Gas Prices and fuel economy

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by meet4

I am still puzzled why modern diesels are not brought to US, there are 60mpg cars of Jetta size all over the Europe.

- It's not the emission standards, they can meet all, including particles, including all California gimmicks.
- It's not the regulations. Some modern diesel cars are already here Mercedes, A3? (Jetta TDI sold here is not modern diesel btw, it's 10 years old engine).
- It's not the fuel price, yes, diesel is more expensive, but 60mpg will more than compensate for it.
- It's not the know-how... one of the most successful diesel engine is Ford TDCI.

which leaves either economics (need to build a factory in US without having market for it yet) or conspiracy!!

I can answer some of the question for you. By the way, I've driven diesel vehicles for over 30 years, and I've been around diesel engines--all the way from small auto diesels to the 4,400 HP prime movers in railroad locomotives--for my whole life.

First, the US emission standards, quite stupidly on the part of the EPA, are different from the European diesel emission standards. So, many European market vehicles can not meet the US standards and ANY diesel vehicle model must be certified by the EPA. For many low-volume-sale vehicle models, the dual cost of re-engineering them to meet the US standards and then getting them certified by the EPA just doesn't make business sense to the manufacturers.

Second, you have the head-up-his or her-a** American consumer. Far too many of them can only think of the POS GM diesels of 30 years ago when the word "diesel" is mentioned.

The two factors above work against getting diesels on the market in the US--sort of a "Catch-22." Unless Americans can buy some decent diesel vehicles, they will continue to think that diesels are noisy, smelly, gutless machines; but the manufacturers don't want to spend the money to certify and market diesels because they don't think they will sell.

Thirdly and finally, Americans still haven't gotten over their horsepower addiction (maybe $5-$7/gallon fuel will get us over that hump). Example: All 3 American pickup truck makers (Ford, GM, Chrysler) have fallen all over themselves to make their 3/4 and 1 ton diesel truck engines more powerful in the last 5 years--at a considerable penalty to fuel economy. Meanwhile GM has a developed, emission-compliant 4.5 diesel V8 that will get 30 mpg on the highway in a 4-wheel drive truck--and they refuse to put it in production, saying that Americans truck buyers don't want a smaller, more fuel-efficient engine available. Huh?

I personally don't think the automobile has a very bright future in the energy-short world that awaits us, but--in the meantime--we could better our situation considerably if vehicles were more fuel economical. Unless one abandons the internal combustion engine entirely, diesels are the most fuel-efficient engine available today and it's stupid that the US is so unfriendly to modern clean diesels, but unfriendly we are.

[JordanJP]

I'll trade my 4cyl Nissan Xterra for a smaller, more efficient vehicle.. if that vehicle happens to be a V6 Nissan 300ZX

[meet4]

Originally Posted by Drover

Yes it is, a combination of the three -- well, combination of the two since emissions and regulations are inextractably tied together. While bringing diesels here can be done, the question is, at what cost and to what benefit?

They cost more to build, the emissions regulations make them more expensive still to sell them here (esp. to make them 50-state legal), and our fuel price and tax structure (implicating regulations again) are a disincentive to sell them here. The lower the fuel cost, the longer it takes to recoup the higher initial cost of a diesel -- at our current fuel prices, many average consumers never will during the service life of the car. When fuel prices are at European levels, the upfront costs are recovered much more quickly -- typically within 3 years or less. Additionally, the fuel tax structure in much of Europe is designed to give diesel a slight edge. Here in the U.S. it's the opposite; we tax diesel more to recapture some of the higher costs that trucks impose through their disparate impact on our road infrastructure.

So yeah, economics is the simple answer; but the economics are greatly affected by factors you have dismissed as noncontributory.

I agree that emission standards are strict, but again, I am talking about modern diesels from last 3 years let say, that meet Euro5 and beyond norms.
I checked even California laws Emission Standards: USA: Cars and Light-Duty Trucks - California
And by comparing I can't see any value that exceeds it, well, there is max PM that is 0.005 all time in euro 5 and 0.01 after 100k miles in California... but don't tell me it's what preventing 70mpg cars in US. So maybe it's certification in 50 states, but come on...

Originally Posted by jazzlover

I can answer some of the question for you...

Oh ye, makes sense. Nobody wants to be "first" maybe. Since to build modern diesel factory in US would cost what... 500 million $? And for that you need to sell tens of thousands if not hundreds per year, which noone wants to risk. Sounds logical :/