Does diesel have a future?
Does diesel have a future? Autoexpress editor Dan Strong believes the answer is a clear no. He doesn't mince words in his new column: "Thanks to high fuel costs, tough-to-meet emissions targets and growing competition for scarce fossil fuel resources, the engine once championed for its efficiency and cost-effectiveness is finished." While the UK is getting closer to its European neighbors in the number of diesel sales, Strong believes this is not going to last.If we're turning away from diesel, where does Strong think we have to look? Plug-in hybrids, he answers, but not those mated to diesel engines (gas-electrics are his choice). According to his information, a hybrid diesel will produce more pollutants due to the lower exhaust temperature and he wonders if it makes sense economically. Diesel fuel is actually more expensive than gasoline in the UK: £1.25 per liter compared to £1.10, which he translates into £350 more per year when driving 20,000 miles per year.
Sparkless engines aren't totally done for, Strong says, and expressed hope for HCCI (DiesOtto) engines. This technology has a very narrow powerband, which compromises reliability - but Strong says that Ford might be working on solving that issue.
[Source: Autoexpress]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Karkus 5:46PM (5/14/2008)
Depends on how you define "have a future".
Will it increase it's market share significantly? NO.
Will it fall by the wayside? NO
It will stay about the same, although there might be some geographic and applications shifts.
As long as they continue pulling crude oil out of the ground, there will always be diesel, and someone WILL use it.
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GoodCheer 5:45PM (5/14/2008)
The notion of a semi running on gasoline, at this point in time is almost laughable, never mind trains and ships. Diesel fuel will be produced for things with very large engines for a very long time. The extent of it's use in smaller vehicles is debatable, but I would think there will always be some interest.
To speak of regulatory hurdles (thrown at engineers by policy-makers) as if they are the laws of physics is a bit short-sighted in my opinion.
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Hank 11:59AM (5/14/2008)
"Diesel fuel is actually more expensive than gasoline in the UK..."
It's more expensive in NY. Gas yesterday was $3.95 at a Mobil and diesel at the same station was $4.65.
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dhofmann 5:32PM (5/14/2008)
"Diesel fuel is actually more expensive than gasoline in the UK: £1.25 per liter compared to £1.10, which he translates into £350 more per year when driving 20,000 miles per year."
But don't diesel cars get better fuel economy than gasoline cars?
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Mulad 12:10PM (5/14/2008)
Eh? £1.25/liter diesel is still cheaper per mile than £1.10/liter gasoline. Well, if you get a 40 mpg gas car and compare it to a 40 mpg diesel, the gas car will be cheaper -- but the gas car would need to be smaller and more lightweight than the diesel to get the same mpg rating.
Really, you're normally looking at a gas car that gets 27 mpg next to a diesel that gets 40. The diesel will be cheaper to fuel and will have a longer range. Whether the initial cost or the maintenance costs balance out is a question, but they're much harder to estimate up front.
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why not the LS2LS7? 12:14PM (5/14/2008)
I said it on here and autoblog a while back. The future for Diesel in passenger cars is extinction.
When lean-burn (HCCI/DiesOtto) engines come around, it's lights out for Diesel. The only thing it will have left is the 15-18% more energy per gallon, and that's not going to justify the cost of fuel and extra complexity of engines in vehicles that only drive 10,000 miles or so a year like a passenger car.
In a semi-truck, and probably in buses, Diesel will still make sense due to the massive numbers of miles driven over the lifetime of the vehicle.
To those above, the problem with Diesel isn't regulatory hurdles, it's that Diesel is filthy. Diesel is not even being held to the same emissions standards as gas cars, and it's still having trouble making the grade. The cleanness of our air matters. We can no longer let Diesels destroy it for the sake of a few pennies than we can let gas cars do it.
Gas cars have had to meet tight emissions, there is absolutely no reason to exclude Diesels from this. We didn't do it to save money on gas and gas cars, we cannot afford to do it on Diesels.
Come to the SF Bay Area or Los Angeles. Go to Las Vegas and see the pollution drifting in from LA. Go to Shanghai. You can see that even with the tight emissions we have right now our air is still quite dirty. We simply cannot afford to relax our emissions standards and make it even worse.
CO2 is a problem we have to solve, but it's a slow killer. We can't afford to return to smog-choked cities and the Black Forest dying just to save a tiny bit of CO2. Especially when there are solutions like lean-burn, hybrids and even just plain old economy cars (like the Cobalt XKE transformation) that can help gas cars make less CO2 without hurting trace emissions like NOx.
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Philip 12:18PM (5/14/2008)
The article also forgets to mention that historically diesel has been cheaper than petrol/gas in the UK. Its only over the last 6 months that diesel has become up to 15p more expensive than petrol.
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psarhjinian 12:29PM (5/14/2008)
One point about diesel's viability is that it physically takes more crude oil to make a gallon of diesel than a gallon of gasoline. Diesel is artificially cheap in continental Europe
The fuel efficiency difference isn't quite as large from a "net oil used" standpoint and it'll get slimmer as technologies like HCCI replicate diesel's combustion efficiencies in a gasoline engine.
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Mike Z 1:03PM (5/14/2008)
"physically takes more crude oil to make a gallon of diesel than a gallon of gasoline."
The larger issue however is that it's not like crude oil can be turned into anything (gasoline, diesel, LPG, etc) at will--different crudes and refining technologies yield different ratios of product per barrel of crude.
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steven 5:29PM (5/14/2008)
A 42-gallon barrel of crude oil makes about 19½ gallons of gasoline, 9 gallons of fuel oil, 4 gallons of jet fuel, and 11 gallons of other products, including lubricants, kerosene, asphalt, and petrochemical feedstocks to make plastics. That adds up to more than 42 gallons because of something called "refinery gain" - the processing and chemical changes decrease the density and hence increase the volume of the refined components.
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wxman 5:26PM (5/14/2008)
@ why not the LS2LS7? -
The "smog" problem in LA and other metropolitan areas in the U.S. is largely attributable to indirect VOC emissions from the production, storage and distribution of gasoline. Diesel fuel (and most renewable diesel fuels) is essentially non-volatile, so these fugitive VOC emissions are not an issue with diesel vehicles.
The forthcoming T2B5 diesel vehicles will have less adverse impact on air quality than even the lowest emission gasoline vehicles.
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Zigster 4:56PM (5/14/2008)
One point about cream's viability is that is physically takes more milk to make a gallon of cream than a gallon of low-fat milk.
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TheRookie 2:56PM (5/14/2008)
"The article also forgets to mention that historically diesel has been cheaper than petrol/gas in the UK."
Well... I moved to the UK 8 years ago and diesel was always more expensive that regular petrol (95). However, it was pretty much the same price as Super fuels (98, 99) but now it is more expensive than these too.
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Derek 5:37PM (5/14/2008)
Steven is correct. You can't just make whatever you want out of a barrel of crude. The mix can be altered slightly by modern refinery techniques and depending on whose oil fields it comes from (it is a natural product after all so not all crude is the same) however you can't just decide to only produce gasoline or to produce no diesel no matter how much you want to (well, at least not yet). This is why diesel used to be ridiculously cheap. In the past it was a byproduct of the refinery that did not have a very large market. Oil companies had to lower the price to a level that they could sell the diesel that was made as a byproduct of making gasoline. As diesel engines have grown in popularity, supply and demand has driven the price up because that's how economics work. If diesels become less popular and the demand for diesel fuel falls, then the price of diesel fuel will fall to match.
Diesels will always be around though unless we simply legislate that no diesel fuel can be used. A diesel powered vehicle drives in a completely different way to a gas powered vehicle and some people like that, others don't. Just in the way that some people like hybrids despite the fact that the overall cost of owning a hybrid may be higher, some people will choose diesel over gas even if it isn't the cheaper option. Personally, I love the sound of my old diesel Benz (it sounds like a tractor to be honest) and I have never found the exhaust smell the least bit offensive. It's not my only car but I'd still drive it regardless of the price differential of gas to diesel. The car is a pure joy to drive and I fully expect it to be driving when most new cars today have been scrapped.
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why not the LS2LS7? 11:57PM (5/14/2008)
Derek:
Diesel will likely not fall to the levels it once did even if it becomes unpopular. Diesel is no longer just light fuel oil. It has to be post-processed after separation, to remove impurities and sulfur. This raises the price of production.
wxman:
Smog doesn't just come from unburned fuel. We have the best controls on fuel possible, and there's still smog in the air. Part of it is particulates (like result from burning Diesel or wood), part of it is organic compounds, some even comes from NOx (which is mostly known for acid rain though).
Diesels have much greater trace emissions than gas cars. They do contribute to smog more.
Check the "Diesel death zone".
http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/nrdc/2005/11/about_the_diese.html
As to the idea that Diesel is non-volatile, that's absurd. Yes, it's less volatile. But it still emits compounds, just at a slower rate.
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dave 7:18AM (5/15/2008)
If this were the case, why are MB, VW, Honda and others all buying in to diesel right now?
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Richard 9:56AM (5/15/2008)
HCCI engines tend to exhibit similar emissions problems as diesel engines. There is no free lunch.
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why not the LS2LS7? 12:48PM (5/15/2008)
Richard. Lean-burn has problems with NOx like Diesel does. This comes from the fast "knock" burning. But it doesn't have particulate issues like Diesel.
This will be worked out, there's a lot more flexibility on a lean-burn gas engine than a Diesel since it has two modes of ignition. The two can be blended if necessary to reduce emissions.
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why not the LS2LS7? 12:49PM (5/15/2008)
Whoops, I stopped too soon. The key with lean-burn gas is that you can produce a lot more output without having to add a turbo and intercooler. No Diesel is made anymore without a turbo setup. Thus cost-effective small engines can be made much more easily with lean-burn/HCCI than with Diesel.
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Bill 4:15PM (5/15/2008)
The Volt will be at your local dealer before HCCI.
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