Comments on: 2007 World Green Car is Blue(tec)

By: Saturday Night Links : Venture Chronicles

Saturday Night Links : Venture Chronicles — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 05:06:37 +0000

[...] – Speaking of automobiles, a JD Power survey revealed that new car buyer interest in hybrids is waning while interest in clean diesels is rising. Told you so. [...]

By: Oven

Oven — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 11:03:54 +0000

Nothing in the world is difficult for one who sets his mind to it.

By: Mark A

Mark A — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:37:10 +0000

I actually agree with you about diesels, my next car will probably be one.

BTW, when I made the “significantly lower/across the board” I was referring to PZEV, not ULEV. I was still a bit wrong because PM is not lower for PZEV – but NOx is.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:07:51 +0000

Mark,
I was making a simple statement of fact as well. Diesels offer compelling advantages over gasoline vehicles and gasoline hybrids when taking into account a range of factors. Furthermore, it’s really a failure of CA that we can’t buy these vehicles today, there’s a market for them and they have dramatically lower fuel consumption which also lowers emissions.

We are both incorrect about the CA LEV/ULEV, my data source didn’t have the full table so I was incorrect in saying only CO requirements go lower. However, you indicated that NOx and PM are “significantly lower” in ULEV and that is incorrect. For LDV/LDT vehicles, which we are talking about here, the numbers between LEV and ULEV move on CO, NMOG, and HCHO only so it’s not “across the board”.

By: Mark A

Mark A — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 06:10:16 +0000

I don’t believe I was making an argument, Jeff, just a simple statement of fact.

BTW, If you do take the time to look at page 3 of the document I linked, you’ll also find that your statement regarding LEV vs ULEV is completely false.

By: its4us2think

its4us2think — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:15:57 +0000

Part of the problem with Diesel is the lack of awareness amongst the majority. California’s strict emission rules also does not help. IMO, diesel is more popular with European car makers and people (here in US) buy European cars for reasons like performance or as a status symbol rather than fuel economy or a commuter vehicle. So, these makers had less reasons to promote diesel till very recently (Toyota turning hybrid hype to its advantage has woken up Europeans on green marketing)

One of my friends took the back door of buying a used diesel car from out of state just to work around the california emission rules. He gets close to 40 mpg (not even bluetec) in his regular driving in a luxury car, it is a wise decision if you can shell out ~40k on a used car!! Thanks to (lack of) hype, onlookers wont consider him “green” enough!!

By: Brian Despain

Brian Despain — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 15:59:17 +0000

Mandating types of technology to solve the problem is always a bad idea. It’s too bad there isn’t a lobby for diesel like there appears to be for the corn lobby.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 02:21:26 +0000

Mark,
You are ignoring a rather obvious fact, increasing mileage reduces emissions. The other fact that your argument sidesteps is the in the light vehicle category the only hybrids that have delivered mileage close to what these diesels are capable of is subcompacts, which are unsuitable for most of the market because of size or driving enjoyment factors. Hybrid SUVs or larger cars are delivering incremental mileage gains, my own experience with a Ford Escape Hybrid revealed that to be true, indeed, highway mileage was worse than non-hyrid variants.

By: Mark A

Mark A — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 23:37:05 +0000

Jeff,

I believe the Prius & Civic hybrids rate as “PZEV”, not a “ULEV” – and that has substantially lower emissions requirements across the board – not just CO, but NOx, non-methane organics, particulates and formaldehyde. There’s a similar difference between EPA Bin5 and Bin2 (which some hybrids meet.)

Source: http://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/detailedchart.pdf

..Mark..

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 17:28:33 +0000

Mark,
Thanks for the note. Re fuel from coal, you could make the same argument for biofuels when you take into account the energy required to produce them. Of course, now that the Bush administration is pushing ethanol we can be sure there will be a series of media pieces about the humanitarian consequences of ethanol. I have already read that Chavez and Castro have about-faced on biofuel in the last couple of weeks and now criticize it for depriving the world’s poor of food supplies.

More to the point, gasoline hybrids will remain a niche category because of the complexity and cost of the technology and the fact that it doesn’t scale to larger vehicles. My recent experience with a Ford Escape (which uses Toyota’s technology) proved that the mileage was pretty crappy on the highway and more importantly, it was a disappointing vehicle to drive.

This is where I should stop and point out that none of these technologies are standing still so it’s entirely probable that we’ll see larger vehicle implementations that overcome current shortcomings.

Your point about NOx emissions does not escape me, it’s certainly been the primary sticking point for diesels trying to move out of Bin8 to Bin5/LEV, but when you go from LEV to ULEV you are reducing only additional reductions in CO. The prototype DeNOx absorber and urea injection that the Bluetec alliance has demonstrated rather conclusively that NOx emissions can be reduced to impressive levels, and that’s what will be in the E320 Bluetec that hits the U.S. market later this year.

Having said all that, the simple fact remains that if you increase diesel coverage across the U.S. fleet of vehicles you will reduce emissions as a consequence of reducing fuel consumption.

One area that I am sure we will agree on is that when diesel is combined with hybrid technology you can overcome many of the shortcomings of gasoline hybrids and that’s a win-win.