Enough election talk, it's time to put some honest-to-goodness car news in the Gristmill (so this one's for you, JMG!).
Volkswagen is about to unveil a new Golf hybrid, said to feature an all-electric mode at low speed and regenerative braking to compete with the Prius and its ilk. The difference is that this is a diesel-electric hybrid, which VW says will get 69 mpg and exceed Europe's (and California's) tough emissions standards.
The point is somewhat moot, as this internal-combusion-perpetuating monster will not be for sale in the U.S. But is this just another indicator that clean diesel cars are greener than hybrids?
Perhaps. But filling one of these new Golfs with locally produced, organic, fair-trade biodiesel made from waste vegetable oil by a worker-owned biorefinery will certainly help.
EPA affirms California’s right to set tougher automobile emissions standards
Nigeria’s oil pollution is stark example of resource curse, says Amnesty International
Comments View as Flat
GreyFlcn Posted 9:39 am
04 Mar 2008
Scale that back a notch
Forget the hybrid part.
The bigger news is that next month, all 50 states will be able to purchase diesel cars which meet the worlds most stringent emissions standards.
These cars will include a NOx Filter, a Particulate Filter, and use 15ppm Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel which has been mandated since October 2006.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/01/04/2008-vw-jetta-tdi ...
Permalink
odograph Posted 11:08 am
04 Mar 2008
again?
My goodness, how many times have I heard this story? A new diesel, that is announced, and not even scheduled for delivery where I live (California), might beat a Prius.
A car I bought 3 years ago ...
Man, all you need is a time machine and you're in!
(I've long understood the theor
Permalink
odograph Posted 11:09 am
04 Mar 2008
oops
etical strengths of diesel-hybrids. I blogged about them years ago. But they aren't really real to me until they are in my market, right?)
Permalink
Pangolin Posted 12:58 pm
04 Mar 2008
Will it make a good taxi though?
One of the nicer things about the 2004 Prius is that it almost seems designed for taxi service. The back seat has plenty of leg and head room even for linebacker sized guys.
As more people get squeezed out of the car market it's going to be important to have efficient, comfortable taxi's available to take up the slack that public transit can't fill.
The 'O4 Prius with it's ability to be able to convert to plug-in hybrid with a battery swap and charger has a lot of advantages. Hopefully the Golf has both plenty of room and plug-in conversion capability. A real choice would be good.
Put the Carbon Back
Permalink
JMG Posted 1:42 pm
04 Mar 2008
Thanks
Thanks for the shout-out there, Erik. Since you were so kind, I thought I'd help complete the scene for the techno porn fantasy:
Erik Hoffner Posted 8:41 pm
04 Mar 2008
nice
Beautiful, JMG.
Now build me a time machine or work it into a novel cuz I wanna GO there.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
Permalink
Sean Casten Posted 12:11 am
05 Mar 2008
Chickens & Eggs
Great news, but I've always felt that the history of diesel vehicles in the US ought to be required reading for anyone who seeks to change our transportation fuels, just to realize how damn many moving pieces there are. Diesel is clearly the 2nd most popular fuel in the US, and is readily available at just about any gas station within spitting distance of an interstate (e.g., a place where the trucks stop). But beyond that, it can be a bit hard to find.
Back in the mid-90s when I lived in Boston, I was in the market for a new car and looked pretty seriously at the Jetta TDI. Got something like 45 mpg and (thanks to the "T") was a heck of a lot more peppy than the crappy Peugeot diesel my folks had in the early 80s. Not a porsche, to be sure, but quick enough that I didn't find myself worrying about whether or not I could accelerate to get through the traffic light before it turned back to red. And then I started looking at how many gas stations sold diesel. Nationwide, it was only about 10%. I haven't looked since, but my gut feel is that it hasn't changed much.
(This all led to a very funny exchange with the dealer when I raised that concern, and he responded by telling me not to worry, since even when the needle says empty, you can still drive another 80 miles. And I pointed out to him that when the needle is on empty, I don't want to have to drive 80 miles to fuel up...)
Anyway, I ended up with the gasoline Jetta as a result - but have always been struck by the fact that if it's that hard to get sufficient saturation with diesel to not make that the limiting factor in vehicle purchases, how much have we understated the challenge of shifts to other alternative fuels? Which is not to say those aren't noble causes - just that it's a lot more time & effort than we realize.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 2:24 am
05 Mar 2008
The future of diesel.
That's the interesting topic. I think it is in backup generator power for a plugin hybrid.
If 6 kwh is used in an hour to go 55 miles. A 10kw diesel generator will do the backup job nicely.
With a conventional diesel generator a turbine generator can be added to improve efficiency and get many time the stadard internal combustion driven vehicle efficiency. Turbocharging is a fairly normal option on cars now, so it would not be a stretch to mass produce this feature.
I think that solid oxide fuel cell/turbines are the next step, but it doesn't matter. Diesels with the turbo efficiency booster are good enough. And both of these options can be adapted to use biogas very easily.
Making your vehicle backup power, backup for you home or local grid when hooked up to biogas. Compressed biogas to run plugin hybrid farm equipment is also an option.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
Permalink
WWAGD?! Posted 4:54 am
05 Mar 2008
Under the hood...
The thing about hybrids, is I don't find much critical analysis about their design.
The VW still has a diesel engine. Since it has an "all electric" mode at high speed, that means it either uses the diesel (parallel hybrid) for motive force at faster speed.
A diesel engine in a hybrid (parallel) and a diesel engine by itself get the same mileage per se.
What the hybrid does is put the car into an "idleless" mode for low speed so it doesn't burn gas while it's going slow or stuck in traffic.
That said, the simpler solution to me is to look for an idleless technique so cars don't burn gas when they don't need to -- but without having to carry around a second entire drive system of batteries and a 2nd engine.
Permalink
human power Posted 3:48 pm
05 Mar 2008
Still Brown
Oh boy, we've advanced the technology all the way back to the early 20th century when Porsche built early diesel/electric hybrids. Big deal.
When will we get serious about the need to reduce our emissions by 80-90% in the next fifteen years? In order to do that, pretty much all cars will need to become planter boxes. Or does the joy of driving offset the climate change-induced genocids in Africa, South America and Asia as well as water wars and deprivation in North America?
Permalink
crisrich Posted 4:31 am
07 Mar 2008
What to do with surplus gasoline
In the 70s, during the first oil crisis, Brazil created the Proalcool program. During many years 100% of the new cars sold had ethanol enines. At that time Flexfuel technology did not yet exist, so the engines could be run only on ethanol.
This presented a huge problem for the refineries, because, from what I've heard, they aren't flexible at all. It seems that they are built to obtain fixed fractions of different oil sub-products. You can't suddenly say: I don't want the gasoline fraction any more, increase the quantity of something else in the process.
The result was, that during all those years Brazil had a huge surplus of gasoline that nobody wanted, including other countries. Apparently they had to rent a large amount of tanker ships just to increase storage capacity.
If the consumers in the US started to demand more diesel and less gasoline, how would the refinries cope with that?
Permalink