Newest Diesels Can Now Better Hybrids For Green House Gas Emissions

I think that this only shows the need for diesel hybrids. Hybrid technology is still very relevant to the future of the automobile. The combined benefits of both are unbeatable for the near future.

I have to agree. Each one has benefits and negative aspects. Combining them would give us the best of both worlds.

^ +1. A 535dh (or whatever they'd call it) would be fantastic, provided it doesn't require losing half the trunk to batteries the way all the other hybrids do.

Fully agree with kthor, the potential adverse effects of electric fields may yet come back and bite your ass in the future -- pun intended.
I never thought that hybrids were a good idea: battery packs increase initial investment and are costly to replace, hybrids cannot sustain strong acceleration for long periods without having to switch back to engine power. Plug-ins are practical only if the power companies can keep up with electricity demand and offer low cost power for recharging during off-peak hours.

Hybrids are practical only for limited urban use -- long live diesel!

It took diesels 100+ years to outdo hybrids that have been around in force for 10 years or so...real progress. (sarcasm).

The word HYBRID is so misunderstood...especially by people feel the need to hate them. No one said hybrid cars have to have IC engines in them. That will be the next step in evolution of these products.

It took batteries 150+ years to fill only half a trunk to power a car that still emits more CO2 than a diesel.... Poor argument, but if that's the way you want to play it.

"Threepoint1415926 SAID:

It took batteries 150+ years to fill only half a trunk to power a car that still emits more CO2 than a diesel.... Poor argument, but if that's the way you want to play it. "

Really? More CO2? How's that? You're comparing a new technology to technology that has been around for over a century?

You're missing the point of what a hybrid is all about..which is a melding of two or more technologies. No one said it has to be electric/IC....it may be something else in the future.

Regardless....I wonder how far battery technology would have come after 150 years if it wasn't put on the back burner to crude oil.

Again, diesels are just catching up....they are and always will be one step behind a system that can potentially use far less fuel.

I'm not commenting on the idea that batteries are a bad solution, simply that your argument is poor and that it remains poor even after your rebuttal. Batteries in industry application have 150+ of development an innovation. They've never been "put on the back burner" and if that's what you believe, I can sell you a small cell phone from the 80's. For this reason, I believe your implication that battery powered cars or similarly battery powered anything is a "new technology" is a fallacy! Hence my comparison. It has not indeed taken 100 years for a diesel to compete with a modern product. It has however taken 100 years for a diesel to compete with a product that has been developed for 150 years!

As for CO2, read the article.

Not true. Diesel engines have been focused on providing propulsion for vehicles and ONLY that. Batteries have been around in very infantile form of decades and only recently have they progressed to a point where we are seeing advancements.

Guess why? Because they are NOW focusing on battery development more than ever before. The development of batteries to power useless, meaningless items like personal cameras doesn't help us any. It's akin to saying RC model airplane technology has grown so much that we can now fly?

"Tests by environmental website Clean Green Cars have confirmed that current petrol/battery hybrids offer no significant CO2 advantage over an equivalent diesel of similar performance"

So in other words, there is an advantage on the petrol/battery hybrid though not significant. And, how exactly can New Diesels better Hybrids? I understand that diesel technology is improving, but Hybrid technology isn't standing still either. You're comparing the New diesels to the 4+ year old Hybrid technology. It would be like me comparing the current Hybrids to the old diesel cars from Europe. Although both technology's Diesel/Hybrid are both pricey, the difference is still the cost of fuel.

Lemonade- It will probably seesaw for a while. However for now the bigger the car, the more in favor the diesel may be for it.

Hybrids work quite well in smaller lightweight vehicles.

I guess what amazes me is the bigger, heavier and less aerodynamic Jeep almost matched the designed for efficiency Prius.

That alone speaks volumes.

On highway, Hybrids depend more on their engines than on battery which explains the "weak" MPG for highway versus the Diesel, as usually Hybrids (especially in small cars) have small gas engines.

The new Jetta Clean TDi also has less CO2 emission than a Prius.

I like the idea of diesels, I might even consider one as my next purchase. However, there is some information that is also important to think about other than CO2 emissions:

"The improved efficiency of diesel engines can also help reduce oil consumption. It should be noted, however, that it takes about 25% more oil to make a gallon of diesel fuel than a gallon of gasoline, so we should really look at how a vehicle does on fuel efficiency in terms of "oil equivalents." Thus, we need to adjust the mileage claims for diesel vehicles downward by about 20% when comparing them to gasoline-powered vehicles."

"But when it comes to smog-forming pollutants and toxic particulate matter, also known as soot, today's diesels are still a lot dirtier than the average gasoline car.

TIERY-EYED

US tailpipe standards for diesel cars, which have historically been weaker than those for gasoline cars, are being updated to force diesel and gasoline vehicles to meet the same set of emissions standards. The tiered structure of the new "Tier 2" standards, however, allows automakers to produce some cars that release two times more soot and smog-forming pollution than the average new vehicle and still meet their targets. Also, until the standards are fully implemented in 2009, existing loopholes allow some cars to pollute even more.

There are three size categories of soot particles:

* Large soot particles (>10 microns) deposit from the air into your nose, throat, and lungs, causing coughing and irritating your throat, and are ejected from your body through sneezing, coughing, and nose blowing.
* Coarse soot particles (~10 microns) are inhaled into your windpipe and settle there, causing more irritation and more coughing.
* Fine and ultra-fine soot particles (less than 2.5 microns) are the most successful at invading your body—they're small enough to travel deep into your lungs. Once there, these soot particles can irritate and mutate the most sensitive tissues in your lungs, your alveoli. These air sacs exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide from the air you breathe with blood in your capillaries, thus allowing your circulatory system to carry oxygen to the rest of your body. Soot particles, however, make this task more difficult because they cause inflammation and scarring of the alveoli. This also strains your heart because it must work harder to compensate for oxygen loss.

Soot also finds other ways to harm your body, including:

* chronic bronchitis,
* asthma,
* reduced ability of respiratory system to fight infections and remove foreign particles, and
* cancer.

All this means that diesel pollution can be deadly, causing premature mortality through cancer or heart and respiratory illnesses. The California Air Resources Board has concluded that diesel soot is responsible for 70% of the state's risk of cancer from airborne toxics. In the population as a whole, studies have shown a 26% increase in mortality in peopl

To meet the tougher pollution standards, high-tech diesel engines need low-sulfur diesel fuel. Unfortunately, US Department picture of refinery of Energy modeling has shown this fuel to be more oil- and carbon-intensive than reformulated gasoline.

Making a gallon of diesel fuel requires 25% more oil and emits 17% more heat-trapping greenhouse gases than gasoline reformulated with MTBE. Similarly, diesel requires 17% more oil and emits 18% more heat-trapping gases than gasoline reformulated with ethanol. This means that diesel fuel's advantages from its higher per-gallon energy content and better performance on greenhouse gases are partially offset by the impact of diesel's fuel-production process.

http://www.grinningplanet.com/2005/04-12/diesel-vs-gasoline-article.htm

there is no soot from new diesels (their tailpipes will be cleaner than any gas engine's)

That doesn't take into consideration the particulate filters or Blutec systems.

I'm all for diesels. In fact, I was a strong proponent of bring diesels cars to the US these past few years. But someone has to get Congress to drag those oil executives to Washington and testify as to why diesel fuel is more expensive than gasoline.

It is worst enough that diesel fuel is more expensive than gasoline when it should be equal in price. But at more than 20% expensive than gasoline, it makes owning diesel cars for the sole purpose of saving gas pointless. Are the oil executives purposely inflating diesel fuel prices to keep the demand for diesel fuel cars down, which translates to more gas consuming automobiles and higher profit.

The reason for diesel being more expensive is partly to do with refineries shipping diesel to europe where they may be able to get $7-10 a gallon (USDollar/Gallons). Then our supply get tighter.

Another thing people often miss, is that if we did massively convert to diesel, the price of diesel would jump due to the fact that you can extract about 7 gallons of diesel from a barrel of oil. You can extract 20 gallons of gasoline. In other words, we have to maintain some sort of balance.

Either way, blame EPA/government/liberal tree-huggers. The 2006 emissions window (NOx & Particulates) was tiny. Then in 2007, the window became microscopic, at the cost of a particulate filter, loss in fuel economy, slight loss in power, higher warranty costs b/c of rushed-to-market technologies.

Once again, people without technical educations (politicans) should sit back and let the smart people run the show.

My vote is for diesel-hybrid. If GM attached their upcoming Mild-hybrid system to their upper-end 1.9L diesel, I'd gladly pay the premium.

People always talk about the time it takes to make your money back on hybrids (and sometimes diesels). My view is that I'd rather take 10yrs to get my money back, so long as I can minimize how much money I send those jerks in Arabia. I'd rather spend the extra money to support R&D and hi-tech industry, even if I didn't break even.

Hmm, I believe the Prius will kill you first as it omits Carbon Monoxide.

I mean, I think it emits more. I'm all for finding new ways to save fuel and evenually get off of it altogether.

bintin- So in other words, you really don't know what you're talking about.

those fuel consumption numbers do appear to high for the hybrids, but you never know the conditions

depending on where you are the exhaust of both the Jetta TDI or other cars could be cleaner than the air aroudn you.

I just said that in soot emissions the Jetta TDI tailpipe will be absolutely spotless while even a PZEV hybrids have dirty tailpipes. I have seen them myself.

The Jetta TDI is clean enough to get PZEV except for Nox I think. There is a PDF with CARB testing data for the Jetta TDI.

"For a region that can't supply its own oil, Europeans sure love to waste the stuff"

Nobody in the world wasted more of the stuff than the USA, and it cannot supply its own oil either, IDIOT.

I think people are misinterpreting facts when they say things like "it takes 25% more oil to make a gallon of diesel fuel than a gallon of gasoline" and "7 gallons can be refined from one barrel of crude oil, while 20 gallons of gas can be refined from one barrel of crude." Actually, the typical American refinery extracts 20 gallons of gas AND 7 gallons of diesel fuel AND many other products (aviation fuel, kerosene, solvents, plastics, lubricants, heating oil, etc.) from one 42-barrel of crude oil . To a certain degree this mix of refined products can be adjusted - for instance, making more heating oil and less gasolline in the winter, more gasoline in the summer, etc.

IN addition, American refineries are designed to extract more gasoline and less Diesel fuel from crude than European refineries, due to the fact that Americans use more gasoline and Europeans use more diesel fuel. (I've forgotten the names for the two different refinery types.) Converting between the two refinery types isn't easy.

Diesel fuel has historically cost less than regular gasoline, but that has not been the case for the last three years. Excepting the U.S., the world has jumped on the diesel bandwagon. That, a temporary lack of refining capacity for the new low-sulfur diesel fuel, political instability in the Middle East and Nigeria, and the increased demand for fuel by the emerging economies (China, India, Brazil, Russia, etc.), has caused American diesel fuel prices to be higher than gasoline. (In my neck of the woods - Richmond, Virginia - diesel fuel costs about $0.50 a gallon more than premium gasoline.)

"from one 42-barrel of crude oil"

Sorry, I meant "one 42-gallon barrel of crude oil".

Yea, I may have mis-led people with the 7gallons of diesel & 20 gallons of gasoline. It's not one or the other, its both (plus the whole host of other products that come from oil).

HUU76...
get your facts straight. The US imports 75% of its oil. And with 5% of the worlds population uses 25% of the oil produced every day.

the French (or anyone else) could certainly import no oil if they wanted it badly enough. There are already designs for fission reactor powered factories that extract co2 from the air and combine it with hydrogen cracked from water to produce gasoline, ethanol, or diesel. It could be done today, and would produce fuel profitably at about $5 per gallon.

MT "This article conveniently leaves out the LS600h and RX400h which are cleaner than any Euro diesel actually."

Ignorant Idiot.

This test where done on new diesels and they have a 50,000 mile break in period so that number will only get better with time.

Then when you use WVO/biodiesel and the Algea based diesel fuels those numbers will go down even more.

The way out of our current situation is to have multiple fuels available.
I would love to have an electric for work commuting and diesel truck for trips.

Many are confusing diesel power with diesel fuel. A diesel-powered car needs no fuel made from petroleum to run, unlike regularly-designed gas engines. In fact, a diesel can run on three different renewable fuels without modification and without significant loss in fuel economy. We also must continue to keep in mind that when we write about hybrids, we're assuming an electric motor in combination with a internal-combustion engine (ICE) and since a hybrid uses an ICE for propulsion, wouldn't it make sense to design that electric propulsion with the most economical ICE. The most economical and efficient ICE known to man is the compression-ignition engine or what is commonly referred to as a "diesel".

So again, I don't get the argument. We're pairing a gas engine with an electric engine and then stating that it can sometimes do better than a diesel, which doesn't use two different systems for propulsion. If you like gas engines, then choose a car that has one. If you like diesel engines, then choose one that has one, but you'll pay a fuel economy penalty unless you choose one with advanced system that also includes an electric drive.

1. Biodiesel
2. Renewable Diesel
3. Green Diesel

And if one really must settle for dino diesel, it takes only 10% more petroleum to refine it; not 25%. Of course the fuel also has 10% more energy density and requires less energy to refine it.