have now. Cars are stupid anyways. The sheer amount of land paved over in asphalt in order to feed the beast of driving is just insane. At the macro level it does not seem like an effective use of resources.
• CydeWeys 9y ago
  I think we're seeing the end days of diesel for passenger cars, at least in developed nations with strict emissions controls. Hopefully electric will take over. Unfortunately, no one's quite solved the trucking problem yet.
  • dreamcompiler 9y ago
    I hate to say it but I think you're right. I was a big believer in diesel passenger cars because their mileage is as good as a hybrid, they're cheaper to produce, and you can operate them more or less carbon-neutral (with biodiesel). But that was before we found out everybody was cheating on the emissions.
    • CydeWeys 9y ago
      Diesel cars aren't as fuel-efficient as a gasoline hybrid. You're making that comparison via volume, which is misleading because diesel is significantly denser (and, thus, burning a similar volume of diesel releases more greenhouse gases). Do the comparison by mass instead of volume, or simply by CO2 mass emitted per mile, and you'll see that the hybrid still wins out. Although, of course, even hybrids aren't good enough in the long run; we need to stop digging up and burning buried carbon, full stop. Electric cars do that. Hybrids and efficient diesels do not. Electric cars are a workable final solution that results in a planet that remains livable; hybrids and diesels are not. They don't destroy the planet quite as quickly, but the destination is still the same.
      • dreamcompiler 9y ago
        Specific gravity of gasoline is roughly .74 and diesel is roughly .85, so point taken. Agreed that electric will be the best solution.
  • Gibbon1 9y ago
    It's the end days of internal combustion engines.
• achamayou 9y ago
  It was very attractive because it was cheap. Pollution notwithstanding, modern diesels drive just as well, if not better than petrol but consume significantly less fuel. In Europe where fuel is comparatively more expensive than the US and where emission regulations do not hamper it, diesel dominates the market. Another aspect of it is that the carbon emissions tend to be lower than for an equivalent petrol engine, which is (part of) the reason why various tax incentives were put in place in Europe to favour diesel. They've mostly been rolled back now, but the carbon emission gap and the fuel economy remain.
  • gsnedders 9y ago
    And much of the push happened around the time of the Kyoto Protocol being agreed, which was all about reducing greenhouse gas emissions.