Hybrid vs. Diesel Debate

I think a hybrid diesel would be fantastic, as soon as we get cleaner diesel fuel in North America. The high-sulfur stuff we have now is just too dirty.

Since diesels sip fuel at idle it's not as big a deal to leave them idling. But you would save a lot of fuel not running them at full load.

You could still take advantage of "rightsizing" the diesel engine by having electric boost available.

I'm not sure if everybody has noticed the redesign of this site, but if you go back to www.hybridcars.com, and look under "New Articles & Features," and go to "Diesel vs. Hybrid Markets," there is a fantastic, balanced, and informative write-up of the topic.

Loaded with good data, presented in a mature and reasonable manner. And happily free from the typical "Jane you ignorant slut" (apologies to SNL) tendencies of other forums.

I agree 100%. Bio-diesels are the most practical fuel efficient cars. Until hybrids get better mpg numbers they don't make sense to me. People who are concerned about particle emmissions should note that in europe (where they have low sulfur diesel) emmisions are greatly reduced.
Furthermore, if you were locked in your garage with a running engine you would survive a lot longer if it was a diesel.

Oh, thank you "BioHybrid"!. I've been waiting for a bio-deisel electric hybid for what seems like forever! Now, if it can just be built with a secondary tank for recycled deep-fat fryer oil from McDonalds or the local greasy-spoon then maybe we can stop messing with the Earth's carbon cycle and I can stop feeling so guilty.

I think the debate of vs. needs to shift to combinating both technologies as discussed by Rogers. That is what we should be demanding! I am currently looking to buy my first family car (have always had hand me downs) and of course the first car to come to mind was the VW TDI. However, it is not conducive to carrying around a toddler with ease, and biodiesel is not available in my area. I would make it myself (from used oil of course), but I live in a co-op apartment in Brookyln. So the next best is of course the Prius, with a tiny bit more room, but no biodiesel option. If only a 5-7 passenger diesel-hybrid existed and biodiesel was widely available. SOON PEOPLE - SOON!!!! LETS WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE THIS A REALITY!!!

Why not combine the technologies?

Biodiesel + Electricity

Why not godiesel hybrid getting 80 miles to the gallon most states havent allowed int cause there strict state laws on diesels

I run 1/3 biodiesel in my fuel tank. Running biodiesel is like being a pioneer and showing it is do-able, not unlike owning a hybrid car. For most people buying a Toyota Prius at 28,000 dollars isn't exactly good economic sense, either- so that puts biodiesel in perspective. Nobody here has to be told how difficult it can be to actually buy a Prius and put up with the waiting lists and dealer gouging (which is pretty much ubiquitous- I would have had to pay 28,000 dollars for a new Prius).

Depending on where one lives, finding biodiesel can be easy or challenging- the Midwest is loaded with biodiesel, California has several biodiesel pumps, as does the Washington-Philadelphia area and some areas in the South (but not as many). Overall biodiesel is easier to find than ethanol. And if you have a little knowledge of chemistry and a few extra hundred dollars for equipment (methanol storage, methoxide reactor, ester reactor/washing tanks, pumping equipment), you can make it yourself for around 3-4 dollars per gallon.

Biodiesel gives you an energy efficiency approaching almost 300 percent (for every 1 KW of energy inputted into production, it produces 3 KW of biodiesel energy). Most of the energy inputted is from the sun. Petroleum refining has an efficiency of less than 90 percent- it actually loses energy to make gasoline. A gallon of biodiesel when burned typically contain 75 percent of the carbon from non-petroleum sources. So most of the carbon comes from the atmosphere. Some biodiesel can also be made from wastes- such as used cooking oil, animal fat drippings, animal renderings, etc. The fuel I buy is made from a guy that gets his oil from a plant that it turn gets used cooking oil and animal renderings and recycles them.

So my car burning 1/3 biodiesel is making about the same overall carbon emissions as a Toyota Prius. I can pocket that eight thousand dollars I saved and spend as much money as I want on biodiesel and my car will be producing less CO2, and ultimately be more efficient in terms of the overall energy to power the car.

With improvements in engine efficiency and car design, a US fleet powered substantially on biofuels is definitely do-able in the future just using existing crops. If algae can become a reliable source of biodiesel, it will be possible to meet those goals in the nearer future, powered entirely from biodiesel, and without having to alter the fuel efficiency of the vehicle fleet (other than converting most of them to diesel engines).

Now, in certain parts of the country, finding a new diesel car can be a challenge because your government, in their wisdom, has decided that they are too "polluting", even if they can run alternative fuels such as syngas diesel, FT coal diesel, or biodiesel (or even, in some engines, creosote- so far the only alternative fuel gas engines can run is ethanol, and that requires modifications to the engine injectors and timing). But there are ways around that, even in California (go to Arizona and buy a "used" diesel car with only a few thousand miles, old VW Rabbits and TDI's can also be sold in California, NY, Vermont, and all the other CARB states).

I think there were some asian motorcycles using small diesels (Royal Enfield ?) a while back.

Here is a link to the abbotsford times bashing diesels with the usual stuff.

http://www.abbotsfordtimes.com/issues05/042105/opinion/042105le3.html

And the interesting rebuttal.

http://www.abbotsfordtimes.com/issues05/042205/opinion/042205le2.html

give it time - i'm sure toyota or honda have something coming soon. don't hold your breath for a usa company. possibly volkswagon has one as well?

see ya

yah its a shame american car companies support petro fuel the way they do. With very little advancements in fuel economy in recent years if ever. Hybrid suvs are a joke. But thats what most americans want. I support bio-diesel tech/hybrid, straight up biodiesel, petro/hybrid just as long as we are dropping our foreign petro demand and cleaning up the air. Petro hybrids are just transitional until we can switch over to a better technology, maybe biodiesel. I think biodiesel has alot to offer. I own a hond civic hybrid averaging 47-57 mpg . Im happy with it but I feel I could be doing better. When I get a house, I plan on getting a used diesel car or new diesel car to make my own biodiesel fuel.I think people on this web page are making sense but we need to come together and stop knocking each other because both sides mean well and thats what really matters.

the 1st inroads to hybrid technology is obviously the honda civic & toyota. but these cars really only compete to the already existing small car, econo car market.

the REAL gain with hybrid technology will be the larger car market, family cars, etc.

this will happen. the toyota's & civic are the test market. and they are test prooven very well already.

i bet in 5 years we'll see 50% of the larger cars being offered use some elements of hybrid technology.

see ya

"Number two, your claim of NIMH battery packs containing toxic cores is AN OUTRIGHT LIE!!!!! I get very tired of lying scumbags like you making shit up like that only because you're just too stupid to find the facts. NIMH is 100% non-toxic. I'm going to repeat this 100 times to try to help you out. "

I'm a certified firefighter with Hybrid vehicle fire and rescue training as well as hazardous material training. I couldn't just let this misinformation stand, because I believe people should be properly informed. Half of the things I see could be avoided if people just took some time to learn a little bit more about what's going on with stuff. NiMH batteries contain KOH as the electrolyte solution. Potassium hydroxide is poisonous, causes burns to skin and eyes, affects soil and groundwater ph and reacts fairly poorly to being involved in a fire. I wouldn't suggest you eat it or handle it and neither does anyone who knows anything about it. It probably wouldn't be good just let it sit around in the environment either. I researched it in 5 minutes and provided sources. Anyone expecting to be taken seriously, with a point to make, needs to do the same.

Check out the basic information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_hydroxide

Scroll down to Potassium Hydroxide solution and click link:
http://hazmat.dot.gov/pubs/erg/psn_p.htm
(this one is in the standard for responding to Haz-Mat emergencies-- note the word TOXIC right at the top)

And for real information about biodiesel, including EPA stuff, check out:
http://biodiesel.org/resources/fuelfactsheets/

Go Hybrid!

The Prius on the hyway with the cruise set at 80 and the AC on gives me 52mpg. Around town and with AC on and the ambient 90 degrees I'm averaging 54mpg. What a pleasure to travel 370 miles on a steamy summer day and fill up with a litttle over 7 gallons.

What they never tell you is that the reason that the Prius get good mileage is that they have an Atkinson cycle (5 cycle) engine instead of an Otto cycle engine (4 cycle). The Prius info mentions it once with no explanation. In short the Atkinson gets much better gas mileage but has poor low end torque. An electric motor developes maximum torque at zero RPM.

Some physicist at Harvard have been putting larger batteries in the Prius and claiming 100 too 180 MPG. They charge the battery at night at home. This doesnt work with Hondas since they bolt the motor to the flywheel so if the motor runs the engine turns. There are some cities in Europe that forbid gas/diesel engine in the core of the city. European Prius have an extra switch on the dash to force electric only. This is a simple mod that Toyota doesn’t seem to approve in this country. If you Google Atkinson cycle remember it is from the 1880s and what Toyota does is a very different implementation. Mazda sold a non Hybrid Atkinson engine in Australia a few years ago.

The coming thing with diesels in Europe is to cut the engine to 2/3 the displacement (1 liter vs. 1.5 liter) and add an electric motor to a supercharger (not turbo). The supercharger comes up to speed in 300 milliseconds. You can’t run a supercharger more than a few seconds or you are towing a cop. 12 seconds to 60 MPH is nominal today. This is a much simpler mod to a stock car than going electric hybrid.

There are three companies that I know of that make motors for electric cars like Jones described. They run in the neighborhood of 80Kwatts (107 hp) each. They are water cooled. Two of them would be more than enough for a sedan. Four in an SUV would be wild. Last time I called one of them it turned out that they were not in production. One of them is in a group of 4 companies that are going to make an all electric car (plug it in at night).

The latest battery technology on the shelf is Lithium Polymer. There are three companies working on using nanotechnology to make Lithium Metal Polymer (don’t ask, I am an EE not a chemist) that they claim can be charged to 80% in three min. That’s a fast lunch for Jones. The “gold standard” is to get a range of 300 miles between charges/refuel/whatever. If you want to have some fun figure the size cable you need to charge that battery in 10 min. Then figure the size cable going into the filling station. Its going to be some time before they get close to 300 miles for a price that is affordable. A bigger battery in a Prius is here now it just won’t go over 20/30 miles between charges or engine turn on.

The same nanotechnology works for catalyst for fuel cells which are the “final solution”. They need hydrogen. Hydrogen is not a primary fuel the like oil. You don’t mine hydrogen. It is best as way to transfer energy from one place to another. You can reform gasoline to get hydrogen but you only gain a bit of efficiency in that a fuel cells maximum efficiency is over 80% where as the maximum efficiency of a gas engine is about 25%. Minus the reforming loss.

35 years ago I heard that Fairchild was working on a way to put a liquid on silicon in the sunlight and directly disassociate water into hydrogen and oxygen. If you Google “artificial photosynthesis” you will find that there are lots of people (i.e. CSIRO) working on this, both organic and inorganic. This converts sunlight into hydrogen! When you burn it you get water, fuel cell, Otto cycle engine, steam engine or whatever. Now that is going to make a difference to just about every thing in the world. Talk about culture shock. BMW gave a presentation to the local chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers on the 35 of their finest that they had modified to run on hydrogen. They don’t have to wait on fuel cells. They are ready for production.

Find the April, 2005 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine, page 33, Stephen L. Gillett, Ph.D, on “Artificial Photosynthesis”. A section of desert 75 miles by 75 miles will produce all the energy that Saudi Arabia exports daily. It would take less water than a comparable sized agricultural operation. And it could be seawater! Now if you run that directly into your local power plant you have de-salted sea water and generated electricity for those that run all electric! You can store hydrogen for use at night. If you generate your electric try with photovoltaic silicon you have a “night problem”.

Look at all the other programs that CSIRO is working on – if half of them work there will be more change in the next 50 years than in all of history. We can have a renewable world that is cheaper than today. We don’t realize just how much man has messed up the world. At the time of Christ North Africa was the bread basket for Rome. Scotland was forested until the Norwegians cut it all down in the year 800. Now the North of Scotland is a wet desert. This goes on endlessly. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but it is in Silicon Valley, not Iraqi.

Ga Tech

William Jones did you know Dr Walter in Sautee?

In real world testing diesel always beats hybrids. Bio diesel is a nice alternative if it's available. The big argument I think is the environment. To produce the battery packs for hybrid vehicles requires alot of strip mining depleting the earth's natural resources. Once the batteries are depleted disposal of these presents another issue. Hybrid vehicles are apparentley being tested to see if the magnetic fields being created from the large battery pack and electric motor could be hazardous. Magnetic fields of the nature can cause tumors especially with prolonged exposure. I see the diesel route to be alot safer until we embrace the Hydrogen age. Not the hydrogen fuel cells those will be used in vehicles to replace the battery and alternator system. The future very soon will dominated by the internal cumbustion Hydrogen engine. The only pollution free renewable fuel source.

I’ve recently found out about biodiesel-sounds interesting.How do engines running on it perform at low temperatures?

No - I did not know Dr. Walter.

"Hybrids and diesels are just temporary despite what the asian auto manufacturers tell you."

I certainly agree that fossil fuels are temporary. Hybrids and Diesels will tend to stretch it out a bit more. We have to potential to grow all the fuel we will ever need but the USA (and much of the world) suffer from a deadly affliction.

Lack of imagination.

Studies show that we could meet all of our transportation and fuel oil heating needs by constructing Algae growing and processing infrastructure around the Salton Sea. Think our "progressive" government will get the ball rolling?

Please don't hold your breath.

It's incrediability stupid to have more than one form of transportation fuel. We should/could have converted to one years ago.

Hydrogen and/or fuel cells will never become a practical method of transportation power. Those who are wasting time and tax-payers money on this are pissing into the wind.

Wow, and none of you knew that locomotives are hybrids and that GM has built Diesel-electric trains since the 1940's. I truely think schools these days are not teaching history to well......

My study of the hybrid vs. diesel question for my own situation keeps leading me to a preference for diesel, until I remember that diesel also means Volkswagen's reliability rating, which is among the worst, and hybrid means Honda and Toyota's reliability ratings, which are the best. It's very frustrating.

"My study of the hybrid vs. diesel question for my own situation keeps leading me to a preference for diesel, until I remember that diesel also means Volkswagen's reliability rating, which is among the worst, and hybrid means Honda and Toyota's reliability ratings, which are the best. It's very frustrating. "

Short answer: If you like doing your own maintenance and are willing to get involved with your car when necessary, you LOVE owning a VW, especially a DIESEL model because they're eaiser and cost less to maintain than their gasser counterparts. On the other hand, if you rely totally on a dealer for all maintenance and never touch anything on your car to maintain it, DON'T buy a VW, gas or diesel!

Longer answer:
I prefer the DIESEL myself. I have 2 of them: A 2002 VW Golf TDI and a 2005 VW Jetta Wagen TDI. Both give me 42-50 MPG while doing aggressive highway driving and I regularly go 700 miles between fillups of 15 gallons, costing around $38 at the current (Aug '05) prices. Fundamentally there are 3 reasons why I bought a DIESEL car and not a gasser hybrid: Economy, Longevity, and Performance. The car has butt-kicking torque to boot, making it fun to drive while getting great MPGs. I drive a lot, so these things are important to me. My VW DIESELs have worked out so well that I'm not going own a GASOLINE-powered car again if I can help it, including gasser hybrids.

The DIESELs also tend to be spot-on with their MPG numbers, no matter how they are driven. I do everything you're not supposed to do with a gasser hybrid to get great MPGs and my cars STILL get their published EPA numbers. There is currently nothing on the market in the USA that delivers the rich blend of Performance AND Economy plus longevity that the TDIs deliver.

BTW, with the VW TDI models, you don't have to worry about being unable to start it in the dead of winter. The VW TDIs are designed to be able to cold start down to -40F and they actually start better than most gassers do at -20F. You don't have to plug it in either (there's no block heater, not needed). These cars are popular in Canada in places that get a lot colder than in the the USA, so those of us in the "balmy" northeastern USA have nothing to worry about. They're not like Diesel cars of 25 years ago.

I also prefer the DIESELs because I like the experience of driving. One thing not mentioned in the DIESEL vs. Gasser Hybrid debate is the driving experience and fun factor. Overall, I like the DRIVEABILITY of the DIESEL much better because of its torquey response, making it easy to drive. You get the torquey feel and response of V6 or V8 gasser, minus a small gasser's high revs needed to deliver the torque.

I too shied away from VW a few years ago because of their (well-deserved) poor quality reputation. However, the DIESEL models (TDI engine) are statisitically insigificant in the quality surveys. The DIESELs are actually the most reliable VWs. Because it's a DIESEL, there's a lot less to maintain and less to wear out or fail. The most popular VW engine choices in the USA market are the VR6 and 1.8T gassers. Unfortunately, these engines are the most problematic, leading to the poor reliability ratings. The rest of the car is actually no more or less reliable than any other car and actually a decent car. Most of the problems are related to build quality and not due to poor design. Problems generally don't reappear once they've been fixed (properly!). Most people complaining about problems are blissfully unaware that they're actually being screwed by their dealer.

VWs are good cars and fun to drive and last a long time, but they have their quirks, like other European cars. Owning and living with a VW means you need to be aware of these quirks and deal be prepared to deal with them yourself or take it to a VW specialist (not a dealer!). If like doing your own maintenance (easiest on a DIESEL), you'll LOVE owning a VW, especially the DIESEL models. There's less to maintain than on the gassers plus it's easier to do and the intervals are longer as is typical with Diesels.

The number one problem with VWs is mainly due to incompetent dealer service. It's more of a problem with VW as a car company than with the cars themselves. If you have a problem with a VW, you're way better off to fix the problem yourself and avoid VW dealers as much as possible. You'll love owning a VW if you're like getting involved with your car and are willing to maintain it yourself. On the other hand, if you're somebody that relies totally on a dealer or somebody else to do ALL of your maintenance and you don't want to get involved at all, don't by any VW, gas or diesel! You'll be much better off with a Toyota or a Honda. A common complaint among VW owners is they love their cars but absolutely hate going to a dealer for service.

Finally, one important reason why I went the DIESEL route in addition to economy is long term ownership. A VW TDI engine can easily go more than 500k miles with proper maintenance. The car has a 12-year/unlimited mile rust warranty, unmatched by any Japanese car. Judging by the number of older VWs I see on the road an even an occassional VW Diesel Rabbit from the 70's and early 80's, VWs are definitely capable of lasting a LONG time. I drive about 1k miles per week, so longevity is VERY important. After 10 years of ownership, I'll have more than 500k miles on my TDI and it will still be going strong. A well maintained gasser hybrid can also go that long, but will probably be on its third set of batteries and on its second gasser engine by then. Not worth it IMHO compared to any modern DIESEL over the long haul.

VWs are good cars, but they have their quirks, making them not for everybody. Since I much prefer the DIESELs based on my VW TDI experience to date, I wish more car makers sold DIESEL cars in the USA. I wish VW would bring their Lupo model here which gets 81MPG with DIESEL. And too bad we're not getting the 77MPG DIESEL version of Mercedes/Zap SMART car (a micro 2-seater). We'll have to settle for the 37MPG gasser version instead. We also don't get the 35-40 MPG Toyota RAV4 Diesel or the 55MPG Toyota Corolla Diesel. The Ford Focus Diesel gets around 55MPG. The Mini-Cooper Diesel gets around 55MPG while outperforming its gasser counterpart. Many DIESELs available in Europe already outperform their gasser counterparts sold here in the USA while returning nearly twice the MPGs. We'll likely never see these great cars in the USA unless consumers start demanding them here.

DIESELs rule!

in the market for a car, going the veggie diesel way. Having trouble finding a diesel. Automatically think VW, but....... Anyone got experience with a MERCI_BENZ or VOLVO bio-disesel convert. ? Please share.

Consider this scenario: You are involved in an
accident. Your car is hit in the rear. Cant get out.
Gasoline is leaking from your crushed tank.
You know any little spark will likely make you
become cremated.

Another scenario. Your wrecked car has diesel in
the tank. If you are a smoker you can even light
a cigarette not worrying about being fried even
if the diesel flow thru your car.

Here's an experiment:

Pour a gallon of DIESEL fuel down on the ground and throw a lighted match on it. The diesel fuel will EXTINGUISH the match!

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME WITH GASOLINE!

Just something to think about if you're involved in an accident and you're trapped inside with fuel gushing out everywhere from your car's fuel tank.

vw makes the best diesel cars around

Looks like a consensus. What the world needs is a TDI hybrid. Then we can have great highway and great city MPG. Add a larger battery to the hybrid idea and plop a solar panel on the roof and it looks better still.

well excuse me for not reading all post before asking such a silly question about enviromental
clean up of smashed batteries. Aparently NIMH
is 100% non toxic.
I just hope that the people with more brains than I
will get this figured out soon,b/c the cost of driving is killing my pay check.

TYVM

Dana, Opel / Vauxhall (General Motors indeed) has developed a concept Astra with the 1.7 CDTI 16v. (TDI) and two electric engines with 125bhp. I think it was presented at the 2005 Detroit Motor Show.
I guess there will be TDI-electric hybrid cars in the future, at least in Europe, where Diesel cars are sold more than Petrol ones (for instance, in Spain 65% of cars sold in 2004 were diesel, and 60% in Italy¡).

didn't get to read every post, but a friend of mine is a sales manager for Mercedes. He recently told me that Merc. is focusing on Diesel and turbo diesel. 38% increase in MPG over gasoline enguines. Also mentioned that there is a new emission controller on there diesel enguines not available in the US that eliminated and emissions totally. But for whatever reason they haven't been able to introduce them to the US market due to regulations. the muffler supposedly has a acid which reacts with the exhaust, inturn eliminating the exhaust. I don't see Hybrids being practical presently. cost is to high to counter your fuel savings. I will probably buy a used TDI for now. and in South Florida diesel gas costs about 7-10 cents more than regular gasoline.

Bio-Diesel with UREA Injection - 80% pollution reduction. Honda proto-type engine, cleaner air
out the exhaust compared to the lab air in! Hydrogen vehicles - another government project
to waste money on. Why convert to pressured
tanks and specialized vehicles, when modification
of existing would make more sense. Driving spewing polluting, guzzling gas, insurance risks - is
not our right. We need to wise up to that fact.
Slow down long enough to look at the long term
effects and see what can be done to protect the
only planet option we have and insure our children a decent place to live. My Hybrid and I are done
preaching.

I've found this site to be very helpful. I'm considering buying my first super high fuel economy vehicle and have been debating the hybris vs diesel options. One thing I haven't yet seen however in this string of information. Can anybody tell me how often the batteries must be replaced in hybrids and the cost of replacement? I've heard stories of thousands of dollars every six years or so. Is that true?

By the way...the holy grail of clean energy for transportation is fuel cells that recieve their hydrogen from NUCLEAR FUSION (not the nasty fission of today). My understanding is that this is still decades away and has been worked on for decades by the U.S., Japan, Europe and the former Soviet Union. It seems to me that if we're going to spend billions of tax payer dollars, this would be a far more noble effort for the masses than spending up to a trillion dollars (a thousand billion) on going to the moon and Mars.

The thing that bothers me most is the complexity of the hybrid. And in theory converting one fuel into another one always results in a loss of efficiency, and with all of that I have not even addressed the issue of weight relaetd to battery packs. What makes the Hybrid tick is the fact that some energy can be recouped from braking. Why could a simple device not be installed on the rear axle of just about every front wheel drive car that would generate power to a significantly larger battery than we have now in most cars and when the car crawls at average speeds of 4 - 5 miles per hour in the city simply reverse the polarity on that generator and run on it. I do not have time, but I think I could design something like that as an after market device to be installed on the rear axle to essentially trudge you along in city traffic. I am sure this could dramatically improve the mileage of my Jetta TDI

What are the benefits of using biodiesel in engines?

Increased fuel economy and engine life span and a lower fuel consumption rate compared to other fuels. Due to the concentration of oxygen in biodiesel the fuel burns cleaner and more effectively.

SteveR,

You have a point....but I think you drank a little too much kool-aid today. Yes, the almighty dollar is undoubtedly responsible for some not-so-environmentally-responsible decisions by the automotive and petrochemical companies in the last 75 years or so. But it is not nearly as easy as you make it sound.

Yes, we undoubtedly could have developed far far more fuel efficient vehicles. But it is not through some magical technology that is being hidden from us. Rather, such improvements could be made through a reordering of priorities when designing new vehicles. For instance:
1. Slower less responsive vehicles
2. Drastically smaller vehicles
3. Fewer creature comforts
4. Far lighter vehicles
5. More jellybean-shaped vehicles

So, did we end up where we are now because of some grand conspiracy? Maybe a little bit, but mainly it is simply a result of responding to the marketplace in a way that values profit over environmental responsibility. Customers haven't wanted tiny jellybean shaped cars that are really slow but get fantastic mpg. Especially not considering that while these vehicles might be perfectly safe when colliding when like-sized cars, they would be annihilated when impacted by the behemoths driving around today.

Don't get me wrong....there is a special place in enviro-h*ll for the big three. But it is not the grand conspiracy that you make it out to be. The American consumer deserves more than his/her fair share of the blame for where we are today.

Why all the talk about diesels for the sake of diesels in a hybrid discussion group?

I'm not at all opposed to diesels, I used to love driving a '79 diesel Rabbit although it was certainly a wimp compared with what an electric drive can do.

I'd be particularly interested in seeing a diesel strong plug-in hybrid (I define strong hybrid as a hybrid where the electric drive can propel the vehicle through the entire speed range without the ICE) with an electric motor that would allow the diesel to operate in its most efficient and low polluting state while letting the electric take the load during acceration when the diesel takes a lot of its environmental hits and suffers from wear and tear the most.

Right now, I'm driving a rented Renault diesel in Germany and I'll admit that its a lot quieter and smoother than the old Rabbit.

A strong hybrid that could run off of bio-diesel or regular diesel, or electricity (I'd like about 30 miles of electric only range), one would have a lot of options for sustainable fuel sources.

Of course, as we all know, the gas mileage could easily climb into the 3 digits and acceleration (0-60) could drop well into the single digits simulataneously!

Guess I don't understand why diesel-hybrids have apparently been shelved because they're "too expensive" (approximately $8K more than an equivalent production model), while auto manufacturers are feverishly working on fuel cells that are as much as 40 times as expensive as current ICEs? The GM "Precept" (their full-sized PNGV vehicle - a diesel-hybrid) obtained 80 mpg combined (and that's gasoline equivalent - it actually got > 90 mpg on diesel). Sure, fuel cell costs would probably decrease with mass production, but one would think diesel-hybrids would also.

Many studies have suggested that fuel cells will not be better than diesel-hybrids even with "agressive" R&D. Yet we continue to march down the fuel cell road. Go figure.

Biodiesel-hybrids sound like the best strategy, at least for the foreseeable future.

Hi,
These posts are very interesting. I drive a Nissan Maxima SE 2003 6sp 255hp and get 22.8Mpg on mostly city driving and shifting gears at 2,000 Rpm except for a few burst of energy where I redline it. I thought that diesels were slow which most are. In June 2005 I went to moroso drag strip in West Palm Beach Florida. My best quarter mile with 28k miles and worn tires to the point of bald was 15.2 93 mph. That same night there was a Ford F250 or F350 diesel truck with lift kit and it looked really big on the drag strip. The truck ran 14.3 now can somebody tell me how that is possible. I personally could not believe what I was seeing. That truck ran faster than the Lighting version of their truck. I don't know where that came from because the stock truck is supposed to be a 0-60 around 10 seconds. My question is can they make the VW Golf, Jetta and Passat diesel run that fast?

Metric conversions:

5.7 l/100 km = 42 mpg US/50 mpg imperial
6.5 l/100 km = 36 mpg US/44 mpg imperial

My lifetime average fuel economy in the Passat, in close to 40,000 miles of driving, has been 36 mpg without paying too much attention to maximizing fuel economy.

>Passat TDI 134HP 247ft-lb.
>Autobytel tested the 2006 model:
>http://www.autobytel.com/content/shared/articles/t...

Um, unless I mis-read that article, they didn't test the TDI version (which isn't avaiable in the US right now), but the 2.0T version, which I believe is a regular gasoline engine. So the mpg rating you're comparing isn't for the TDI deisel engine.

"For me, If speed were more important than economy I'd choose the Honda Accord Hybrid. 0-60 is about the same Passat TDI and you get a much nicer car with Honda's well known craftsmanship and reliability and the fuel is cheaper."

I have owned both Honda Accords (previous generation V6 and 4-cyl). I have also extensively test driven the current generation. There is no dispute that it is a fine car. Whether it is a "nicer" car than the Passat is somewhat in the eye of the beholder (the new 2006 Passat is a gorgeous car, BTW, but it isn't available as a TDI over here yet).

Whether it is a *better* car is another matter. The First of all, though average reliability numbers are no doubt better on the Accord, the Passat is VW's most reliable model in N. America. Moreover Hondas are not completely trouble free. They're well known to have serious problems with automatic transmissions for example; my last Accord, a 2002, required two returns to the dealer for minor problems (disc brake backing plate rubbint against wheel; replace seat track, hard starting in very cold weather). My Passat, in 60,000 km of driving has had exactly 0 problems and 0 need for a return to the dealer other than normal service intervals every 16,000 km.

When it comes to driving dynamics though, the Accord simply isn't in the same league. The Accord is very nice in typical N. American, 70 mph driving. The Passat is rock stable and is capable, in true German fashion, of safely sustaining very high cruise speeds, and at 100 mph it feels rock solid and secure. The N. American Accords, while firmer than a Toyota Camry, are too soft for that kind of driving.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the Passat has the third lowest overall death rate after the Mercedes E-class and Toyota Highlander. It is the safest in its category, with the Honda Accord ranked in 6th place in the same category, just behind the Hyundai Sonata. The death-rate in the Accord is approx. 3 times higher than the Passat.

In terms of features, the Passat has the Accord beat hands-down. They're too numerous to list here.

My own tastes lean towards European driving characteristics; for that I am well-served by the Passat.

The Accord is certainly a fine car. To say it is "nicer" is in the eye of the beholder; the styling of the Accord is more "luxurious", whereas the Passat has typically severe German styling (though the new 2006 is a radical departure from this). It certainly has numerous advantages over an Accord that make it a fine choice as well (and recommended by Consumer Reports), not the least of which was, with the last version, the TDI engine.

"It's unfortunate that your 2002 Accord had a couple of minor problems and your certainly correct that no MFG's are trouble-free....
But anyone can do a google search on reliability and quality to find the scales severely tilted against VW. "

I agree in general with your assesment of VW overall but the Passat has consitently been their highest performer. And certainly if you rate troubles, although it is anecdotal as evidence, my Passat has had exactly 0, my last Accord 3 or 4 (albeit minor).

"Crash rating-
I searched for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety but couldn't find a link rating specific auto fatalities. Could you post a link to that info?
I found other sites with crash ratings and both cars fared about the same-excellent safe vehicles. "

Here is the link:

http://www.hwysafety.org/news/2005/iihs_sr_031505.pdf

"Features-
You mentioned the Passat's features and advantages over the Accord (Hybrid) is "Too numerous to list".
Can you suggest some of those which are most important to you?"

Here are a few: one-touch up AND down for both front windows; electronic stability control (not just traction control; the new Accord may have this, but with VW, it is available even on the cheapest Golf sold in Canada, the CL); ability to close sunroof and windows with key; trip computer (I imagine the hybrid would have this though); standard fog lights (a must in my climate); a better suspension for high-speed driving; front, side and side curtain airbags; the last Accord I had required a prop rod to hold the hood open, and the Passat has a gas strut (even our Jetta); the car comes equipped with a full-size spare tire instead of a ridiculous donut spare; firmer steering; air conditioned glove box (great for keeping drinks or your sandwich for lunch cold); split fold down rear seats (my last Accord would only fold down in one piece).

"You mentioned that Consumer Reports rates the Passat over the Accord.
Can you post a link for that? "

That's not exactly what I said: I said it rates the 2005 Passat as "recommended". It gives the same rating to the Accord.

"Motor trend choose the 2006 Honda Civic, not Passat for car of the year:
http://www.motortrend.com/features/news/112_news05... "

I have discontinued reading car magazines, I find they are pointless from a consumer standpoint and instead are basically paper showrooms for car manufacturers. Motor Trend has also picked some real dogs as "car of the year". The Chevrolet Vega comes to mind.

"They looked for
"Mastery and innovation in engineering, technology, design, safety and packaging, class-leading levels of performance, style and functionality" "

I won't buy a car with a digital speedometer. Hate them. But that's just me, I'm old fashioned :-)

It sure nice to see all the attention about trying to reduce the usage of fossil fuels. It is my opinion that each gallon of gas or diesel purchased just buys another bullet for a terrorist. The hybrid car is a wonderful idea if proven to be as economically as advertised. It’s been my experience; batteries don’t last forever and have to be replaced. What’s the cost of replacement? What’s the trade-in value of a hybrid car after several years, knowing the batteries have to be replaced? Who will buy a used older hybrid car, once the battery lifetime is known?

Last week the Japanese un-veiled a beauty of an electric car will go over 300 KPH but it has 8 wheels instead of the regular 4 wheels. I guess the extra wheels are to support the weight of the batteries. With no surprise the batteries cost $200,000. Doing some quick math, the $200,000 would buy 40,000 gallons of gas, ($5.00 per gallon Canadian prices). Any car getting 20 MPG would go 800,000 miles for the same money.

For my money the CAFEC (compressed air, fuel, external combustion) Engine running on propane is a far better approach to less fuel cost and reduced emissions. Visit http://www.cafecengine.com for a better opinion.

I would like to throw something into this discussion.

According to DOE, http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byMPG.htm, on 12/22/05 there are only 4 vehicles available in the US that achieve combined average city/highway of 40 mpg or better. And, it has been reported that 2006 may be the last year for the 2 Honda Insights. Note that none of these vehicles are built in the US.

There are 57 vehicles available outside the US that achieve 45mpg(US), or better, combined average city/highway. Of these 57 vehicles, 15 (26%) are by DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, and Toyota. VW has 10 (17%). This data is available at http://www.40mpg.org/pdfs/120105_CSI_foreign_fuel_efficient_vehicle_chart.xls

What is wrong with this picture????!!!

The absence of this class of vehicle is dragging down the Auto Industry, MPG, Consumer, Environment, Economy, and National Security. At the same time, it is driving up all Fuel Prices.

The following questions arises! Are either the Federal Legislative or Executive branches aware? If yes, do they care?

It is my opinion that there is no rational reason these vehicles should not be built (or imported) to be sold in the US.

These top 57 vehicles should already meet safety and emissions standards of either Europe or Japan. EU emissions are currently at Euro step IV.

Proposal

Congress should pass emergency legislation to waive, for only 24 months, import restrictions on gas and diesel light vehicles that meet EU and Japanese emission and safety standards AND get 45 mpg(US), or more, combined average city/highway. These vehicles should be grandfathered upon import.

I estimate that for each of these high mpg vehicle put on the road, there will be about a 2 gallon/day fuel savings.

My intention is to stimulate discussion and hopefully some degree of rational problem solving since the government, industry, and/or the financial communities haven't adequately addressed/resolved these issues.

It is further hoped that you will find the concepts and strategies of sufficient value to share them with your peers, other media, government, and industry contacts.

References:

“40MPG.ORG WEEKLY UPDATE December 1, 2005” http://www.40mpg.org/weeklyupdate.cfm

"Over 35 mpg not in US - http://www.40mpg.org/pdfs/120105_CSI_foreign_fuel_efficient_vehicle_chart.xls

READ THIS
BioDiesel is not so good for Cold Climates per article I've read online.

As it was said on the internet the biodiesel can gel "turn to lard" the engine preventing it from starting and causing a rebuild situation or serious clean requirements. Additionally Biodiesel is somewhat a farce. It requires more energy to produce than the energy provided by the fuel. Thus your just using nuclear or such to produce this. Not much benefit for the environment there. There perhaps is an exception here if you use USED cooking greases or such. This could negate the aspect of the additional energy needed to MFG biodiesel. Perhaps there is a solution to the geling and energy expense of Biodiesel I'm not aware of. I've done lots of reading on much of these topics as the subject of alternative fuels has interested me since I was a boy. Please share on these topics if you know more.

In any case if the geling issue is true then perhaps Hybrid/Gas would be better for Cold Climates.

Do you have a Diesel SUV that can get 30 MPG as this would also interest me. One I could fit in at 6'5 inches.. I can barely sit in full size pick-ups..
Now convert my Subura Outback to a hybrid like the escape I'd be a happy camper.

Biodiesel is more env friendly to burn than diesel if you do not include the polution of the energy used in creating biodiesel.

Where the topic of straight Alcohol for Fuel?
It more powerful than gas and diesel..
Far cheaper and cleaner for the env if the infrastucture is put into place.

It was killed in the old day of Henry Ford by the Oil and Alcohol industry. Not to mention the government who wanted to tax the ass off alcohol producers.

I drove through Texas a few months ago and saw miles of cotton fields. The amount of waste cotton was amazing on the side of the road. Yet they must make enough from the cotton they collect. Imagine all the waste plant material in those fields though. All that plant material could be used for Alcohol. Yet it just plowed under.. Imagine the waste of energy everyday. Human are very wasteful.

Heres the scenerio
Deisel is smart and the engine are good and almost if not equivalent to Gas power today.
They also tend to be more efficient. This is true..
Most people think diesel they think work engines not so peepy like in the old day.. However diesel have come along way.

However you want something real smart where is the Diesel-Biodiesel Hybrids or Alcohol Hybrids...

Perhaps the car companies are already on it but are working slow to release it.

Fuel cells are also real smart

I like the thought of a diesel, hybrid, or combination therof, but two things that have not been mentioned are the quasiturbine engine(sumilar to the rotary) and the VW triwncharger engine. Quasiturbines get 8 times the energy for half of the gas consuption. The previous post was correct in stating that gas has hidden costs, but what about propane? It is a byproduct when gas is produced! Why not manufacture a diesel/qwuasiturbine engine and add the twincharger design? There is an interesting concept behind hybrid cars, but it is of little or no value until it is explored more fully.

Mike G,
I realize that you ignorantly like to put down hybrids but is there something I don't know about that one must do different between driving a hybrid and any other pure ICE powered vehicle. I've got a lot of high-mileage HCH miles and don't do anything different than I would with any of my previous cars except the diesel. With the diesel, I had to look for and keep track of where the stations that sold diesel were. Of course, back then, I also had to let the glow plug heat up before I could start it.
Now if you'd just quit bad-mouthing hybrids and realize that the right answer is a diesel-hybrid but you and the neanderthal trogolodites in the car companies such as VW refuse to come into the 21st century.

Mike,

Ok, so your intent is good but your understanding of the world is a bit behind. I had the pleasure of driving a sports car for 3 years that would accelerate from 0-60 mph in 7 seconds (that's about 0 - 95 Kph in 7 seconds for you embracers of Gallic imperialism -vs- Anglican imperialism) AND it got much better than 100 mpg (~42 km/l) if you measure consumption from well to wheels (a 30 mpg gasoline car gets about 20 mpg if you look at the whole energy chain from well to wheels - not counting waste during war to defend the oil). It is possible to build an efficient vehicle.

I'll also add that one could use ANY energy source to provide this energy so the assumption of petroleum is simply there to achieve an apples-to-apples comparison.

This performance and economy were possible because of the introduction of an electric motor. Now I don't care how much you tweak, a combustion engine be it diesel, gasoline, turbine, wankel, stirling, etc, you will never get that kind of performance unless you find a way to capture and use the heat lost from the burning in a cheap, moving vehicle. I, of course did assume a stationary co-generation plant for my 100 mpg estimate.

Now that I've briefly brought you into the late 1800's technically, let's look at the economics: Hybrids aren't any more expensive than pure ICE vehicles to manufacture - and they could be made even cheaper than they are today (but that's a different story). There is fundamentally nothing in a Prius that you don't have in your Jetta. It's just that the starter battery is a bit bigger, the starter motor can actually propel the car, and the starter clutch is a bit more sophisticated than would be required just to start an engine. The combustion engine is quite simple and the transmission is much simpler as well.
The reason the Prius is so expensive is that there is so much demand for them in the US that people are willing to wait for 6 months for delivery and pay US$3K over the list price which is already adjusted to recover the R&D costs in a record amount of time. Supply and Demand determine the PRICE of an item (at least in the US).

I can't explain why Europeans are so willing to pay so much for so little when it comes to vehicles and I'll also agree that Americans are equally fickle about paying so much for something so much bigger than they need.

I don't disagree with some of the sentiment's of your wish list but let me take it a bit further:

1) everyone drove at the speed limit; 10-20% reduction;
[(of course, if you drove zero mph, you'd see a 100% reduction but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a vehicle. Slowing down does not improve efficiency. While it reduces consumption, it also reduces output. I'd prefer to find a way to get better efficiency and increase speeds as that will move society along)]
2) if owners of large SUVs traded them in for a station wagon powered by a 1.4 Liter twincharger: 50% reduction per SUV taken off the road;
[(or they could replace their SUV's with strong plugin hybrid wagons -were they available- and achieve better than 500% improvement.)]
3) if every owner of a compact SUV bought an equivalent car instead, about 10-20% reduction;
[(or they could replace their SUV's with strong plugin hybrid cars-were they available- and achieve better than 500% improvement.)]
4) if we switched to diesel, which requires less refining and has a higher BTU content, about 10% overall reduction just from the refining process; [(no argument here between gasoline and diesel but if you added a strong plugin hybrid, you'd see several thousand percent reduction in refining process depending on the energy source, as well as about a 500% increase in the vehicle efficiency)]
5) if people commuted more by mass transit...
[(no argument here but it will take a long time to get the US rebuilt to the point where mass transit works beacuse of so many years of building around the automobile - yep, Europe doesn't hold any monopoly on self-destructive inertia to overcome - we've got problems too)]

Now if you really want to help the planet: Rather than wasting so much effort gushing about how your VW diesel isn't as crappy as everyone elses gasoline car or the minimal hybrids that we've actually been able to squeeze out of a few car companies; instead write letters to your beloved VW to get them out of the 1930's and into the 21st century by selling a plugin hybrid.

Putting down people who have taken a great step towards energy sustainability by purchasing cars that are on the right path, even if they aren't there yet is not helping any of us.

Before diesel can become energy self sufficient, it's economy needs to increase way beyond what traditional engines can do since the planet does not produce enough biomass energy to feed today's consumption. It's going to take some "gee-wiz" technology to seriously reduce our consumption. We need to find a way to implement a 'moores law' for vehicles, similiar to semiconductors. I don't know if you are old enough to remember vacuum tubes but they were not going to get us on a 'moores law' path. Just as we had to replace vacuum tubes with semiconductors, we need to replace combustion engines with electric motors/batteries and then improve the electric motors/batteries. There were die-hards like you who espoused major changes in vacuum technology but they couldn't get on the right improvement curve. There may be other technologies as well that we shouldn't discount but electric is here today and it has been proven to work. The future potential is clear and obvious. We just need to get it into production and on the streets.

I'll leave you with a few simple numbers to remember when comparing combustion engines with electric:

combustion engine: 20 - 25% efficiency
electric motor: 85 - 95% efficiency

Dude: just do the math!

Mike,

Now we're getting down to the real issues!!! I appreciate that you've been giving it some thought.

You're right about the drag issue with speed, however, I still contend that we must move around. The magic 55 mph really isn't really that magic of a number but it does represent the knee of the curve for the average car design. I'll remind you that with pure EV's, one does not need as much frontal radiator area for cooling off all the waste heat, therefore one can incorporate slightly (but only slightly) better aero design. My EV1 had a drag coeficient of 0.19 which was pretty awesome (I think the Prius is around 0.26 - someone please correct me if I'm off) but even so, It got a lot further range at 40 mph than 55 or 80.

Clearly trains are the only way to really get around the drag issue and still be able to move efficiently as only the engine has to move the air out of the way.

Now for the rest of your plug-in skepticism:

I used the effective well to wheels efficiency in order to truly compare apples to apples since other fuel sources are very hard to compare with.

Coal is nasty, dirty burning stuff but it can be scrubbed from stationary stacks fairly cleanly. It isn't renewable but isn't being used for much else besides keeping the economy of W. VA going and in stress due to mining accidents. Not really a sutainable source but will work for a long time and no war is required for the US. Efficiency is kind of irrevelant since it isn't good for much else besides electric power generation.

Nukes are clean 'burning' and quite efficient through turbines. It isn't renewable either as there isn't an unlimited supply of fissionable material on the planet - ok may fussion has potential but no one has figured out how to use it.

Natural gas, while non-renewable is currently under-utilized and offers perhaps the most efficiency when used in co-generation powerplants. They can get into the 80% efficiency region. Cogeneration plants burn the gas in an efficient gas turbine to get a lot of energy out, then use the exhaust from the gas turbine to drive a steam turbine to get additional energy out from the waste heat. This can be done in large plants but is not feasible with small, mobile engines such as are in cars.

Hydro-electric is really quite benign as long as one is ok with giving up a little bit (ok, a lot) of mountain valley real estate. It's great stuff, reliable, on-demand, zero pollution, renewable (as long as that huge fusion reaction in the sky keeps burning). It also can be used to store energy from inconsistant energy sources such as wind and solar - although clearly at a loss of efficiency.

Solar and wind are clearly long term winners since they are 100% renewable as long as our favorite fusion reaction remains hot. They have storage problems that pose challenges but they are both showing great progress as far as increasing efficiency.

Bio-mass fuels show great promise and could just as easily, in fact, perhaps more easily be used in efficient stationary generation facilities, then transported as electricity to the points of use than being converted to liquid and pumped or trucked.

The beauty of electric power generation is that one has a huge choice of sources to chose from, each one with different merits depending upon where one is.

You mention the losses during electricity distribution: This is a good point, however, when electricity is transformed up to extremely high voltages, as are used in high-tension transmission lines, the losses are quite small, around 10% across the grid, much less for short hauls. While substation transformers may get warm, compared to the amount of energy that passes through, the energy loss is very small.

You missed the losses in battery charging and discharging. These are not insignificant. Battery discharging and charging are about 90% efficient (which, of course, is only 81% round trip efficient)

The effect on the power grid of night charging will be non-existant for a long time since most power plants waste energy at night. They have to run all the time since it takes so long for them to start up. Plug-in vehicles offer a great opportunity for the power companies to make money off of the wasted night-time energy as well as make money off of their grid at night. Of course, I can assure you, the miserly consumption of my EV1 was such that you can't tell from looking at my electric bill that I even had the car for 3 years. It cost me about $1 to fill my car at home and each fillup would take me nominally 100 miles. I never went to the off-peak electric rates since I knew EV1 would be a short-lived pleasure and wouldn't warrant the cost of a new electric meter or a timer on my charger.

gas cogen 80%
transmission 90%
battery 80%
electric motor 80%
__________________
total 46%

I'll add that I know people in California with solar cells installed on their houses that drive EV's as their primary vehicles and have essentially zero electric bills. Their power meters run backward so they sell electricity when the sun is shining and buy electricity when it isn't but their average is nearly zero. This will be tougher in northern latitudes but it really does provide locally generated (nix a lot of those transmission losses) fully renewable power.

Now that I've done the math for plug-ins, its your turn to reciprocate for diesels: Remember you're starting out with 25% (generous assumption) and it only gets worse as you deduct:

- refining losses
- transportation losses

I'll let you skip all the war costs and hidden health issue costs although they are pretty nasty if you start digging in to them.

I'll help your numbers out a bit: adding a strong non-plug-in hybrid brings your 25% starting value up to maybe 35%. A wimpy hybrid as we have today may bring you to 30%.

Happy math

Hybrid vs. Diesel

Well, for all you people out there toting the advantages of diesel or talking about a diesel hybrid or any engine that burns a diesel derivative need to wake up and smell the exhaust. While the fuel economy is good, the emissions are not. Even the biodiesel option results in some nasty fumes and/or by-products because of the blending and/or manufacturing process.
A hybrid diesel will still have to run the diesel since diesel engines don't like to be turned off and on all the time, resulting in emissions. Most railroad locomotives are (mentioned earlier in the thread) are not really hybrids but electro-motive engines. A large 2 or 4 stroke engine powers a generator that produces electricity for electric motors on the axles, however, most do not have batteries to store the electricity. A few of the newest ones (known as Green Goats) have been built as true hybrids electro-motive engines. These locos have a huge bank of batteries that run the motors on the axles and a small diesel (by railroad standards) that simply runs a generator that keeps the battery bank topped off. They also allow the motors to regenerate to charge the system. The result is a diesel that doesn't have to run for hours at a time. This would be the D-Hybrid everyone is dreaming about, however we don't have small enough, light enough or powerful enough batteries to allow the performance to overcome the weight issues of the batteries and traction motors without requiring the diesel to run. (However, the D-Hybrid is closer for larger vehicles like Buses (GM already built them), trucks, and SUVs. (Yes, a D-hybrid electro-motive system would be more efficient than any of the proposed systems in this thread, but THEY WILL ONLY FIT IN SUVs AND TRUCKS!)

Whether you Americans want to face it or not, your air quality is much better than Europe's. (LA's air would top the quality list with any of Europe's major cities.) There are two major reasons: the catalytic converter requirements in the US that are not possible with diesel, and Europe's excessive use of diesels!

A new cleaner burning diesel from VW or any carmaker is as likely as a zero emission Edison Electric coal plant!

Also, the people who live in California, Washington and on the east coast need to understand that any proposed car or truck has to function anywhere in the country. The people on the Plains who have to drive 50 miles to find a McDonald's don't want a car that needs a block heater and 15 minutes for the glowplugs to warm up before it will start from October to April. And yes, VW and others claim that's not true anymore, however my family in ND will tell you otherwise.

For now, in the immediate future, we should consider ethanol-hybrids. Bush has put this on the front page. GM and Ford have surprised many with the fact they have been selling clean burning cars for years without telling anyone. E85 vehicles outnumber hybrids 3 to 1. All we have to do is get them fuel. Imagine, almost 5 million trucks, large cars and SUVs could cut their emissions in half by the end of the year without a single penny in cost to their owners!

Oh, yeah, Hybrid vs. Diesel? Hybrid (with E85, not diesel.)

This afternoon walking across my Publix supermarket parking lot I found a noisy, new Ford F-350 diesel parked and idling next to my Hybrid.

I had to hold my breath within 30 feet of it, right up to unlocking my door.
As I climbed inside I noticed my eyes beginning to sting.

Yes, the stigma perpetuates.
I'm sure the driver believes his diesel is a wonderful vehile. Other folks around it likely have a different view.

Trade-in value for diesels is very high in Canada. Just yesterday I ran some numbers through the Canadian Black Book site for a friend with an '03 Camry (LE, 4-cyl) he's thinking of trading. He paid $26k for it (all figures Canadian $) and the blackbook site came up with $13.5k-$14.5k The dealer had offered him $12k-$13k. I ran the numbers on a base Jetta GLS TDI for fun and it spit out $17k-$18.5k for the Jetta.

I had an early Jetta TDI on the A4 platform (the previous generation model) and indeed that car had many maintenance issues. Our '04 Jetta and '05 Passat have required very little maintenance. Timing belt replacement intervals have gone up from 90k km to 160k km (100,000 miles) since the 2003 m.y. and the new high life belt can be retrofitted to the previous model. Oil changes are every 10,000 miles. We have had no issues outside routine maintenance except for suspension damage on the Jetta after hitting a broken chunk of metal broken off a snow plow.

As for the pollution issue it's correct to state that there are many issues involved. For example, diesels tend to produce more particulate matter but the particle size is larger than for gas engines and thus the particulates are less likely to be inhaled, are heavier, don't disperse as easily and tend to deposit on the ground (notice the downward curving exhaust pipes on a modern diesel, it's for a good reason!).

Also, if you consider diesels from the wellhead to the road, they come out even better.

(ps for those comparing a Ford truck to a VW diesel: the truck does not have to adhere to the same emission standards as the car...)

ex EV1,

The reason I believe what I do about battery size and efficiency is based on personal experience with all sorts of cutting edge battery technology over the last 5 years in the US Military.

The people who continue to ramble on about European air quality and all sorts of studies about their "clean" air, I have one thing to say.

UNTIL YOU'VE LIVED THERE, AS I DO, YOU NEED TO ALLOW THE TRUTH TO BE HEARD!

Those studies and websites everyone always refers to are based on data from the EU's environmental spin control agencies. When you go to the official studies done by independent groups in Europe who are not trying to push the "US is the death of the world" mantra, you find the truth is the United States has done a much better job cleaning up and taking care of our environment than the Europeans.
The Black Forest of Germany has been devastated by the so-called higher European environmental regs. 40% of the forest has been "damaged" by pollution from "clean" European autos and industry. Source: "Pollution means dark future for Germany's Black Forest" AFP - 12/23/04.
Just paste the following for a google search of Europe's air quality: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=european+air+quality+&btnG=Google+Search

Here is another open question. How many people do you know are purposefully bypassing the emissions equipment on their car? In the US the vast majority don't diconnect the factory equipment. I have been living in Italy for 3 years and can tell you that that is not the case here.

Why is it so hard to accept that the US is actually doing better than Europe at cleaning up the environment? Or that our air is better than is was 10 years ago and as we continue to replace those old cars from the 70s, 80s and 90s with new vehicles (even the new SUVs) that our air quality will get even better?

I know we want to focus on oil consumption when we debate Hybrid vs. Diesel, BUT that's not the most important issue. Economics and politics would eventually push technology to find a replacement without any help from anyone on this website. I mean, come on. George "Oilman" Bush talking about switchgrass and cellulosic ethanol? The United States IS coming around. The REAL issue that we need to push is the environmental impact. Diesels pollute and always will be dirtier than their gasoline and E85 fuel counterparts.

Also, everyone should really consider sending an encouraging note to GM (also Ford) for their support of alternative fuels. Imagine, almost 5 million of those SUVs out there could in fact cut their consumption of oil by 60% and emissions by 50% if we would just give them a pump!

We also should send some hate mail to the oil companies for the news in USA Today today. The oil companies have been buying up ethanol in bulk and storing it while at the same time, flooding the markets with gasoline. The result, gas is down 6% in one week, while E85 is up 15%. 30 cents in one week! Of course their blaming enivronmental rules saying its because of MTBE!

Give us a break!

Scott – with all due respect (and I do have great respect for anyone in the U.S. military – my son is an Officer in the USAF), I still strongly disagree with your assertion that “Diesels pollute and always will be dirtier than their gasoline and E85 fuel counterparts”. I agree the U.S. has made great strides in improving air quality, but I disagree that diesels will somehow reverse these advances we’ve made in air quality. And I remain unconvinced that my Jetta TDI has any greater impact on air quality than any equivalent non-hybrid gas vehicle, especially since I run B20 biodiesel.

I’m an air quality meteorologist and have been working in the field of air quality for almost 25 years, so I have more than just passing interest in this topic. First of all, this is where I got the idea that the EU has more stringent ambient air quality standards for PM:

“…the Swiss and EU 24-hour PM10 limit is 50 µg/m3, compared to 150 µg/m3 in the USA…” (http://www.dieselnet.com/news/2006/01swiss.php). Is this not correct?

Again, diesels tend to be higher in some emissions, and gasoline vehicles higher in other emissions. As stated, diesels tend to be higher in NOx and PM. However, as another poster stated, PM emissions are regulated by mass, so extremely small particles (nanoparticles) have virtually no mass. Gassers actually equal or exceed particle numbers of uncontrolled diesel trucks under some common driving conditions (Gasoline Vehicle Exhaust Particle Sampling Study, David Kittelson, et al, http://www.osti.gov/fcvt/deer2003/kittelsonpresentation.pdf), it’s just that they tend to be very tiny and have trivial mass. Gasser PM is more toxic than diesel PM per unit mass (In Vitro Genotoxicity of Gasoline and Diesel Engine Vehicle Exhaust Particulate and Semi-Volatile Organic Compound Materials, L Liu, et al; National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and that’s currently being supported by field tests (Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute) the preliminary results of which are showing that locations impacted primary by light-duty emissions (mostly gassers in the U.S.) are more toxic than locations primarily impacted by heavy-duty emissions (mostly diesel vehicles). Plus, gasoline engine PM emissions are “enriched” in PAHs (poly-aromatic hydrocarbons - DOE’s Gasoline/Diesel PM Split Study, http://www.osti.gov/fcvt/deer2003/fujitapresentation.pdf). Many PAHs are considered carcinogenic.

Benzene, formaldehyde, and 1,3-butadiene emissions are actually higher from cat-equipped gas vehicles than diesel engine-out (Environmental and Health Impact From Modern Cars, Ecotraffic; The Diesel Paradox: Why Dieselization Will Lead to Cleaner Air, James J. Eberhardt, U.S. Department of Energy; http://www.osti.gov/fcvt/deer2000/eberharpa.pdf). Furthermore, as I stated in my previous post, evaporative gasoline vapors decompose into more formaldehyde, a stable intermediate in the decomposition process.

Gassers have higher emissions of acutely toxic carbon monoxide (CO), and one study show extremely high CO emissions in more aggressive driving cycles while diesel CO emissions were essentially zero (Environmental and Health Impact From Modern Cars, Ecotraffic). CO is also an ozone precursor (http://www.ethanol-gec.org/sum99/easum9902.htm, http://egov.oregon.gov/ENERGY/RENEW/Biomass/docs/FORUM/Whitten2004.pdf). The Ecotraffic study also shows that NMHC emissions from diesels are about an order of magnitude lower than an equivalent gasser, and that doesn’t include evaporative emissions from refueling and distribution of highly volatile gasoline.

As far as NOx emissions are concerned, the “weekend ozone effect” studies have shown that dramatic decreases (as much as 80%) in diesel truck traffic (and thus NOx emissions) on weekends not only do not reduce ambient ozone levels, but often INCREASE them (http://www.osti.gov/fcvt/deer2002/lawson.pdf, http://www.osti.gov/fcvt/deer2005/lawson.pdf). LA’s actually having more “bad” ozone days now (ozone is by far the biggest problem in LA – something that’s not addressed in those links you provided), and a disproportionate number is occurring on weekends (http://climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=32049, http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.19067,filter.all/pub_detail.asp). Since no areas in the U.S. are in nonattainment with the NO2 NAAQS (http://www.epa.gov/oar/oaqps/greenbk/nindex.html), the current regulatory emphasis on NOx is unwarranted, especially in light of the weekend ozone effect studies. However, there are areas in the Southwestern CONUS that are still in serious nonattainment with the CO NAAQS (http://www.epa.gov/oar/oaqps/greenbk/mapco.html), something that an increase in light-duty diesels could help.

I’m not here to bash hybrids. As a matter of fact, I think that diesel hybrids (using bio-based fuels) are the best option for the foreseeable future (better than fuel cells).

http://www1.umn.edu/eoh/hazards/hazardssite/dieselexhaust/dieselhealtheffects.html

You also have to keep in mind that diesels have been around Europe in large quantities for quite some times; they've never been more than a niche market here. That means, particularly in a lot of less wealthy areas, many older diesels with mechanical injection pumps will still be on the road. There's no question these don't stack up. My first trip to Europe was in '85, my last in '05. I can say there was a big improvement in air quality between those two trips, yet the percentage of diesel cars has gone up.

You really need to compare the emissions of a modern diesel with a modern gasser, to be fair; saying that the air quality is bad because of diesels is one thing but if there are still many 10+ y.o. diesels on the road in Italy (and I know there are, I was in Rome last Sept.), that will have a bias on the results especially since in N. America, 10+ y.o. diesels represents a very tiny percentage of the traffic on the roads.

Modern direct-injection diesels with computer control of the engine/injection process, plus emission controls, are really not that bad emissions-wise.

well it is excellent that everyone thinks that a hybrid is good well there not. they suck the money out of your poket. they may say that they are energy afficiant but they actully are the same as any other car. all they do is suck gas and not use the battery. they say that when you stop they recharge when infact it is a little battery that refills but it dosent do any thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this just personal oppinon but what if another blizzard comes in the future than you have a hybrid truck you wont get enogh energy to the tires so you will need to stick with the old fashoned trucks.!!!.!!! it will be afficant so the hybrids water will freaze so look in the long run.

ryan turner

I'm also puzzled Ryan, I have no idea what this "hybrids water" is that you're so concerned about. Also, who says a hybrid is supposed to recharge its battery when you stop?

I'm afraid you are quite confused as to what a hybrid is. If you don't have access to a hybrid or someone who is knowledgeable about them, please look around this website for information to help come up to speed on what a hybrid is. After that, you will probably revise your opinions.

I see great potential for diesels AND hybrids and that is why I follow this discussion thread. However, it also seems to reveal a lot of confusion by some very opinionated people as to what hybrids are or can be.

I agree, Bjorn. If you're going to compare old smokey diesels from the mid-80s to anything, it should be to an out-of-tune gas car from the same vintage. I can assure everyone I've seen plenty of stinky gassers of that age, spewing either oil smoke from burning oil, or black smoke from incomplete combustion due to burning too rich from an old carburettor that's out of adjustment.

In fact it you want to compare an older diesel, it should be to a carburettor-equipped gasser, not a fuel-injected one.

As for Ryan, I haven't a clue what he's talking about.

there is an emissions solution that came to market in 2000 that makes comparing emissions a moot point. on my mid 80's nissan 300zx I used to output hc 252 and co .97. by the simple addition of hydrogen and water injection the output dropped to hc 50 and co .09

add that technology (under $1000 installed) to a hybrid burning any kind of fuel and the most notorious emissions are dropped 75-80%

compute too that that this injection yields at least 25% mpg gains (i have seen 26, 51, and 60% gains on different vehicles)

keep in mind too that you can uninstall the unit with barely a hint that it was ever there in 5 minutes or less

My point?

-achieving hybrid by injection is the cheapest alternative considering similar emissions and mpg gains
-can be applied to straight ICEs and electric hybrids and soon diesels too

anyone wanting a product that will pay for itself in savings in few months instead of a few years or decades should check this out

then delve into either buying a hybrid of some sort or instead strap on an electrocharger with an ultracapacitor to help with the stop and go traffic

615-206-7690

I have a question here. Why can't they design a car that is a Diesel electric????? Yes! A Diesel Hybrid. Diesel already outperforms gas in milage by itself, so comine it with a hybrid powertrains and you could easliy see 60mpg or more!!!

I wonder, are the car manufacturers really daft? Or is there a reason tey can't do this?

i recently dreamed up a scheme to solve the problem of difficulty transporting/storing hydrogen. Combine the hydrogen with stack-gas carbon dioxide to form propane.

i wasn't a good enough chemist to say how costly this would be, or how fuel efficient, but was happy to hear a program (first friday science friday) where nobel laureate chemist George Olah (do a search) was promoting ALMOST my idea. same basic idea, but he wants to combine Hydrogen with CO2 to make methanol.

either one is fine by me, but methanols seems to have the one drawback of being very toxic, compared to propane, and I'm told that it is more corrosive. There may be other advantages to methane i'm unaware of, though.

I haven't looked at hydrogen fuel cells all that much, but can they refill or recharge them at at a central facility and distribute to the "filling" stations?

It would be a simple swap-out, rather than refilling-recharging at the station.
Kinda like the way you buy that propane bottle for your backyard grill.

Hybrids are worthless. People are IDIOTS who think they are saving money when purchasing a hybrid. Compare any hybrid's price to that of a small normal 4-cyl car. You would have to drive your hybrid over 300,000 miles to break even on the upfront price difference.

The advancements in the automotive industry that are exciting are the V8's that are now getting near 30mpg (SS Impala for example) with the ability to shut off 4-cyl's at cruising speeds.

When you mash the gas, you have V8 throttle response and power, when you put her into overdrive, you have a fuel-efficiant 4-banger. Advancements in this area could lead to huge SUV's getting 25-30mpg highway, while cars like the Mustang GT are getting well into the 30's. It's all possible.

I have over 70 patents on a new engine read the folowing text:

1. Cylinder’s changing capacity value’s numbers among: 1100-3300 cm
2. Compression’s changing report value’s numbers among 3-31;
3. Fuel will have used: merely or into mixture (petrol, diesel oil, alcohol, water and so on);
4. Exist the possibility to pick auto the best report with the lowest consumption into the time’s work of engine among 2.400.000.000. combinations between: cylinder’s capacity and compression’s report;
5. The box gear couple into engine’s block has an infinity gear’s ratios;
6. Distributor’s system is simple and pass away the sources of desertion in lose, when the driving belt and distributor’s concatenation are brake off.
7. The pies-electric firing is with catalyser.
8. The engine has also the possibility to introduce again the fuel’s gaze who includes the renders of fuels, into cylinders.
9. The make’s expenses are smaller comparatively with another well known engine.
10. Expenses of maintenance and operation of engine are very small.
11. The engine sizes and weigh by 30-50% percentage lower like well known engine.
12. Is not require the transformation of manufactured product line who assemble well known engines.
Engine prototype into first stayed of fulfillment with thechnic’s managements’ of performance, experimentally and preliminary.

I went from 36,000 dollar car to a 21,850 dollar hybrid. Hybrid technology really isnt very expensive regardless of the cost verbage. Also, the comparisons should be between the gas/maintenance/cost of previous vehicle to the new car. Usually a hybrid is a fiscal no brainer in this type of analysis, which is cash flow based specific to the individual purchaser.

Comparing a hybrid to its non-hybrid counterpart ( if any) isnt useful becuase these are two different demographics of purchasers as well as truely different cars.

I prefer the "kiss" approach. Keep it simple stupid. It took me several days to get through the technical speak you all use on here. I don't know much about any of this stuff. All I wanted was to know plain and simple whther a hybrid or a diesel would be the best choice GIVEN WHAT IS AVAILABLE NOW! Instead, I found myself reading insults hurled at each other, and factoid wars which mean absolutely nothing to me. We are all here because we want to decrease our reliance on oil, no? We all seemingly have the goal of reducing emissions, no?
I was hoping there might be some info on here which was understandable, helpful, and instead it looks liek people just want to prove their point is the correct one. Would someone please enlighten me. Since we only have 2 options RIGHT NOW, which is the least polluting?

The least polluting is a hybrid vehicle by a wide margin. Thats why the govt gives hybrod owners cash to buy them, similar to the energy credit system used in the industrial world.

The typical emissions testing doesnt even measure pollution in the majorty of those emissions profiles that get used for our state inspections.

The diffference is tons and tons per vehicle every year in use.

VW will not be selling any diesels next year because they don't meet the new smog requirements.

I understand there is only one diesel which does. (Mercedes?)

No diesels for sale here. All hybrids meet or beat requirements.

That should give a clue.

Hot Georgia: VW will be selling the V10 TDI here next year. In 2008 an expanded diesel range will be offered that meet new emissions with particulate traps and NOx controls. Mercedes will be compliant next year with their "Bluetec" diesels, and it will be available also in the Grand Cherokee, although the Liberty diesel will be discontinued.

How come there seem to be so many topics about "Hybrid vs Diesel"?

-htor
www.jjroth.com

And what year was the smelly Mercedes? I rather doubt one of the newer E320 diesels.

Here we go again comparing a 10+ year old diesel to a late-model car. Never mind hybrid or not, it is not a fair comparison.

Diesels have emission controls as well.

I've been behind plenty of stinky 10+ y.o. gassers with bad valve seals (burning oil), or so out of tune they're belching black (stinky) smoke.

Current diesels do not stink like a 20 y.o. worn-out Mercedes.

One of the main concerns with diesels is what happens as the car gets older. Folks keep their cars a long time in many instances. Toyota does not offer the diesels in the US becuase they feel their engines will outlive the emissions equipment on their cars.

They obviously can make a very good diesel engine.

The problem Mike- iS that when Diesel emissions equipment fails, the parts and repairs are more expensive, and the emissions much worse than a same condition standard gasoline powered car.

Toyota is happy to make non-diesel gas engine powered Camrys, and we can see them on the road without their emissions equipment failing before their engines give out. even at 250,000 miles! Toyotas testing on their owm emssions equipment for diesels show that equipment giving at at 100,000 miles, on diesle engine cars that will go much further.

Toyota KNOWS the diesel emissions equipment will fail, so they have chosen to not introduce diesel cars in the US, despite having more than the ability to do so.

BIG DIFFERENCE- and a decisive reality from the worlds now largest auto manufacturer.

MOS

In that case Honda seem to know something about diesels Toyota does not. See quote from Honda
below

"Honda will expand the application of diesel technology to medium-to-large size vehicles. Based on the diesel engine currently sold in Europe, Honda is developing a cleaner next-generation 4-cylinder diesel engine, which will meet the US EPA’s Tier 2 Bin 5 emission standards. Honda plans to introduce this super-clean diesel engine to the market within the next three years. Honda will also work toward development of a clean V6 diesel engine."

Source: Honda

Mike G, the twin charger technology is not the thing of the future. First off, 90% of consumers with a high consern for conserving $$$ at the pump, will not put up the amount of money for this car. Two forms of forced induction on a single car (a VW for that matter) will not be cheap. Also, only time will tell if the bottom end of that 1.4L will hold up to the constant boost from the turbo, and the blower. I understand that both forms of forced induction are not in effect at the same time, but still.

Another note: How can someone use the argument, "I went from a 36,000 dollar car to a 21,000 dollar hybrid" when arguing the against the high cost of hybrids? You have to compare a COMPARIBLE vehicle. You could compare the cost of Civic to a Civic hybrid, or a Corolla to a Prius, ect. You can't compare the cost of a BMW to that of a prius, and talk about how cheap hybrids are lol.

MOS: Ethanol = chosing between growing food or growing fuel in a world that has trouble feeding itself. Not to mention that intensive enough agriculture to grow crops for ethanol must be added to the equation.

Scott: VW claims the Twincharger is cheaper to make than a TDI. A geared and clutched supercharger gives the boost from start up to about 2500 rpm. Then the turbo takes over. The turbo is a simpler unit than in the TDI, as it does not have variable vanes. Moreover VW have been using unit injector technology for its TDIs of late, complex and expensive to make. The fuel injection system on a twincharger is much simpler.

It still requires premium fuel though, and low-sulphur fuel to make use of the lean burn characteristics of direct-injection techology.

I'll have to agree with Honda regarding larger size for the diesel.
I'd love to have a full size Honda family van in diesel to replace our fuel pig Grand Caravan.
(As long as they don't charge $10,000 for it)

Smaller cars I don't see the point as using diesel unless bio becomes widespread and readily available.
Someone sent me a link somewhere which showed a bio station "in my area".
Sorry I don't consider +30 miles away as in my area and not going to mix some concocktion in my garage to save a buck. I'll leave the eye protection gear in the wood shop.

I'd rather have an ethonol-blended hybrid car.

I would be happy to have biodiesel delivered to
my tank in the garage. 275gls take very little space. It is safe to store just like heatingoil.
I avoid trips to gas stations except when I drive more than 600miles. I can even safely carry an
extra 5 gls in the trunk. It last about 10months
and when the fuel prices spikes or there is a
shortage I can relax while Hot_Georgia is number
24 in line at the gas station(thank God he can inch
forward on his battery power though) during an
Opec embargo.

Says it all

http://autos.aol.com/article/hybrid/v2/_a/hybrids-save-gas-lose-money/20060309093909990001

Bjorn:
"What make you write that diesel is not a good choice in small cars?"

I think I may have said, or should have said that diesel is a good choice over a regular gas car, especially true in a year or so for cleaner running engines and fuel.

However diesel is not a good choice for someone who takes fuel efficiency as serious as I do.
Hypermiling is a growing phenomena and diesel is so much harder to hypermile.
Case in point:
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=140877

(Check out 2nd car from the top)
These drivers are the best of the best. I have the disadvantage of an automatic transmission and the closest one is around 45MPG.
Yes the diesel bug won the month fair and square but you also have to consider other than tire pressure and an air horn my car is 100% factory stock, burning normal, regular fuel while the bug has extensive modifications.

If you look at a hybrid database:
http://www.greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/honda-civicmanual.html
You can notice that the list with the best TDI drivers, only a very small portion exceed 50MPG while the hybrid list is vastly more, roughly half.

Is a diesel car better than a run-of-the-mill Ford or Chevy? Absolutely. Is it better than a comparable hybrid car? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say no, they are about equal.

But in my case I'd never trade in my stock 5 passenger AT equipped car which can achieve +73MPG and nearly 1000, miles to a tank with great effort for a MT vehicle that maybe can reach 60MPG with the same techniques.

This is NOT a slam against diesels but rather resoning of facts.
Diesels make more sence in larger trucks or vans because anything is better than straight gas and hybrid component output is too small for any benefit in those heavier vehicles.
-Steve

Bjorn:
Since you invoked my alias:

"I avoid trips to gas stations except when I drive more than 600miles. I can even safely carry an
extra 5 gls in the trunk. It When the fuel prices spikes or there is a
shortage I can relax while Hot_Georgia is number
24 in line at the gas station"

I go nearly 1,000 miles on about 13 gallons of gas.

Your extra 5 gallons might carry you to 800 miles.
I'll smile & wave to you as I go by.
;-)

Bjorn your link leads to a "Your article is invalid" page.

Yes all technologies are advancing rapidly.
They are working on a hydraulic based hybrid which has no battery to replace and boasts 100% efficiency- it doesn't have the mechanical-to battery-back to mechanical energy loss.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051218/AUTO01/512180348/1148

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/02/epa_eaton_and_p.html

http://www.nextenergy.org/industryservices/Hybrid__Hydraulics.asp

Hot Georgia,

I'd love to be at hybridfest but with a new job, new house closing on 20 Jul, Tesla unveiling on 19 July, and being 2000 miles away from the Mad City in the frequent flyer blacked out summer, I won't be able to make it.
Have an ag-school ice cream cone at Union South (right across from the UW engineering campus) and a Gyro on State St. after bar time for me if you make it there. I hope all those good memories from my UW student days still exist.
I'll also appreciate it if you'll let me know if they used original EV1 parts or if it's just a Frankenstein's monster inside an EV1 carcass.
Is the diesel hybrid a home-built or is there anyone looking at a production vehicle?
Please provide a detailed report on whatever other cool stuff is there.

Recapturing braking energy is of course useful thing, but it must some weight to the vehicle.
Some drivers will benefit more than others based
on driving style. Myself I will benefit less as I never
speed up towards changing lights and try to anticipate when light changes. Driving a stick shift
reduces braking too.

Hybrid Civic and Jetta TDI about the same $$
Hybrid Civic and Jetta TDI about the same MPG.

Why do some people have a problem with that?

Your article:

1.Boasts the Accord Hybrid is sold for fuel economy: It is not. It's a performance car and they purposely choose to misrepresent as an economy car.

2.Showcases the Escape Hybrid, which has less MPG than all other hybrids as "The example"

3.Claims the Prius has no competition which is flat false. Says:"Prius driver could actually save a small amount of money"
Could? Fails to mention Prius averages just under 50MPG by real-life everyday drivers, regular Camry just 26.5MPG.

4."(Going easy on the gas)improvements of about thirty percent. Hybrid buyers pay thousands for that kind of savings"
Lets see. Regular Camry averages 26.5MPG + 30% = 34.45.
They just compared it to Prius.
Most Civic EX average about 34MPG. add 30% is 44.2. Most Hybrid owners average just under 50.

CNN's statements are false.

5.Then they toss in diesel...but don't compare to hybrid, only to regular old gas cars.

6."you pay more for the complex technology and, to date, long-term resale value is unknown"
Fails to mention that all hybrids are not that complicated and resale value, even 12 year old hybrids hold value very well.

7.Once again pits the worst MPG hybrid against a Ford Focus. They didn't compare to an HCH or Prius because it didn't fit their article.

You must have dug pretty hard to find such a rabid anti-hybrid piece. Notice it was published in 2005?
Hmmmmmm

Why do I say anti-hybrid?
1. Zero mention of hybrid positives.
2. Practially all owners love them.
3. Huge difference in MPG potential vs most every other vehicle on the road.
No mention of the +100MPG Insight, the +70MPG Civic or +100MPG Prius
4. Many if not most actual, real hybrid owners are saving money.

Can anyone tell me why some diesel enthusiasts (And media) possess an irresitable desire to continuously spread falsehoods about hybrid cars?

Why don't people do their own objective, unbiasd research into the subject instead of rabidly attack, attack, attack?
(Sigh)

"rabidly attack, attack, attack"
look who is talking...read your inputs about diesels
over the last few months..."diesel engines are not durable" just put "diesel engines more durable"
in search engine and u can do your own research.
Whats wrong with quoting an article from September 2005?
AOL had a posting within the last week showing how
hybrids save gas, but lose money. It is simple math
unless the owners will get even more handouts.
Even a Hummer would be a good economic choice if the taxpayers subsidize it like we are foeced to
subsidize the hybrids.
n

Hot_G

Is March08 2006 within your accepted time frame?
If so read link below.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/06/Autos/tipsandadvice/hybrid_resale/

Did you know both CNN articles are written by Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN/Money staff writer?
Certainly isn't any bias there.

There are other more objective automotive enthusiasts such as Don, Mike G, Scott, ExEV1, wxman and others as well. Everyone here got caught up but at least others carry a sense of intelligent converstaion.

I'm finished with this senseless, endless bickering.
One can't converse with someone who only takes jabs and snippets.
I don't have the time for this.
Good wishes for you, honestly Bjorn

First Hot_Georgia claim an article from Sept 2005
is too old. Then he does not like the fact it is
issued by CNN and not his kind of staff writer!!!!!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,192614,00.html

"IRS form"

Hot_Georgia wrote above

"Why do I say anti-hybrid?
1. Zero mention of hybrid positives.
2. Practially all owners love them.
3. Huge difference in MPG potential vs most every other vehicle on the road.
No mention of the +100MPG Insight, the +70MPG Civic or +100MPG Prius
4. Many if not most actual, real hybrid owners are saving money. "

Look at those mpg numbers above!!!
Is Hot_Georgia going beyond "wishful thinking"
Insight EPA is 57/56 Civic Hybrid 49/51
Believe Prius is 40-50 and a Prius owner on
this blog reports 46.5 mpg average over 45000miles.
Realize driving styles can be different among drivers,
but does Hot_Georgia really believe we believe
his mpg numbers. Maybe true if it is recorded going
down from Pikes Peak, CO!

The average MPG among Honda Civic Hybrid 2006 is 47 MPG; very close to the EPA estimate. And thats from early use reporting; the car breaks in at 3500 and after that the MPG increases. I have been getting 50 MPG for several tanks now combined city/highway with air coniditoning on normal driving.

"56" LOL LOL

... "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone

I drive my TDI and contibute much less than the
average driver to CO2 pollution. We all know the
seriousness of global warming.
Subsidies, handouts and welfare. Mos has no problem accepting the handouts for his batterycar
depending on other people to pay HIS taxes.
Then he accuse myself for using non taxed heating
oil. Wonder where he got that from? Does he have
any proof? What a child. Did you double check
your federal and state deductions yet?
Are you turning in people you know who use their
commercial vehicle for private use? Want to answer
those question? You accused me for using non taxed fuel in my car. Proof? Now you have a problem. Isnt it illegal to accuse people for a crime
without having any reason or proof?

See I use about 300gls of diesel a year and MOS
got this idea that I substitute with untaxed fuel.
If it was true the amount of tax would be less than
$200 in taxes per year.
But then again I wonder how he got the idea from
that I use intaxed fuel. Watch our hybrid owner
adding plug ins to your hybrids. No road tax paid.
MOS might be checking your electric meter!!!!!!!
He has ambitions to become a snitch.

Hot_Georgia ...I opened the links and I loved
the picture of the guy who was fired from the ethanol
plant. Ialso noticed the claimed mpg numbers, but
I pay more attention to numbers reported by
newsmedia and auto testers who actually take the
cars on a realistic driving tgest and measure gallons used. I belive this apply wheter it is a diesel,gas or
hybrid cars. How do we know if those posting are
really measued while driving normally or of they
rely on a highly inaccurater dash meter.

"Look around you. You are the only one causing trouble
on this board"

Next time u brush your teeth u will see another one.
Just look around you and especially what u have written
about diesels over the past months. Look who is talking.
Must admit that you are on much better level than
the guy who wrote this. "Cheating on taxes in this country is more serious than in Europe but you are basically too much of an idiot to understand that.

Simply stated, you are going to get into trouble."

Do u have any comment on above statement
Hot_Georgia or do "understand" MOS for being
frustrated driving a techology that is much less
promising that anticipated?

I just knew Hot_Georgia would not comment.
Forget about MOS. Maybe he realized he went
overboard with calling names?

Do hybrib owners really know how economical their car realy is In the lateist issue of the English magazine of What Car? they named the worst offender of quoating a higher mpg then their published figures at a difference of neary 15 mpg which left mpg at 52 now my Skoda Octaiva(TDI the same one as in the Jetta, Golf and beetle) a reskinned Golf gets around 57 according to the dash. And another thing bio-diseal actualy realies very little CO2 because the plants used in making the fuel soak in all the CO2 used in combustion

And one last queation how economical would a hybrid be without the extra weight of the batteries

Diesel > Hybrid.

End of debate.

Re hydrogen cars. If all cars on the road in rush
traffic were hydrogen cars and they all emit
water or vapor. Would we then be driving in fog
all the time or wet roads?

http://www.worldcarfans.com/print.cfm/ID/2060906.006/lang/eng

In Europe, gas is about $10.00 a gallon now. For a US Gallon thats about $7.50. In Europe, where gas has been that expensive for 10 to 15 years, 55% of cars and vans (no SUV's as everyone thinks they are stupid gas guzzlers) are Diesel and about 93% of all vehicles on the road are stick-shift. Simple laws of economics, the 230 million drivers on Europe's roads demand cars with excellent gas mileage. Diesels give 45mpg for a large luxury car to 75 mpg for an ultra-compact.

Diesels are very clean as they are fitted with catalysts, NOx traps and Particulate Filters. Interestingly, Europeans don`t touch gasoline hybrids as they see hybrids as a complex, expensive waste of money. A few people demand them for city driving (stop-start) but like 70% of Americans, 70% or Europeans commute 40 to 60 miles a day to work on freeways and sub-urban roads. Diesels are ultra-economical, awesome to drive, smooth and refined. Masses of engine torque, simple architecture, easy to maintain and easy to service thus cheap to own. They last 20 years and 250,000 miles with ease. They don`t break and they dont need 400 volts and a complex power inverter electrical system, nor a battery full of environment killing Nickel, Cadmium and other expensive poisonous metals.

What do we all think will happen between 2010 to 2015 when US gasoline gets to $10.00 a gallon? I`m buying my Diesel right away. Tom.

I do not like hummer cars because they are to small.

this site is cool

the hybrid cars rule esspecily the prius

hello every one just saying hi and i recon that this site is cool and so are hybrid cars THEY RULE !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok diesels, move over, there's a new bad boy in town. It can beat any diesel in the quarter mile or zero to 60, plus it is cleaner than any hybrid, uses less energy, and uses no petroleum products at all.
It's the Tesla Roadster and it is really in production now. There's a new forum on it at http://www.hybridcars.com/forums/cars/tesla-roadster in case anyone has any questions or comments.

Diesels are great and can be even greater if you combine them with a hydrogen generator to clean up their exhaust even better and boost the mileage. We are getting ready to install in a fleet of diesel Isuzu's- refrigerated trucks for a local business.

He currently spends $6000 a month in fuel- we an save him at least 20% or more.

I'll keep you posted on results if you'd like...