Diesel - my 2008 prediction

oldnavy · **Posted:** Sun May 14, 2006 1:40 pm

SethX9 wrote:

As to your dream of a hybrid diesel get ready. VW has (had?) a diesel hybrid in production in Europe. It's called the Lupo and it gets something like 75mpg. And for the big boys...Toyota says they'll have a diesel hybrid in the Tundra by 2009.

Trade restrictions my eye!

The Lupo is not a hybrid, and it is advertized at 98 mpg on diesel. The problem is it is shoe box size, it is a little bit smaller then the GEO Metro. I believe the little VW is built in Spain,

Cowcatcher · **Posted:** Sun May 14, 2006 5:58 pm

SethX9 wrote:

cowcatcher and railguy - thanks for the info...I had no idea you could actually distill more diesel out of each barrel of crude. Very interesting.

As to your dream of a hybrid diesel get ready. VW has (had?) a diesel hybrid in production in Europe. It's called the Lupo and it gets something like 75mpg. And for the big boys...Toyota says they'll have a diesel hybrid in the Tundra by 2009.

Trade restrictions my eye!

Chev has a full sized V-8 hybrid but it only gets 17 MPG. I get about that on my '89 350 heavy 3/4. Not sure of the point in that product except possibly reduced emissions.

RFCRD · **Posted:** Sun May 14, 2006 6:17 pm

Cowcatcher wrote:

SethX9 wrote:

cowcatcher and railguy - thanks for the info...I had no idea you could actually distill more diesel out of each barrel of crude. Very interesting.

As to your dream of a hybrid diesel get ready. VW has (had?) a diesel hybrid in production in Europe. It's called the Lupo and it gets something like 75mpg. And for the big boys...Toyota says they'll have a diesel hybrid in the Tundra by 2009.

Trade restrictions my eye!

Chev has a full sized V-8 hybrid but it only gets 17 MPG. I get about that on my '89 350 heavy 3/4. Not sure of the point in that product except possibly reduced emissions.

Looked at the GMC/Chevy set-up when I bought the Jeep. Definately a city efficiency feature, worthless for improving highway driving economy. Still have a '97 C1500 W/T 4.3L that consistantly delivers 20mpg no matter how I use it. Still running strong @ 110K, just can't kill the old bowtie.

SethX9 · **Posted:** Sun May 14, 2006 6:56 pm

I posted from memory...My bad...the Lupo is indeed not a hybrid. And it's advertised at 78mpg (actually it's marketed as the first production car to use only 3 liters per 100km).

As to it being a shoebox....there are millions of vehicles on the road that can be seen as less than practical. From the Miatas and Z4s to the Wrangler we all know and love (Enzo Ferrari called Jeeps Americas only sports car), Americans buy lots of impractical vehicles. And let's not even bring motorcycles into the equation!

The fact is the technology is available and as gas prices roll towards what the rest of the world has been paying, you might be surprised at what the US market would absorb. In fact the TDI Volkswagens have sold fairly well without high gas prices. I had a friend who had a TDI Jetta that he chipped. I forget what the exact number was but he dyno'd at well over 225 ft/lb and averaged about 45mpg. That's not a shoebox! That's an economical four-door sedan that must be a blast to drive.

The Toyota hybrid diesel is on its way. The Toyota plant in San Antonio is supposed to be producing it. If I have time I'll try and find the article I read online saying as much.

boxhead · **Joined:** Fri Jul 08, 2005 11:14 pm **Posts:** 186

retmil46 wrote:

I have a friend that lives up in northwest Virginia, along I-81. A few years back he worked in GE's Electric Vehicle dept, before Neutron Jack got on his efficiency kick, and actually did some work for one of the OEM's on the PNGV program.

In case you don't know what PNGV is, it was a 10 year program between the govt and the OEM's to develop a full-size hybrid that could achieve 80 MPG. From what he told me, all 3 major OEM's did complete a prototype and submit them for testing. However, the project was killed off for two reasons.

First, Lonesome George canceled the project within weeks of taking office back in 2001. Second, because of the pending diesel emissions regs from the EPA, the emissions hardware that would have been necessary was judged as being too costly at the time to warrant putting them into production.

Yep, that's right, all 3 prototypes submitted were diesel-electric hybrids, all 3 OEM's came up with the same solution. The one my friend worked on used a Geo Metro as the testbed, had a 30 HP 3 cylinder diesel out of a Kubota tractor, and could achieve 80 MPG combined.

However, lest you think that but for another person winning that election and getting the EPA to back off on it's regs, we'd be able to drive around in diesel hybrids right now, there's also some evidence that the OEM's and the govt itself viewed this as just a PR/free govt money/research project and never had any intention of developing a production vehicle from this program.

In the mid-90's, Alan Cocconi, the man who developed the drivetrain for GM's EV-1 electric vehicle, tried to attend a PNGV conference between the OEM's and then-VP Al Gore. He drove his own scratch-built hybrid, a Honda converted to electric and towing a small generator behind it, all the way from CA to DC. He wanted to prove the point that the technology already existed to make a workable hybrid, and there was no reason they couldn't be building them already.

They all but slammed the door in his face. According to Mr Cocconi, the only thing they wanted to discuss was how much money they could get Congress to appropriate for the program in the next year's budget. He came away convinced that they had no intention of building a workable vehicle, and in the end it seems he was right.

And then once again, the Japanese caught them flat-footed by marketing their own hybrids, and our OEM's are again scrambling to play catch-up.

Check here for info

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/office_eere/congressional_test_110101.html

RFCRD · **Posted:** Sun May 14, 2006 7:27 pm

SethX9 wrote:

I posted from memory...My bad...the Lupo is indeed not a hybrid. And it's advertised at 78mpg (actually it's marketed as the first production car to use only 3 liters per 100km).

As to it being a shoebox....there are millions of vehicles on the road that can be seen as less than practical. From the Miatas and Z4s to the Wrangler we all know and love (Enzo Ferrari called Jeeps Americas only sports car), Americans buy lots of impractical vehicles. And let's not even bring motorcycles into the equation!

The fact is the technology is available and as gas prices roll towards what the rest of the world has been paying, you might be surprised at what the US market would absorb. In fact the TDI Volkswagens have sold fairly well without high gas prices. I had a friend who had a TDI Jetta that he chipped. I forget what the exact number was but he dyno'd at well over 225 ft/lb and averaged about 45mpg. That's not a shoebox! That's an economical four-door sedan that must be a blast to drive.

The Toyota hybrid diesel is on its way. The Toyota plant in San Antonio is supposed to be producing it. If I have time I'll try and find the article I read online saying as much.

Lupo's were all over the place in UK. You are right, spike the price of gas in the US and Americans will scramble to find about anything small to drive. Remember packing into a Chevette? Made my friend's Rabbit and my Omni look big.

oldnavy · **Posted:** Sun May 14, 2006 8:09 pm

SethX9 wrote:

I posted from memory...My bad...the Lupo is indeed not a hybrid. And it's advertised at 78mpg (actually it's marketed as the first production car to use only 3 liters per 100km).

As to it being a shoebox....there are millions of vehicles on the road that can be seen as less than practical. From the Miatas and Z4s to the Wrangler we all know and love (Enzo Ferrari called Jeeps Americas only sports car), Americans buy lots of impractical vehicles. And let's not even bring motorcycles into the equation!

The fact is the technology is available and as gas prices roll towards what the rest of the world has been paying, you might be surprised at what the US market would absorb. In fact the TDI Volkswagens have sold fairly well without high gas prices. I had a friend who had a TDI Jetta that he chipped. I forget what the exact number was but he dyno'd at well over 225 ft/lb and averaged about 45mpg. That's not a shoebox! That's an economical four-door sedan that must be a blast to drive.

We traded in our '03 Jetta TDI for the CRD.

By American standards it would be a shoe box, but then I thought the same of the Jetta. Too cramped. I love my 120" WB reskinned MB station wagon called a Dodge Magnum. :wink:

jeeplikens · **Posted:** Sun May 14, 2006 9:39 pm

railguy wrote:

As a CRD owner, I have more than a passing interest in what is going to happen to the diesel engine in the American driving scene in the next few years. The news that the CRD will not be sold in 2007 is sad. However, here is my prediction for 2008 (by the way, I am acquainted with people who very definitely have their finger on the pulse of the energy industry--they are worried):

By 2008, Americans will look at $3.00/gal. fuel with nostalgia. Prices of $4.00, even $5.00 per gallon or more, will be common. "Stagflation," probably worse than what occurred in the late 1970's, with high interest rates, inflation, and declining employment will be a real problem. New auto sales, particularly large vehicles, 4WD's, and SUV's will practically collapse. Used gas-guzzlers will flood the used auto market. At least one of the remaining US automakers will head toward bankruptcy. Some of the more marginal foreign manufacturers will abandon the US market.

Both the auto manufacturers and the general public will pressure the Feds (and states) to relax the NOx standards and particulate standards for the only powerplant (outside of the hybrids) that can provide an immediate boost to fleet fuel economy--the diesel. The Japanese manufacturers will immediately sieze the opportunity and will begin manufacturing and/or importing diesel models that they have sold overseas for years. They will probably take the lead in selling diesel hybrids, as well. As usual, the American manufacturers will be playing catchup, though all 3 (I'm including DC here as "American", though that is obviously very debatable) already sell diesel models elsewhere in the world.

I would expect to see the return of a diesel Liberty (or a diesel in whatever its replacement might be), and a diesel Wrangler, Compass and Patriot. The GC and Commander will probably die for lack of sales, along with most all other full-size, and most mid-size gasoline-powered SUV's. The few 4WD SUV's that will be sold will likely be diesel-powered, and most will be sold to people who will use them for their intended purpose--"Boulevard" 4-wheelers will disappear.

Meanwhile, I will be driving my CRD--probably fewer miles, and not as a daily driver (though I'm not using for that today, anyway).

My $.02--just one guy's prediction . . .

DCX is/has been fitting CRD's with a device to make them meet emissions standards and I guess it works. I have it from a source that installed/tested this new modification. Same engine, just more emissions junk. I but regardless. Cramped KJ, Dodge mag or crewcabe, I'm not running out to get one. I'm traiding in my KJ for new minivan in 07. Having owned a 93 voyager since new. No one can prove to me there is another vehicle on the market that can replace it. Except anothe minivan.

RFCRD · **Posted:** Mon May 15, 2006 6:38 am

Will likely see this engine (and other small diesels) around for awhile, the questions will be:
1). Is it cost effective to add the emmisions equipment?
2). Do you have a desirable product when finished?
Personally believe we need to look at the emmissions standards. Small diesels burn very little fuel relative to large gassers or large diesels. Goes to reason, burn less petrolium = makes less smog. How much would it hurt the enviornment to cut them some slack on this standard?

oldnavy · **Posted:** Mon May 15, 2006 8:53 am

RFCRD wrote:

Will likely see this engine (and other small diesels) around for awhile, the questions will be:
1). Is it cost effective to add the emmisions equipment?
2). Do you have a desirable product when finished?
Personally believe we need to look at the emmissions standards. Small diesels burn very little fuel relative to large gassers or large diesels. Goes to reason, burn less petrolium = makes less smog. How much would it hurt the enviornment to cut them some slack on this standard?

Guys our CRD has all the same new diesel science (GP's, injectors, valve operation, and electronic's) as the MB Blutec except particial traps (easy add on) and the eurea catylist which is also a fairly easy add on, only real difference in the MB engine is aluminum and CRD has cast iron block. It can just as easly be made to pass the '09 EPA as the MB engine, it is just going to be lugging a few more poounds around is all.

The big change coming for '09 is there are a lot of gas engines that can not be made to meet the '09 EPA requirements for gas engines for several different reasons. I have also heard that with current technology proposed 2011 EPA reg's can not be passed by any GASOLINE engine in current production and the R&D to enable a gasoline engine to possibly do so would put the car beyond the common buyer. In other words if EPA gets their way you and I will be plugging our cars into electrical outlets by 2011 if we want a new car.

I now step down off the soap box and I have no problems with driving a electric car and would love to have one that has the range, power, speed and utility as our two current vehicals, I just don't see the break throughs coming that soon.

RFCRD · **Posted:** Mon May 15, 2006 9:26 am

oldnavy wrote:

RFCRD wrote:

Will likely see this engine (and other small diesels) around for awhile, the questions will be:
1). Is it cost effective to add the emmisions equipment?
2). Do you have a desirable product when finished?
Personally believe we need to look at the emmissions standards. Small diesels burn very little fuel relative to large gassers or large diesels. Goes to reason, burn less petrolium = makes less smog. How much would it hurt the enviornment to cut them some slack on this standard?

Guys our CRD has all the same new diesel science (GP's, injectors, valve operation, and electronic's) as the MB Blutec except particial traps (easy add on) and the eurea catylist which is also a fairly easy add on, only real difference in the MB engine is aluminum and CRD has cast iron block. It can just as easly be made to pass the '09 EPA as the MB engine, it is just going to be lugging a few more poounds around is all.

The big change coming for '09 is there are a lot of gas engines that can not be made to meet the '09 EPA requirements for gas engines for several different reasons. I have also heard that with current technology proposed 2011 EPA reg's can not be passed by any GASOLINE engine in current production and the R&D to enable a gasoline engine to possibly do so would put the car beyond the common buyer. In other words if EPA gets their way you and I will be plugging our cars into electrical outlets by 2011 if we want a new car.

I now step down off the soap box and I have no problems with driving a electric car and would love to have one that has the range, power, speed and utility as our two current vehicals, I just don't see the break throughs coming that soon.

Be glad you have a diesel from this era, not '07 standards. From what I've seen of particulate trap technology, it will change the game substantially. If it's a self cleaning trap, will have a fuel injector and ignighter to burn off the excess soot. If it's not, it will require cleaning this out periodically. We have this type at work now, can't idle this motor more than a few minutes without plugging the trap (and that's burning ULSD). Believe our mechanics are removing/replacing clogged traps which are sent away for cleaning in an EPA approved way then returned and reused. Told it looks similliar to an asbestos removal process in the garage. Either way, it will be big $$$ to keep it up.

Hero · **Joined:** Sun Apr 16, 2006 5:32 pm **Posts:** 122

I don't know if anyone has read or heard about this, but pig manure can can be converted into crude oil that can be used to make diesel fuel. My local paper wrote an article on this subject a few weeks ago and I thought I'd post similiar articles on here related to the subject. There was a guy at the University of Illinois who has been working on this project for 10+ years and here is what he discovered...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... igoil.html

http://www.belleville.com/mld/bellevill ... 449289.htm

onthehunt · **Posted:** Mon May 15, 2006 7:29 pm

The 07 Cummins motors I have seen have removable traps in the mufflers. You remove the trap and put it into a machine that looks awfully similar to a front loading washing machine and it cleans them. Have not heard of filters you have to send out to clean.More work yes, but really not that bad.

oldnavy · **Posted:** Mon May 15, 2006 7:50 pm

onthehunt wrote:

The 07 Cummins motors I have seen have removable traps in the mufflers. You remove the trap and put it into a machine that looks awfully similar to a front loading washing machine and it cleans them. Have not heard of filters you have to send out to clean.More work yes, but really not that bad.

The machine I saw was small and would be at dealerships and repair centers. They will probably have them at Autozone eventually if diesels take off for personal use.

retmil46 · **Posted:** Mon May 15, 2006 11:56 pm

Cowcatcher wrote:

SethX9 wrote:

cowcatcher and railguy - thanks for the info...I had no idea you could actually distill more diesel out of each barrel of crude. Very interesting.

As to your dream of a hybrid diesel get ready. VW has (had?) a diesel hybrid in production in Europe. It's called the Lupo and it gets something like 75mpg. And for the big boys...Toyota says they'll have a diesel hybrid in the Tundra by 2009.

Trade restrictions my eye!

Chev has a full sized V-8 hybrid but it only gets 17 MPG. I get about that on my '89 350 heavy 3/4. Not sure of the point in that product except possibly reduced emissions.

Point of it is - TAX CREDIT AND GAS GUZZLER TAX!!!!!

The way the law's written, they don't have to meet a certain MPG goal. All they have to do is improve mileage by X number of percent over the stock gasser model, slap a hybrid badge on it, and the OEM can avoid the gas guzzler tax and the buyer can claim a credit on his income tax.

If the bloody thing only gets 13 MPG to begin with, and the law says you have to improve mileage by 20% to claim all the hybrid deductions, then you only have to bump it up 2 1/2 MPG to take advantage of this regulation.

That's exactly what they're doing for several models, adding just enough hardware to call it a hybrid and bumping up MPG just enough to "take advantage of" the law. :roll:

retmil46 · **Posted:** Tue May 16, 2006 12:49 am

oldnavy wrote:

I now step down off the soap box and I have no problems with driving a electric car and would love to have one that has the range, power, speed and utility as our two current vehicals, I just don't see the break throughs coming that soon.

Doubt if you ever will, at least nothing us regular folks could afford. And even if you had the battery capacity to do the same speed and range, you'd need one big honking charger and outlet to be able to recharge it in anything less than a day. Even with a couple hundred amp 440V outlet and an industrial charger, a battery pack with enough amp hours to get you 500 miles at 70 mph would take on the order of several hours at least to recharge. You're talking enough stored electricity to probably run your house for a week or better.

Good old fashioned golf cart batteries are still the most affordable, $50 each, 60 pounds each. It takes 20 of them for my pickup to make a 120V 220 amphour pack, 1200 pounds weight. About half that amphour capacity is useable at the currents you're pulling in an EV, so you're only going to be able to pull about 10 to 12 kwhrs out of them. That's equivalent to about 1/3 of a gallon of gas.

My pickup uses roughly 10 kwhrs for the 40 mile round trip to work. To get the same 500 mile range as the CRD, it would need a battery pack able to supply 130 kwhrs. In other words, take that 20 battery 1200 lb pack and multiply by 13. 260 batteries and 15,600 lbs.

Yep, they do have those amazing lithium polymer batteries, but right now you're talking $40 for a 1 amp hour 7 volt battery for an R/C airplane. And unlike the old lead acid golf batteries that will basically charge themselves if you show them a high enough voltage, you need an entirely different charge routine for these new wonder batteries. Basically means you need electronics, charging, and monitoring equipment for EACH INDIVIDUAL CELL.

If these new emissions regs are as asinine as you say, I don't think they're pushing us towards battery electrics - they're trying to push us into fuel cells. And right now, the price for one of those jewels would make even a set of lithium polymer batteries look cheap. Word I'm hearing from those in the EV crowd that's looking into them, talking to the engineers that are doing the actual grunt work research, is that barring some unforseen breakthrough it will be decades, if ever, before these things can be made cheap enough to even start thinking about cranking them out mass production style and putting them in a production vehicle. And that's not even taking into account setting up the infrastructure to support them - maintenance, refueling, etc.

Think about some of the service techs you've run into so far, that were totally clueless about the CRD and diesels in general. Could you imagine one of these idiots trying to troubleshoot a friggin fuel cell? :shock:

oldnavy · **Posted:** Tue May 16, 2006 9:22 am

As far as I'm concerned the electric seen will never happen until like you say Mitch with fuel cell. However there is another posibility that is not a battery, and charges to full instantly. The capacitor is making some big advances in recent years, and will be the only way to ever do the electric car routine . Unless they do it like the dieselelectric locomotive in cars, and I don't see that being able to be done on that small of scale and being able to keep the price inline with current engine hybrid pricing.

Inet_CRD · **Posted:** Tue May 16, 2006 2:19 pm

What ever happened to research on room temperature superconductors? That would be the holy grail for making storage batteries (and many other things) that would have massive storage and ultra fast charge/discharge cycles. Maybe one day... Current helium cooled superconducting magnetic storage - 100KW / second for 8 seconds for a total of 2.1 MJ's. Looks good except for the darn liquid helium cooling.

http://www.accel.de/pages/2_mj_supercon ... _smes.html

oldnavy · **Posted:** Tue May 16, 2006 2:25 pm

Well it is like a told a friend last fall, don't look for any real break through for electric auto's for another 20 to 30 years if that soon. Diesel will be the stop gap between the now and the future, which will be some type of electric vehicle.

Black_Dog · **Posted:** Tue May 16, 2006 4:51 pm

Until recently I lived in Houston and worked in oil industry banking. Over the 7 years I was there I made many friends and acquaintances that work as geologist and engineers for ExxonMobil, Shell (Equiva Services LLC, actually), CITGO, BP, Schlumberger, Halliburton, Occidental Petroleum, et. al. Our home was west of downtown not far from the business district on Memorial Road referred to as “energy corridor.” While I don’t claim to be an expert I did learn 2 things.

SethX9 wrote:

The only shocker is that anyone actually believes this ridiculous theory. It's called the "abiotic" or "abiogenic" theory and was cooked up the former Soviet Union when they were in a paper war with the US and the US was getting mid-east countries to flood the market with cheap crude to prevent the USSR from realizing profits from their domestic oil fields. Abiotics has been put to bed by every serious scientific look into the idea. Any first year college student can evaluate the microscopic evidence of the organisms that formed the oil. Magma does not produce hydrocarbons and their chemical makeup is completely different. Magma is lacking in carbon compounds and hydrocarbons are lacking in silica. Oil doesn't ooze up from beneath the mantle. Period.

First, the exact origin of oil is still under debate. I heard several competing theories: that oil comes from Dinosaurs (i.e. animal matter), that oil comes from plant matter, that oil comes from mineral, or oil comes from any combination of the above. The plant matter theory is exciting to many because it could potentially be replicated whereas the Dino theory sucks because, well, we are out of Dinosaurs. Believe me, the debate within the industry is more compelling than what we Liberty-loving gear heads have come up with.

SethX9 wrote:

And what's this nonsense about oil fields regenerating? Please name one. Oil fields may regenerate but not in your lifetime or the life time of your childrens' children's children.

Second, many oil fields are regenerating. Occidental Petroleum (the company that former VP Al Gore’s family made a fortune from) has made a killing over the last couple of decades having bought up tapped-out Permian Basin wells in west Texas. Over time the oil in many of those wells has been reconstituting itself. It may be that oil suspended in aggregate has been leeching into the void created when the oil was previously pumped out or it may be that new oil is forming. There doesn’t seem to be consensus on this yet. Either way some of these fields are productive again and this is good news.

Diesel - my 2008 prediction

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