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Why do Americans not drive diesels?
- corin_ 13y agoCache for UK readers: http://web.archive.org/web/20130514033523/http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20130109-why-do-americans-not-buy-diesels http://web.archive.org/web/20130514033523/http://www.bbc.com...
- gmantastic 13y agoThank you.
- notahacker 13y agoUK readers see this: "We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com." It's not a paywall, or an interstitial-ad-wall or a great firewall of China. It's just designed to save UK viewers from the horror of seeing an article with a BBC logo on the top and ads down the side. Stupidwall seems like a good term for it.
- corin_ 13y agoIt may also be the case that some or all of their content is licensed for a non-UK audience, meaning that they would have higher costs if they wanted to allow UK viewers, a cost which they might not recoup from UK advertisement viewers. That said, based on the limited information we have, I'm totally with you that it's a ridiculous situation. Maybe they have a somewhat valid reason, such as the one I suggested above, but I do doubt it.
- ronaldx 13y agoNot exactly - the BBC often serves the same content without displaying ads in the UK. I'm not clear what's going on in this case, but it's more likely that this is out of its public remit - as a funded public service, they're not to compete with commercial companies in sensitive industries/they're not allowed to use public money on content irrelevant to their remit and so BBC Worldwide has to be somewhat carefully separated. e.g. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4058031.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4058031.stm This may be down to Rupert Murdoch's lobbying pressure.
- ajtaylor 13y agoBased on my experience driving a late model VW Golf TDi, it is only a matter of time before rising fuel costs push both manufacturers and consumers towards diesels. They are more efficient and all the problems diesels of the 70's have ben resolved. Plus, they are fun to drive!
- CWilliams1013 13y agoAnd spending $50 on diesel once a month is really nice!
- ajtaylor 13y agoNo kidding! I would routinely get 850+ km from my Golf in city driving on a tank (45-50 L). 1000+ km should be easily possible on the highway. Larger cars would have a little worse economy, but should still be excellent.
- joezydeco 13y agoThe problems of 1970s-era American diesels may have been resolved, but Americans have long memories when it comes to cars. A car is a major purchase and when you're burned by a certain manufacturer or model, you don't quickly forget it. It's also one of the reasons American manufacturers like GM and Ford have lower perceptions of build quality even though these companies are now passing the Japanese manufacturers in quality surveys.
- damncurious 13y agoOil is cheap, so no need for diesels for now. But, beware folks, if oil gets more expensive we will probably see more diesels out there. Have a look at Turkey for example. In Turkey oil prices have gone so high during the last decade that people are now forced to use diesels, and as a result diesel car prices are also getting higher with this higher demand.
- krapp 13y agoThe question isn't why do Americans not drive diesels, but why aren't they sold here (apart from trucks)? We can't drive cars no one is selling. From what i've been told, it's partly because they're too efficient and might bring the cost of fuel down too much. No idea if that's accurate.
- dbecker 13y agoNo one wants to sell cars that consumers won't buy. There are a few diesel car models available in US (e.g. the VW Passat TDI and Jetta TDI). But Americans don't buy enough of them to cause more manufacturers to sell diesel models.
- krapp 13y agoConsumers might buy them if they were advertised as 'green' cars that were cheaper than hybrids and more reliable than electrics (you just need to remember which pump to use) Though it does seem like a bit of a chicken or egg situation.
- pinaceae 13y agoInterestingly though, Diesel popularity, at least in my peer group is going down. - Modern Diesel engines are very complicated due to their turbos, hence are more brittle and expensive to repair. - Price advantage of Diesel is practically not there anymore, but the Diesel model is still more expensive. - Modern Gasoline engines have caught up with Diesels in terms of mpg. No one bought a Diesel because it's a Diesel. People were buying it cause the price at the pump was way lower and you could offset your initial higher costs after 50-80k kms. So, the US might just have skipped over Diesel. Happens in other tech as well, see 3g networks, etc.
- thedrbrian 13y agoTalking to a friend who works as an engineer designing modern diesels he said he wouldn't own a car he helped design outside of the warranty if it was a diesel.
- dpcx 13y agoThat sounds like a terrible statement. Similar to a bridge engineer who wouldn't drive over a bridge he helped design. Shows a serious lack of trust in their capabilities, and that of their team.
- tjgq 13y agoOr he could be referring to planned obsolescence.
- mikeash 13y agoI disagree. A failing bridge is a major safety problem, while a failing car engine is merely a financial problem. A bridge should last "forever", which is to say that it will be clear when it needs to be replaced before it actually fails. Car engines are routinely used until they break, then repaired and used until they break again, and this continues until it's no longer financially viable.
- to3m 13y agoIt's not really very controversial. If you need your car, and you can't afford to buy a new engine if it breaks, as far as I can tell you'd be certainly well advised not run a modern diesel car without a warranty. I don't know anybody who's owned one who hasn't had various funny problems with it, requiring regular trips to the garage followed by shrugging shoulders all round and a succession of replacement of random electronic parts. To meet the increasingly stringent emissions controls, and people's desire for a car that is reasonably cheap and accelerates at a decent rate, the cars seem to have become rather complicated, and reliability has been affected. Common points of failure seem to be: - dual mass flywheel (presumably the regular swift ramping-up of torque doesn't help) - turbo charger (obviously spins very quickly and unlike a petrol engine it comes on from about 1500rpm so it's used a lot) - diesel injectors (high precision components operating under pressure) - diesel particulate filter (can clog and require expensive replacement if car is not regularly driven hard) - random engine/ECU "thing" that nobody can figure out (who knows what the root cause of this might be) You might have better luck with a pre-common rail diesel car, but the fuel economy is unlikely to be very good and the performance - at least by modern standards - looks to be terrible.
- farinasa 13y agoI have been wondering this myself. Diesel burns cleans, can be made from vegetables and the engines can also be used with methane. Not to mention the engines are fundamentally more efficient than gasoline. Not only just as a system, but our current use case of low idles and sitting in traffic, a diesel wipes the floor with gasoline. You can get a diesel in the us, but unless you get the vw, you're stuck with a 4 litre truck. I think another important question is why aren't we converting gasoline cars to run on methane? The conversion is less than 1000$ and can be done by anyone. Its a tank some hoses and a regulator and would bring prices down to about 2$ a gallon.
- ancarda 13y agoBecause then the oil companies would lose money. Lobbying is the reason.
- revelation 13y agoDiesel does not burn clean. Diesel particulate matter is, due to its size, extremely difficult to filter and of course also highly carcinogenic.
- farinasa 13y agoParticulate is only a problem during acceleration. When used in a hybrid system as a generator, it is not a big concern.
- DanBC 13y ago> Diesel burns clean Diesel particulate matter from diesel vehicles is a significant source of harm from air pollution. DPM kills many people each year. Possibly 29,000 people each year in the UK die early because of air pollution. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/19/uk-air-pollution-health-crisis http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/19/uk-air-pol...)
- farinasa 13y agoThere are many effective means of particulate filtration available.
- nawitus 13y agoOne reason is taxes. >The United States federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel. - Wikipedia In most(?) European countries diesel fuel has a lower tax.
- tvladeck 13y agoWorth mentioning that a single barrel of oil has a relatively fixed amount of each fuel type (i.e., gasoline, diesel, kerosene, etc). So when tax policy in one place favors one portion of the barrel, the "extra" other fuels have to go /somewhere/. That tax policy in Europe favors diesel it makes it relatively cheaper to buy gasoline in the States (and vice versa). Economies of scale within distribution and manufacturing networks seem to favor one dominant fuel at a time for passenger vehicles.
- quarterto 13y agoWe're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com. Wait, what?
- martin-adams 13y agoYep, definitely a perplexing oxymoron for us Brits.
- toble 13y agoI think it's because BBC hasn't licensed the content from BBC Worldwide.
- mjn 13y agoIt's part of an odd compromise with the private-sector media companies and government reached a few years ago. Within the UK, the BBC is only allowed to show content that is wholly funded by the license fee, and cannot solicit advertising or other external funding for the content. This was insisted on by the private-sector media companies, who don't want the BBC competing with them in the commercial portion of the market. Separately, the BBC overseas service is required to solicit external funding for its content, and not to cross-subsidize it with the license fee. This was insisted on by the government, which did not want license-fee revenues subsidizing international content, but still did want international content to exist as part of the UK's global cultural export/image. But due to the previous agreement this content then can't be shown in the UK, because it's commercially-funded content.
- kombine 13y agoAmerica is actually on the way to electric cars, bypassing the unnecessary stage of diesels, hybrids and whatnot. The diesel might not even happen, provided that Tesla does well.
- grumps 13y agoI'm an ex car nut, and I've always been fascinated by the diesel engine. I have yet to own one but I keep threatening to get one for myself. Primarily looking at that old MB 240D which is a tank. :-D In my unofficial surveys of people diesel is always thought of as dirty and harder to find at the pump. The reason I don't actually own a diesel is the lack of options here in the US. Ive got to choose a truck, VW (depending on the year) and a MB. I haven't gone as far as looking into importing one purely for the repair aspect. If I actually ever move from my tiny city apartments I've considered the truck option and then converting it to run on SVO but it will probably never happen. I have yet to figure out why we don't have diesel electric vehicles.
- rdl 13y agoI'd drive a diesel if the US didn't have crazy NOx standards; the urea system, etc. is needless complexity. One of my favorite vehicles I've owned was a diesel Toyota Hilux; also loved the Land Cruiser LM78 I borrowed. The main thing I want is the ability to store 500-1000 gallons of fuel and know it will be viable for a couple years. You can do that with diesel, you can't really do that with gasoline. Being able to share fuel between a generator and a car (and ideally eventually a motorcycle/gator and a plane) would be even better.
- VLM 13y agoWhat is diesel? Chemically its nothing at all. You can slap a label with "diesel" written on seemingly anything that burns. Gasoline is somewhat better defined. You can read an interesting wiki article about ultra low sulfur diesel and the transition issues etc. The short version is there is no "diesel atom or molecule" its a mixture of vaguely burnable substances. Some of which are compatible with some or another engines but not all. For example ULSD diesel is more or less incompatible with certain fuel pump seals sold up to less than 4 years ago. Its hard to stomach buying something you may need to scrap or repair/replace in such a short term. This is the era of indecisiveness for diesel. Gasoline had a similar one decades ago during the leaded to unleaded transition... that would have been the ideal time to roll diesel into the market. Another problem is ignoring progress. "Those 1970's diesels really sucked compared to 1970s gas engines". "Oh thats OK 2010 diesels are better than 1970s diesels." "Sorry dude I'm comparing a 2010 diesel with a 2010 gas engine, not a 1970 gas engine." "Oh... in that case I guess a gas engine is better".
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago>You can read an interesting wiki article about ultra low sulfur diesel and the transition issues etc. Yes, a disaster. I have 4 vehicles with diesel engines. I've replaced[1] all of my seals and O-rings with Viton. Let those SOB's change the fuel again. I don't care. Nothing fucks with Viton. >Its hard to stomach buying something you may need to scrap or repair/replace in such a short term. They have rarely made changes to diesel fuel formulation, and only the ULSD change was catastrophic. Gasoline is reformulated seasonally, with varying amounts of alcohol. This has caused problems as well, but fewer people seem to notice or care. >Another problem is ignoring progress. "Those 1970's diesels really sucked compared to 1970s gas engines". "Oh thats OK 2010 diesels are better than 1970s diesels." "Sorry dude I'm comparing a 2010 diesel with a 2010 gas engine, not a 1970 gas engine." "Oh... in that case I guess a gas engine is better". Gasoline engines are far better than they used to be, no doubt about it, but so are diesels. I still prefer diesels, but for most people it's moot anyway. They either don't need a huge pickup truck, or there is no diesel available for purchase in their market segment. [1] Still replacing and fixing leaks years later.
- maerF0x0 13y agoI personally believe that diesels have helped bring some great technologies to gasoline engines: - Making turbo charging more popular - Direct injection And I think one day we'll do away with spark plugs and have compression based ignition in gasoline engines. Combine that with hybrid technologies and we could have some pretty dang efficient vehicles. less efficient than a bicycle though :P
- Terretta 13y agoDepends on the market segment. I love my 2005 diesel work truck, and get asked several times a week by drivers of gasoline trucks whether I'll sell it. Used, it commands a significant premium over the used gasoline trucks. In the work truck market at least, it seems many buyers of new gas powered trucks come to regret that purchase and look for a diesel instead.
- VeejayRampay 13y agoDiesel is considered as a carcinogen anyway due to the emission of nanoparticules. Good on them. See http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/health/diesel-fumes-cause-lung-cancer-who-says.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/health/diesel-fumes-cause-... for example.
- greenyoda 13y agoOne problem that would hinder the adoption of diesel cars in the U.S. is the availability of diesel fuel. Not all filling stations carry it, since in the U.S. it's predominantly used by trucks and buses. If you live in an area that doesn't have a lot of truck traffic (such as a suburb), you might have to go far out of your way to fill up your diesel car.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoBetter availability in rural areas. I've lived in cities and small rural towns (though never the suburbs), I've never had trouble finding fuel.