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Comments
You're blaming the wrong side on this one, IMO.
Was Renault banned from the US? Of course not. They chose not to enter our market.
I suspect marketing bozos are part of it too, like how we only get the largest diesel engines in BMW and MB when we finally get them at all.
That's what the refineries can make. But can they change the cracking to make more, say paraffin, if all of a sudden cakes of paraffin start selling like hot cakes? Or must all of it go to ICEing?
Now from the regulatory point of view probably not as successful as THEY would like. So for example success can be measured as: gee we started out with 3 % diesel and now it is 1.5% !!!! So starting out at 2% and FF to 2012 @ 5% diesels, they must see themselves in defeat mode!?
So really you are just using examples of what I am saying. No government nor auto entity has been convicted of "the conspiracy/s" that folks like to point to . So continued references to it are from idiotic, diversionary to smoke screen in nature. Now I am not saying that there are NOT any conspiracies, but truly the DOJ has made no federal case or any states have made any state cases.
So for example CA EPA HATE diesels. Well guess what, it is not against the law because of polices to either legislate limiting them or hating them. I would dare say more regulatory monies (etc) are made "hating" them.
Another would be why is it so hard to acknowledge that we follow a policy of using more, while advocating less and charging ever so steadily MORE for: fuel ?
So for example the 2003 TDI when new was $1.50 (without checking the records) per gal. I remember 2 days before Hurricane Katrina I fueled in LA/MS area for app $1.85. FF to 2012, I last filled @ 4.36. That is 21% plus per year inflation!? In context RUG to PUG is 4.15 to 4.45 per gal.
Another is US diesels meet the (heavy) " light truck" standards for diesels. Again to keep them limited, the oems sell the HUGE cu in/L V-8 diesel option at much higher prices. Another is oem's produce more "special purpose" "stump pullers". This paradigm while of limited application and product response ignores or denies the WIDER one. The wider one is torque values of 350-500 # ft are the sweet spots for many of the so called fuel guzzlers on the roads. I can also say that from my 3.0 V6 TDI experiences that the hp/torque are almost literally ideal for the large car to suv to pu truck markets which are literally 75% or the majority of the passenger vehicle fleet. It is almost as easy as asking how my (almost) 5k # vehicles can get a H EPA of 28 mpg? If I go less than the vehicle's optimum speeds and rpms: say 65 mph which are the speed limits on most American highways, I can easily log 30-36 mpg. Isn't better mpg one of the environ cons stated goals? :sick: I mean if you ask the F150 driver who gets 20 mpg on a good day down a long downgrade if they would want to get 28-36 mpg, would they say: hell no I love the ring of 15 mpg?
I think it's a demand thing.
Higher initial cost, higher price at the pump and the mpg isn't significantly better, percentage wise, than a hybrid if you are trying to save a lot of money on your commute. If you want to tow, fine, but there's no other earth-shattering reason to switch to a diesel rig.
My brother tows a pop-up; it's a newer slide out type and heavier than the typical popup. He just got a new F-150. He kicked around the idea of the EcoBoost but the idea of a diesel wasn't even on his radar, even though the big trailer towers in the campgrounds they go to are always puffing about their duallys. I think he's a more typical buyer than the dually drivers.
Why get 40.5 mpg on a Passat TDI when you can get 27.5 mpg on a Toyota Camry? So what in your mind ( really those 75% of the larger car to light trucks buyers) mind would be ...significantly better ? (than 47.3 better %)
As a side bar, the VW Touareg TDI gets better mpg than the economical Toyota Camry. :shades:
So in the case of my plan to keep a 1994/1996 25 to 30 years (2024) , it makes all the sense in the world ? A 2012 F 150 is not "significantly" better @ 19.7 mpg (only one post) So perhaps the second 30 cycle will become "significant"?
Remember they had to revise the EPA numbers downward for the new 3 series gas engine (2.0T).
People weren't getting even close to the 35mpg claimed, I think it was revised down to 32mpg.
Whoops.
Still, the number is high enough that it would still be impressive. I'd like to see real-world results first, though.
Indeed, I was one of the ones that pointed out the BMW's new 3 series (gasser) was "optimistic" in light of the twin turbo diesel with 425 # ft that it supposed to have replaced and be "better" mpg wise. So from a practical real world view, you are making my case. More consumption is better, as long as you talk LESS consumption.
If you actually do get LESS consumption, NOW... that really pisses people off.
Makes you wonder, though, if you can trust BMW's figures. I'll wait for real-world verification.
EPA sets the bar, and automakers can choose to clear it or not. The EPA standards are certainly doable, because some automakers meet them, no problem.
European automakers don't need apologists. They make business decisions, and the poor babies are not the victims of the EPA.
I think Audi's Green Police super bowl ad helped a lot with that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxTNZUhesZk
Any how, now that the diesel makers have embraced hybrids, maybe it's time for Honda and Toyota to embrace diesels now?
BMW will recall diesel models to fix emissions glitch
Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20120504/RETAIL05/120509927#ixzz1uD5DUifZ
No matter, he's no more brand loyal than I am. There's a Honda and a Chevy in the driveway now. A Dodge or something else would have been fine.
Anti-diesel effort brewing?
It's bad enough that gas prices are shooting up, but Big Oil's reluctance to produce sufficient supplies of diesel -- thus driving up the price -- does seem like an effort to snuff out a promising, extremely fuel-efficient technology just as it gains a foothold in the United States, the world's most energy profligate nation.
So why is diesel suddenly so expensive just when the country needs it badly? That's a question that Congress should be asking oil executives next time it has them lined up for a grilling.
Congress should also ask the Big 3 CEOs why they won't have any diesel cars for sale anytime soon, despite selling them elsewhere in the world..
Honda CEO says clean diesel cars to be profitable
By Chang-Ran Kim, Asia auto correspondent
DETROIT, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The head of Honda Motor Co (7267.T: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Sunday that the Japanese automaker's yet-to-be released clean diesel cars will be profitable immediately, unlike expensive gasoline-electric hybrid cars that still yield little or no profit after a decade on the market.
"Our diesel cars are going to have an appropriate level of profit from the start," Chief Executive Takeo Fukui told a small group of reporters in an interview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
He said Honda's clean diesel cars, to be launched in the United States next year, will not require a urea tank as most European systems do.
Japan's second-biggest automaker is set to announce later this afternoon the launch of its first ultra-clean diesel car in the United States in 2009, as planned.
PS
I am waiting four years later.
Last I looked almost all of our freight transported by land is moved by diesel. Distributor sales of diesel to the passenger fleet probably could disappear and not impact the bottom line much at all.
There's some gasoline box trucks running around, but I don't think there's any gas semis out there.
I am all for diesels, but we need to compare apples to apples. The Passat is rated 40 mpg Highway 30 mpg combined (with automatic as most have). Camry is rated 35 highway and 28 combined. Not really fair to use a number above the highway mpg for the Passat and below the combined mpg for the Camry.
I don't own a Camry, but I do have an Accord (similar weight and engine size) and I have averaged 34.9 mpg over 140,000 miles (36.4 over the last 50 tanks and 38.5 over the last 10 tanks), and my car (2007 I4 stick shift) is rated EPA 31 highway. Beating the EPA is not the exclusive domain of the diesel. In real world testing Consumer Reports got 42 mpg in a new Camry on the highway. They drive 65 mph and use 10% ethanol fuel. If they pumped up the tires and used pure gas they could do better still.
Yes I would love a diesel Accord, but my car is hardly a guzzler.
He wanted a new truck and has been hearing about diesel tow rigs for years now (they campground host a lot). If he had wanted a diesel he wouldn't have hesitated to get a Ram 2500 with the 350 Cummins engine. Oh, pardon me, it's not an engine, it's a power plant.
Since he didn't, he didn't. The MSRP on the XLT he got is close to the 2500.
Trucks are a segment. :P
"Americans are only now beginning to understand the concept of a clean diesel."
if you think about it, that's a HARD concept to sell to people whose only experience with diesels is big rigs and city buses and Dodge Ram 3500 engines beating the hammers of hell at a stop light.
We're talkin' massive public re-education here, not one or two pretty ads.
I actually became acquainted with it pre late 2006 (Sep 2006 (actually mandated in July) ULSD mandated 15 ppm sulfur nominally delivered @ 7-10 ppm) LSD (so called low sulfur diesel) was 500 ppm. CA was reputed to be 140 LSD. . Even earlier than 2003 diesels (my nexus 2003 Jetta TDI) were designed to run on ULSD and were NOT designed to run on LSD, which was mandated by the EPA. ULSD was almost not commonly commercially available. So really that is the fault of both the laws makers(not passed 30 years earlier) and the law enforcers (regulatory agencies like the EPA).
So prior to ULSD 15 ppm, you were in effect MANDATED by the EPA to run dirtier (33 times) LSD (500 ppm, CA 140 ppm) fuel. The nexus of the so called "Italian tune" (normally referred to for GASSER engines by the way) was a (RPM and loading) procedure (running through the gears as it were) to blow out excess black deposits produced with the mandated dirtier fuel. ULSD does not have anywhere near the same by products. (Higher sulfur content ppm is the basis for the soot build up and productions) Some vehicles designed to run on ULSD that were forced to run LSD, DID have soot build up issues. This of course led to running the diesel slightly more aggressively, which anecdotally, I follow to this day. I have NOT had soot build up problems, some would say because of so called Italian tune and running the diesel engine slightly more aggressively. The foremost reason I run the TDI more aggressively is that is really the sweet spots for TDI's.
Some of us like living in clean air. :shades:
Interesting that you admit that your current "modern" diesel has soot problems too.
Have yet to see a smoking Prius.
Really quite the artificial (conversational) distinction here. Evidently the democratically run EPA wanted dirtier air 40 or so years past when UN leaded regular and premium were mandated and they didn't mandate ULSD. Also that same democratically control legislature and EPA agency mandates far dirtier RUG/PUG TO THIS DAY @ 30 ppm sulfur with off line fee exemptions to 90 ppm sulfur !!! So the real world RUG to PUG is MANDATED to be 2 times (standard to standard 12.85 TIMES DIRTIER than ULSD !!!! Go figure !!! Again RUG/PUG can be FAR dirtier, just as long as folks talk about how clean they like it.They also for some reason like to blame the "other political party" for things they mandate, like dirtier air.
Had Prius been mandated to run LEADED regular/premium, they would BE TKO'd by the side of the road in literal droves and in very short order. This would be/have been a PR disaster for Toyota and the EPA's.The disaster would have been far worse than the hub bub EPA mileage fiasco. The powers that be took the most unusual step of tilting the standards to let hybrids show better mpg.
It is really a tribute to diesels they can run non designed fuel and still do ok.
Side but front burner issue, The EPA's continues to ignore called for diesel engines specified to run on 100% bio diesel. Bio diesel is ZERO ppm sulfur. But if you put an artificially high 1 ppm sulfur number to it, it makes RUG to PUG dirty ness RIDICULOUS at 30 times to 90 times higher.
Most so called clean air folks don't even take the ridiculously simple step of running the calculator to show the numbers to demonstrate to themselves how totally ridiculous the 5% bio diesel mandate is. Given that 15 ppm ULSD is nominally delivered at the pumps @ 7 to 10 ppm sulfur, 5% LESS ppm sulfur is actually MINUS - .35 to .5 ppm sulfur or resultant 6.65 to 9.5 ppm sulfur. This of course makes RUG to PUG 4.5 times to 13.53 TIMES dirtier. Any current diesel product ULSD, B5, Biodiesel, makes RUG to PUG in comparison ridiculously dirtier.
Nixon signed the Clean Air Act in 1970. He also proposed the EPA.
A more modern day historical and hysterical example was the growth and popularity of SUV's. Now there was a fear that they would grow to the utter Mathusian edge and perform environmental hari kiri. etc., etc., yada, yada, yada. Indeed Edmunds.com had VERY popular SUV thread about it some time ago. 30 years of SUV growth and already @ 12% of the passenger vehicle fleet population (from 1 to 2% of the passenger vehicle fleet) . Ah 12% being a small minority @ ? We also have some of the cleanest air as they record these things. It was also going to kill people in literal droves. Again we have the almost absolute BEST accident and fatality records since they have been recording it. Needless to say even with "MATHUSIAN" growth the safety record is better than when there were only 1 to 2% SUV's !!! So much to do about not very much.
I am with Steve - they probably like whatever brings in the most cash.
The EPA needs to be downsized and stick to enforcement not trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip. When the air coming out of a car is cleaner than the air going in, time to call it good.
you replied: "I am all for diesels, but we need to compare apples to apples"
He cheated and posted numbers for the non-hybrid Camry. For the price of a TDI you can get the hybrid, and he's using EPA numbers for 2012 models, so let's be fair and compare similarly priced models
Passat TDI = 40.5 mpg with annual fuel cost at $1800
Camry hybrid = 39.6mpg or 40.2mpg (LE/XLE), annual cost $1400-1450
ruking: why do you cheat like that? Seriously, come on!
You want to compare gas, Toyota beats VW again. No matter what your price range the VW will cost more to fuel, several hundred dollars more.
So the 2012 Camry Hybrid and Passat TDI comparison are neck in neck both in price (25,995 MSRP and mpg (39.6/40.5) . Between the two, I know what I would get. How about you? But I would not select a Camry Hybrid for the 14,000 miles yearly commute task and the majority of commute mileage (in our case 89% commute mileage). Nor would I get a PASSAT TDI for all the extra rear leg room for the same commute task. We can use the commute lanes with two commuters (which we do). So defacto and obviously, the rear goes unused. That alone drops a 28,000 miles commute requirement/demand to 14,000+ miles.That would be a great RBI in anyone's book, but ... maybe not yours. A Honda Civic @ 12,564 does wonderfully. Actually, so do the cheaper Jetta TDI's.
Expensive candied apples to regular, on-sale oranges.
As for comparing them, I'd look at a long-term ownership of 10 years and then decide if I'd be willing to spend about $4,000 to $4,500 more to fuel up the TDI, because of the extra cost of diesel fuel.
I haven't driven either but that's a pretty big disadvantage for the diesel.
I'd probably end up buying neither.
Remember that the hybrid saves you $400-450 per year over the TDI.
So the fuel costs for the TDI are actually closer to the non-hybrid.
Maybe not apples to oranges after all. :P
LOL
Actually so would I, but why do YOU exaggerate, and 10 times over? You are also exaggerating about the wrong fuel source, to use your words, cheating even!!?? 10 years would be (using my case) 180,000 miles/ Camry Hybrid 39.6 mpg @ 4.15 per gal / Passat TDI 40.5 mpg @ 4.36 per gal that is 4,545.5-4,444.44 gals or 101.gals more RUG gals.
You, in the Hybrid would pay $ 419.00 dollars more for RUG. To repeat the obvious, once I knew you wanted apples to apples, the Camry Hybrid and Passat TDI are neck and neck.
If you even just ran the numbers you criticize I was and continue to try to get down the volume of dollars. But then again, you over looked that in your zeal to call foul.
Annual fuel cost from the source you chose to use.
Where do you pay $4.15 for RUG?
Gasbuddy.com has the national average at $3.76, and I found some in my zip code for $3.73.
I'll also point out you chose the lower of the 2 numbers for the Camry. OF COURSE!
So predictable.
Again, why do you feel you have to cheat?
Anything you find wrong with the EPA and its rules is because they are sometimes stupid. That's really all you have to know. Don't let the nice suits and impressive walnut desks and granite buildings fool you.