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Comments
It may have to be better than that to beat out the DC diesel offering. With a drag coefficient of 0.19 it makes the Prius seem like pushing a brick through the air.
At a constant speed of 90 km/h the direct-injection diesel unit consumes only 2.8 litres per 100 kilometres– corresponding to a range of 84 miles per gallon in the US test cycle.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/06/daimlerchrysler_1.html
We all expect at some point a Diesel/Hybrid passenger car someday, one that does not look like a boxfish, to achieve around 70 MPG in real life. Gimme that one on Day One !!
The DC Bionic fish car may be a winner. No one thought Toyota could sell the goofy looking Prius either. Heck I still like the 72 MPG Smart Twofour. To me the perfect runabout car. Lots of Canadians agree, they sell as fast as they hit the lots.
There are, however, DEGREES OF GOOFY (not a Disney movie) and that MBBFC (Mercedes Benz Bionic Fish Car) is pushing the edge of what might be acceptable to USA buyers. The Insight is a very small seller due in large part to the, UM, "quirky" design. :shades:
Quite true but selling over 100,000 copies this year alone speaks volumes. At least it is not generic looking like a Jetta Wagon... Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I'd say kiss diesel HELLO !! I would agree that it will revolutionize the industry. Of course if Honda and GM do this, TOYOTA will not be too late to market with their own already available diesels!!
The Prius is not generic looking for sure. Some like wagons, most like sedans and few people like hatches. To me the Germans build the best looking & performing wagons. I like them all from BMW to VW. Some of the 1990s Audi wagons (RS2) were beautiful in my eyes. The Japanese have never competed in the performance wagon arena.
Actually they did: i.e., Toyota Cressida Wagon. Basically an in-line 6 (detuned Supra engine) . I think they took it off the market, for it was just TOO damned good. My Mom and Dad had a 1986 Toyota Cressida Wagon. This thing could literally cruise at 100 plus, ALL day. Don't ask me how I know.
I have heard of one owned by a salesman with 455,000 miles.
What do you consider the WRX wagon? Kinda weird looking (yeah I owned one of these too), but has tons of performance.
I love the new A3. Have a look at the A2 from the rear. You'd swear you were looking at a Prius. Saw one in Sweden last year.
The Cressidas from that era had thick, crushed velour seatcovers with extra padding and were as plush and comfortable as any Limo seats.
The engine was pretty good too..... :shades:
I wonder if passengers will be able to make "deposits" into the urea chamber......
First of all John, you and I both know that the Prius is louder than most cars on the highway @65mph. If you don't think that it is, I urge you to take a Jetta for a cruise on the highway and listen. You won't hear much.
Second, you and I both know that the Jetta has a lot more luxury features (adjustable seats, better materials) and a higher build quality (you won't see gaps in the Jetta's interior panels).
I really think you should stop making these comparisons until you've driven both, as I have.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
What are talking about????
The Cressida was certainly not the precursor to the ES250. The baby ES was and continues to be based on the Camry. It never had an inline-6 or RWD like the Cressida did.
I believe Toyota killed it just so they could establish the Lexus line - a crying shame.
My wife totalled her Cressida just after I met her, so I wasn't very attached to it, but what a sweet ride.
I stand corrected. I looked for an ES250 for a friend thinking Toyota had taken the very fine Cressida to start their luxury line of cars. Glad I did not find a nice used one. Another Toyota disappointment. Will it never end?
i have many thousands of miles of 'experiments' on my vehicles which match the #1 falconer's results, others which match "the theory".
most recently our 2004 volvo xc90, fully loaded, from new england to orland & back. 1300 miles southbound on 87 octane. 1300 miles northbound on 91 octane. no mpg difference at all. 19 mpg with either sort of gas. same sort of driving both ways, 80 mph highway cruising...
my data with my 2005 gto shows about a 2 mpg difference between 87 & 91 - not surprisingly this matches the late-model-corvette result!
I'm sorry of the science of the matter doesn't fit with your personal experience, however, don't shoot me, I'm only the messenger in this case. If you REALLY want to prove your point, talk to the folks at the SAE.
Best Regards,
Shipo
P.S.
I'm not at all familiar with the Volvo you are referring to, so I have to ask, "Does Volvo recommend Premium fuel? What is the compression ratio of the engine? Is it turbocharged or supercharged?" The fact is that if it is a naturally aspirated relatively low compression ratio engine (say less than 10:1), Premium fuel will indeed be a waste of money.
i suppose we could burn it all as home heating oil instead of in cars & trucks. wouldn't burning the unavoidable diesel in home/commercial systems make for lots more pollution than if we were to burn it in nicely catalyzed ULSD modern diesels?
life is short, torque hard.
Any other problems you (people who put in 87 when 91 is recommended) have encountered that may be attributed to this?
I know it does affect HP, since the knock sensors retard the timing, but how much HP does one need, anyway?
As to efficient, diesel is actually more efficient than gas/electric. Toyota shuts down the gas engine to save fuel, why? Most people do not realize that air fuel mixture in a gasser has to be constant no matter what the driver is doing. In a diesel, the amount of air is the same, but the amount of fuel injected is varied. So when a diesel sits at idle it uses only a tiny fraction of the amount of fuel used underway.
As to NVH, a diesel will make a bit more noise when cold, but once warmed up it is quiet, especially the newer generation of diesels. My 1981 Isuzu diesel was quieter at idle and underway that it's gas powered sibling. If you stood next to it at idle, you did not hear and knocking or nailing. You heard/felt a little rumbling. As to my CRD, stand next to it at idle. Sounds like a gasser at idle. Underway at 65 mph, there is a soft thrumming sound. Between 50 and 63 mph, there is the same thrumming but also a little vibration because you are right in the heart of max torque territory. Neither diesel was ever harsh.
As for the price of diesel being greater, blame Katrina, Rita, etc. Note two other items that some people tend to ignore. First it is heating season so there is a demand for home heating oil, same stuff as #2 diesel. Second, and more importantly is the fact that several refineries that would normally make diesel fuel are making gasoline. We all heard the outcry of the gasser using community around labor day and some weeks beyond. On my return trip from Florida on Labor Day weekend, diesel was 30 - 60 cents less per gallon than 87 octane unleaded and the amount of gas one could purchase was limited to $20 at 3.35+/gallon or about 6 gallons. Diesel had no such restriction. I saw this at many gas stations on Route 95 that sold both gas and diesel. Now imagine if those three refineries were still making diesel fuel, the price of gas would be more than for diesel fuel. It could be significantly more.
Not actually to blame in this case. Diesel has been higher than gasoline in most regions of the USA for much longer than this season's hurricanes.
We were discussing that as a diesel negative issue a few months ago on these boards.
For example, in January 2005 diesel was 23 cents higher than regular unleaded in Atlanta.
All along the mantra has been and dare I say continue to be, to be able to be "less" dependent on foreign "crude" oil. Of course there is the corrollary: use none to less oil!! There is no NEW current identifed "MUDDHA LODE" of crude oil DOMESTICALLY. The ones that ARE identified (Alaska for example) are slated for SEVERE knocked down drag out fights and long term feuds at ALL levels.
Diesel on the other hand can be gotten from HUGE variety and various sources!! It can be refined from natural gas. As you know natural gas historically has been considered a WASTE product and burned and vented as such. I t can be refined from COAL. We have CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATES of COAL stores in NA of INXS of 300 years!!
This is to include other DOMESTIC sources. The list is probably almost repetitive and boring.
Waste stream products:Used fryer oil, new fryer oil, waste stream oils that go to the land fills and dumps and have to be treated and stored as long term hazardous waste, domestic crops such as soy beans, Farm waste generators such as oil from already on going animal harvestings, and OTHER WASTE STREAM PRODUCTS customarilly processed as sewage, etc. etc. yada, yada, on and on.
Diesel is structurally more efficient than unleaded regular. This is not a matter of debate, but BASIC high school chemistry!!!!! So if an unleaded regular can get 100 mpg, which is indeed WONDERFUL, a diesel product can get between 130-137 mpg.
One of the recurring points of discussion uses VW as an example of the lack of reliability of diesel since VW is the major seller of diesel cars in North America and the only other choice is Mercedes E320.
IS 250
Honda Accord diesel vs. gas vs. hybrid
Toyota Corolla Diesel
Were Lexus, Honda and Toyota diesels to be available on our shores, the "VW reliability" point of negativity would cease to be a option.
These vehicles meet Euro IV emissions and offer hybrid levels of fuel economy without the cost penalty of a hybrid or the complexity of a hybrid.
2007 is the earliest model year that will allow Euro diesel powertrains to be offered in North America without costly re-engineering to run on high sulfur diesel.
Will the number of choices of diesel vehicles expand greatly in 2007? Is diesel a technology of the past with hybrids the replacement?
Will have to wait until at least the 2007 model year to get a taste of the future. IMO there is a place for both hybrid and diesel in the future.
They might consider that as a factor among a larger number of decision factors, but very few people actually need a car BECAUSE it is quiet at highway speeds.
Sure, it's nice, but if you are spending 25K or more in the year 2005 or 2006 on a new car, you can pretty much be certain that it's "plenty quiet" at highway speeds.
I have also said I expect the 2007 and beyond diesel offerings to literally explode.
So with all this "quietness," what do we all demand? 500 pluss WATTS pushing a 13 speaker sound system!!!
The problem for diesel is that diesel advocates have a TON more work to do to overcome negative history of diesel cars and diesel exhaust in the USA.
Hopefully, diesel particulate filter technology can advance as quickly as the ULSD tankers, and more companies will put more clean diesels as an option on their showroom floors.
Once diesels are legal for sale as new in all 50 states the real test will begin.
Since the late 70's when the switch was made to unleaded regular
It took gassers, billions of dollars, billions of R/D, billions of dollars of legislative hot air, billions of miles to "evolve" to today's gasser emissions standards and 25-28 years. What do you think would have happened if gasser products were banned until we met the current standards 28 years ago??
At least give the diesels' 5 years!!!!
other problems - i did not note an mpg difference with the Z28s but in hot weather they pinged and ran hotter with 87 than with 91. so for GM V8s i stick to 91 in hot weather. one local sunoco sells their "94" or 93 for less thanother stations sell 91, so i often buy that. with the "94" octane the engine does seem peppier but maybe that's placebo effect.
given that this is the prius vs TDI forum, i suppose the relevant question here is does the PRIUS get better mpg with 89 or 91 octane compared to 87. have any of you prius geeks tried to get some decent datapoints with PRIUS and 89 octane for example. with my 3 early-1990s civics, designed for 87, i got about 10% better mpg and power with 89 or 91 octane compared with 87. this was with RFG1 in CA. my wife is not a car person and she batted 1.000 in telling me whether i had filled her civic with 87 or 89/91, just by SOTP. this was just after RFG1 was introduced in california. i bet honda has further optimized their engine management software since then, to handle both rfg1 and rfg2 as well as the 99 or 32 other mixtures of gasoline in USA currently.
and since this is the diesel vs hybrid forum, maybe we should be talking about whether increased CETANE improves mpg in our TDIs or other diesels. i believe the verdict is that increased cetane can well increase diesel mpg but maybe it would be more fun to argue about that than about whether to believe either OPINION about whether to base fuel purchase choice on empirical results with ones own car, or the theory that says burning 87 in a 91+ optimized car should always cause a significant mpg loss.
I don't know about that. I thought the Sebring was a cool looking car. After driving one for a week I would never give it another thought. It is much noisier than my GMC or Passat on the highway. We like to listen to classical music with all it's intricate overtones. How can you do that with wind or engine noise in the cab? I want my vehicles to shut out the noise of the highway, not add to it.
Here and on other Prius sites I havent heard of one anywhere but I can speak only for us directly.
Then you haven't been in a good gasser recently. Try merging a Volvo S40 onto a highway. It doesn't make half the racket that my Prius does.
Wishful thinking thou...
however the volvo xc90 2.5T engine is designed to run best on 91+ octane; it's turbocharged. and i believe that is the sort of vehicle that me/falconer#1 (mere engineers?) are arguing about with shipo the esteemed scientist.
also i gave examples of cars designed for 87 which i repeatably produced 10% or better mpg gain if they were run with 89 & 91. that was all with leadfoot 80+ driving, flat freeways and mountain freeway.
also i've observed identical mpg results with a 1996 volvo 855 (no turbo) and a 2001 volvo v70 2.4T (turbo) .
and with 1990s civics & Z28s & new GTO i've noticed about 10% better mpg with 91 octane than with 87. all my data is with mostly leadfoot 80 mph highway driving.
cheers!