I think I speak for many of us. We would love the diesel option.

 

I think Euro Diesel is refined down to a much lower Sulpher & Particulate matter Grade than USA Big Rig Diesel. Therefore I think the US needs to Invest in New Diesel refineries. They have been in the Past & at the present time reluctant to do this.Plus there is not the History & Diesel Culture as we Have in UK/Euro. However I do find it strange that the USA Lags so far behind in embracing Diesel as a great alternative.

 

If i´m not wrong i remember california emission laws too.
requiring more emissions reduction than the euro 4 spec diesel engines are capable of.
Only new euro 5 (blue motion) diesel would pass the cali standarts.

 

I think it's probably cultural. We don't worry about gas prices until it's too late. The more big engine SUVs and fast cars the better. America has always been in love with it's big cars.

Consider the big block engines of the sixties and seventies. Right off the showroom floor with 450-500 horsepower. And now they're back in retro designs. And yes, I'd love to have one.

With gas prices down again to 1.80 - 2.00 a gallon, I'm seeing new big SUVs on the road again.

I drive 100 miles a day, five days a week at 27 mpg at, say, $2.00US per gallon. I would trade my Patriot for a Wrangler 4-door hardtop in a heartbeat if I drove half the distance or gas was a dollar a gallon. I'm an American. It's what we do.

We want our cars. And we have short memories.

 

... And we have short memories.

... The problem over here is that first impressions (even if it was so long ago) are hard for us to get over.

Aehm, cough cough, who is right?

Short memories when it comes to gas prices but long when it comes to Diesel?

 

Good Point luffing!!! As someone once said America is a big car country with big car needs!! I heard that since gas has gone down again Dodge says orders for Big Rams & Durangos have gone up & they are having trouble keeping up with orders!!

 

Some reasons real or imagined:

1. Most people around here remember those nasty soot belching diesel cars.
2. Semis and buses still have soot belching diesel over here.
3. Sure diesels produce less of this but produce more of that.
4. Soot.
5. Sure, more MPG but more $$ too (when gasoline prices got high then diesel was "cheaper", now that gasoline is lower diesel doesn't have an advantage again)
6. Don't diesels produce a lot of soot? I know the newer technology is "cleaner" but we Americans never forget. :icon_rolleyes:

 

All new cars and the CRD Patriot too comes with a diesel particle filter here in germany.
So soot shouldn´t be a problem anymore.

 

Weeelll, JB, yep and nope. The Patriot over here has a VW engineered diesel that sounds as quiet as a petrol engined car and that will only produce "health-endangering particulates"('soot' to you and me) when the injectors are worn or when the pump needs re-calibrating. A modern European diesel car is not to be compared with the old naturally aspirated diesels of years ago. My Patriot will sing up to a hundred miles an hour plus (er, so I've read, Officer) and, even in the coldest weather, will start as quickly as a petrol engine. There's no 'clatter' as there was in old-fashioned diesel. What's the down-side? Well, diesel is dirty. That can't be denied. There have been a couple of times over the years when I've filled up at a petrol station and spilled the damn stuff on my clothes. Petrol (gasoline) evaporates straightaway; diesel doesn't.

Rocal

PS. I've just re-read my first posting and seen that it's a bit confusing. I meant that America would be showing the way to all whingeing Third World countries who moaned that there was nothing they could or would do; I didn't mean it to read that yous fellers in the U.S lived in some third world country!

 

I was attempting to be just a little sarcastic, sorry it wasn't obvious enough.

Yes, I agree that the newer technology has done a lot to improve the situation. The problem over here is that first impressions (even if it was so long ago) are hard for us to get over.

 

Diesel here is more expensive than Gasoline. I don't know if people would like to have to pay more considering we freak out about Gas going up.

 

GM tried with the Buick, Cadillac, Oldsmobile Full size cars (late 70's, early 80's) running a modified V8 gas engine to burn diesel. It failed miserably. The engines weren't strong enough, they broke down, made very little power, were noisy and stunk. If you've ever heard Adam Sandlers comedic song Piece of $hit Car, I'm convinced he's talking about an 1982 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser station wagon with the 350 diesel engine (You're too wide for drive thru, and you smell like the shoe, but I'm too broke to buy something new).

Listen to how noisy these things were:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjOo4NYSzh4

This guy is practically yelling to point out the glow plug relay under the hood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6qqBM57us8&feature=related

Heck even the early pickup truck diesels were pretty bad, non-turbo and didn't get all that better fuel economy then the cheaper gas engine models. Only guys that towed something every day would use one.

All that aside, I've always loved diesels and wish I could have gotten the CRD powered Patriot.

 

I owned a diesel Opel Vectra station wagon for a couple of years when Hubby and I lived in Germany. Man, I LOVED that car! I especially loved the distance that I got on a tank of diesel.

Sure wish that diesel was a viable option here in the States. :/

 

America, America...hope you'll find some solution before you loose cheep middle east "oil pump"...EV is not bad way to develop, indeed! But diesel is what you loose today...

 

All these excuses for not adapting diesel vehicles is so lame

the US are a pack of wimps - california is 1 state - don't you have 49 others - tell me all cars in california are reaching the laws they have ...i Doubt it

If you where able to adapt with the rest of the world - we may not have an economic crisis, you have able to over come enormous hurdles and voted in a Black American president. its time for change.

Get with the program and write to your senator and ask for diesel cars - they are made in your country for europe, Australia and africa and the rest of the world, now make them for the US.

My CRD patriot uses over 60% less fuel than my old grand cherokee V8 - you do the MATH

From the movie - Back to the Future - What are yah - "CHICKEN"

There is a reason a Japanese Car company is now no1 in the world ....it listens to its customers

 

...
There is a reason a Japanese Car company is now no1 in the world ....it listens to its customers
...

Tasar,
The car companies ARE listening to the customers. When presented with the choice between a diesel car and an equivalent gas powered car, Americans chose the gas powered one. For whatever reasons, I don't know. The car companies listen and stop making the diesels.

This is true of the american makers and the Japanese.
How many diesel Toyota Camry's are sold here?
Diesel Hondas?

And even the european makers that do offer Diesel don't sell alot of them here.


I have a sneaky suspicion that it's in the marketing. The gas engines generally generate more horsepower (less torque of course), which most americans will focus on. There's a history of people here believing marketing over actual quality: VHS or BETA, PC or MAC, GAS or DIESEL

 

hear hear.
Love that turbo sssshhhhhhmmmmm

 

Going back to the original post as for the 35mpg fleet average it is not just diesel. Americans tend to drive more due to a combination of having our population centers spread out further and the unpopularity and poor quality of public transportation. As a person who likes small cars the fact remains that larger cars provide more comfortable rides and obviously hold more stuff. Both are factors when you do drive more.

The other obvious reason why Europe has high mpg cars is that many countries tax based on engine size.

I would love to get a diesel car for many reasons but aside from pollution and the higher price of diesel fuel the simple fact is that the service infrastructure does not support a large number of diesels running around the country. Joe's service station typically has no idea how to fix them when they break and keep looking up what spark plugs fit. Until 10% of the cars out there are oil burners there is no incentive for the stations. Until there is a price difference that will motivate buyers to get diesels the market penetration will remain low.

 

I'm now beginning to understand why you guys in America hold that anti-diesel view. I didn't get it before. It's because your information is based on thirty-year-old technology. I believe I'm right in saying that nobody writing on these boards over here in Europe recognizes the type of diesel that you're quoting. They haven't heard one like it for maybe thirty years. You can't even hear a modern Mercedes, VW-Audi or Jaguar diesel inside the vehicle. In fact, Jaguar produce a diesel-engined sports car that will do a hundred and sixty miles per hour! When you sit inside it it feels like a Rolls Royce. God only knows where you could do that kind of speed on a public road (except down Rends's street, of course! In Germany they still allow the sky to be the limit on the Autobahn [ Interstate]).
Diesel fuel is slightly cheaper than petrol in most EU countries. In the UK it's a tad dearer, but, even so, the percentage of extra mileage that you get with a diesel far outweighs the difference.
SilverMike from Georgia has mentioned that no widespread infrastructure exists in the States for servicing diesel cars. That's true, but it was also true over here in the seventies and eighties. It's still true just about everywhere where LPG is concerned, but that's still becoming more widespread. Also,it'll be the biggest obstacle that hydrogen-fueled vehicles will have to overcome, yet I wouldn't be surprised to see that technology making some headway over the next decade or so.
When my son's American father-in-law comes over here and we both go off somewhere to go hiking he just can't believe that my Jeep's a diesel. The acceleration's scorching. In fact, he once said to me, "Is it some kinda 'mixed-fuel engine'? Y'know, like diesel for cruisin' along and gas when you need some real power?"!

Rocal

 

I'm now beginning to understand why you guys in America hold that anti-diesel view. I didn't get it before. It's because your information is based on thirty-year-old technology.

That is exactly the point I was trying to make. We Americans, as advanced as we are :icon_rolleyes:, are pretty "old school" on a lot of things. We hear the word "diesel" and cringe.

If it were called eco-fuel we would be all over it! :doh:

 

Rocal, Just out of curiosity what is the price for the equivalent quantity of regular gasoline versus diesel in England? In the U.S. diesel is 23% higher.

 

Thank Oldsmobile for taking a Chevrolet 350 gas engine, and thinking they can make it run on diesel. They went one further and cut two cylinders off and thought they could make a V6 diesel out of a 350.

They tried to skimp all over the design. Head bolts were inadequate lead to head gasket failures. Fuel filtration was also inadequate. The engine was a disaster and GM went as far as to offer customers GAS conversions. Nice WIKI section on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile_V8_engine#Oldsmobile_Diesel_Problems

When Americans think diesel they think of 18 wheelers belching black soot, or crappy GM engined diesels. It soured public opinion.

If Olds had done it right back in the 70's America would probably have just as many diesel passenger cars on the roads today as Europe.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Oldsmobile developed three diesel engines for the 1980s: two V8s and this 263 CID (4.3 L) V6. It was based on the Olds 350 V8 with a 4.057 in bore and 3.385 in stroke.

The history of diesel engines at General Motors has not been positive. In the 1970s, the company was unable to power its large cars and trucks with their emissions-strangled engines. Like many other companies, GM turned to diesel power, directing the Oldsmobile division to develop one V6 and two V8 to be shared with all divisions.

Oldsmobile's engines, the 5.7 L LF9 and 4.3 L LF7 V8s and this 4.3 L V6, were notoriously unreliable. Although over one million were sold between 1978 and 1985, the failure rate of GM's engines ruined the reputation of diesel engines in general in the United States market. Eventually, a class action lawsuit resulted in an arbitration system under the supervision of the Federal Trade Commission where consumers could claim 80% of the original cost of the engine in the event of a failure.

The primary problem with GM's diesel engines of the 1970s was their design — although the engines used a specific block, the design was based on Oldsmobile's 350 V8. The design had a weakness in the head design and head bolts, which were not able to withstand the higher cylinder pressures and temperatures of diesel use. This design weakness combined with poor diesel fuel quality in the 80's led to catastrophic failure of pistons, cylinder heads, and even cylinder walls.

 

Always a hard one to do, Silvermike. There's a slight difference in the size of the two gallons, and, nowadays, because of EU laws we have had to advertise all of our fuel prices in litres, not in British gallons.
I currently pay almost exactly one English pound for a litre of diesel. A litre of petrol (gasoline) is about ninety-two pence. In US dollars that would be around a dollar fifty and a dollar thirty-six respectively. But don't forget, that's for a LITRE, which is only about a quarter of one of your gallons!
Fuel prices vary enormously across the EU. Far more than they do across the different States of America. This is because tax laws differ so widely between the various European states. Also, in Holland and Germany recycled- and bio-diesel is far more widely available. This makes diesel a ridiculously cheap (by our standards) option for the Germans and the Dutch.

Rocal

 

Well basically Diesel is 8-9% higher than gas in England versus a 23% difference in the U.S. which would explain part of the lower demand. It was actually over 30% difference last year when diesel was in short supply.

 

Why is that, Silvermike? Is it purely a tax issue? Us oil-burners over here start to spit carpet-tacks when we discuss the ten percent difference in England. I reckon that if it got to thirty per cent there'd be some of us signing up to become jihadis. The difference, both in England and in America, really ought to be in the other direction, oughtn't it? Because diesel requires less fuel input to refine and, therefore, the whole process should, in theory, be cheaper.

 

Because diesel requires less fuel input to refine and, therefore, the whole process should, in theory, be cheaper.

Everything I've read says Diesel uses 25% more crude oil per gallon then gasoline. But then you can't always believe what you read.

I'm with Upkev to a point. I think there is definite mis-information and marketing distraction going on. As I stated in my earlier post, if I go more miles per gallon, aren't I polluting less?

 

I don't know the reason for the difference in general but last year there was a shortage of diesel causing part of the price spike.

 

Most of it, comes from demand. Since diesel is mainly used by truckers, its demand remains more static than petrol and thus the reason the price of diesel hasn't gone down sharply like the price of petrol has.
While, the bad memory of GM's and VW's early attempts at diesel, still are firmly in the back of some people's minds, I don't think thats the big issue. Rather, I blame the EPA. For many years, the EPA spent more time and money emphasizing the reduction of pollutants, rather than focusing more on the conservation of resources. Also the EPA tends to focus more on NOx pollution rather than CO2, like the EU does, which has worked against diesel in this country. Also, California has its own "EPA" called CARB and some of their pollution standards are more stringent than the EPA's. For a few years, VW could not sell its diesels in California and New York, (who has similar requirements). Why would a company invest in a lot of time an money marketing a car, it can only sell in part of the country?
Actually, for the past year or so, we've had Low-Sulfur diesel like you have in Europe, but the price remains as some have had said earlier, 23% more. I know many EU countries give tax breaks for those running diesel, but that doesn't happen here and for the few companies that do offer diesel cars, its usually an expensive option and the costs end up negating any fuel savings you get.

 

Look, in america, we pick from what is available. One of the inaccuracies of a free market system is that demand completely drives the market and the markets respond with what the consumers want. This is somewhat true, but often in a free market system those that have control block what the majority may want. Sometimes it is the government and often times it is the private sector itself. Collusion among limited manufacturers. Same goes for too much regulation.

The oil lobby has run this country and they know diesel will cut into their profits by offering more fuel efficient vehicles so through back channels and outright efforts they have tightened up diesel regs and pushed car companies to make diesels uncompetative.

In america low fuel efficiency is more a product of the good ole boy network than it is anything else.

We have and have had the technology for along time to makes both gas and diesel engines much more fuel efficient.

Consumers here in the U.S. are not stupid and do not largely hold the old view of diesels as the reason they don't buy them as alluded to above, it is because they are not available despite the demand which would be very high if one could get the same power and twice the mileage.

It is a combination of collusion, government regulation at the hand of lobbyists, and lack of availability.

IMO, the reason we have gas guzzlers is because wealth business lobbies and wealthy politicians want them so they can make more $$$$$$$$$$...and too many B.S. neo-cons that have been hood winked by faux capitalism.

When someone says it is because of stereotypes of diesels that is evidence that one is looking for an answer that doesn't fit within their rose colored glasses view of the free market (their existing incorrect template). It is an attempt to massage logic into an existing theory. It is akin to someone today trying to explain depression through freudianism. You can do it but it doesn't make sense because one is starting with a theory which is largely a false premise. In the end you will always be wrong because the answers and explanation lie outside of their bogus model. Again please don't assume all of us americans are stupid enough to buy that.

If 30 year old stereotypes were the reason for diesels aren't around today logic would hold that gas engines wouldn't be either. 30 years ago gas engines were crappy also.

Now I am a fan of smart-regulated capitalism that has a fair playing field, but that isn't what we have in the U.S. We have governement and capitalism that is tweaked.

Exhibit A: The Jeep Patriot, demand for this vehicle has existed for decades but didn't come to market why, because bigger SUV's cost more and they use more gas, better for the manufacturer and oil companies. It wasn't because of a lack of demand, but a lack of existence that the patriot took so long to come to market.

I also suspect that you folks over in Europe already know all of the above, but were kind enough not to say it.

 

If 30 year old stereotypes were the reason for diesels aren't around today logic would hold that gas engines wouldn't be either. 30 years ago gas engines were crappy also.

The American gas engines were no way near as "crappy" as their diesel counterparts. The Mercedes diesels of the same era were designed from the ground up to run Diesel, and were accepted by the consumer. Problem was price pushed the Mercedes out of reach for the average consumer. Given a choice between a "crappy" gas engine, or a "crappier" diesel, the consumer chose the gas and GM abandoned in house development of their "crappier" diesel.

 

Now I remember why diesel went up a few years ago. We didn't have the refinery capacity for the low sulfur fuel required by new emissions regulation.

 

Now I remember why we didn't have the refining capacity because no oil company has even applied for a new refinery liscence in decades. What a coinky-dink. Can you say m-o-n-o-p-o-l-y.