I think that in most European countries about 25-30% of the cars are diesel powered. I think in Spain (or is that Portugal?) the number is near 50%.
What about the US? I’ve never heared about a diesel powered american car.
I don’t know the percentages, but I’d be surprised if it were double-digit. However, they are available. The Volkswagen models are popular and I know a number of people who drive older Mercedes sedans with diesel engines. A lot of large pickup trucks come with diesel engines and they are very popular in rural areas. Jeep has announced a diesel version of their Liberty model this fall.
This report says the diesel market in the US peaked at 6% in 1981 and has fallen since. That number excludes pickup trucks, which are very popular in some areas. Apparently the more stringent emissions requirements in the US limits the market, but newer engines and cleaner fuels should change that.
http://www.engineeringtalk.com/news/rca/rca117.html
Also a couple of fluff news pieces which indirectly address the market.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4741193/
http://www.germancarfans.com/news.cfm/newsid/2040414.019/mercedes/1.html
I don’t think there are any diesel-powered American cars, only trucks. American car manufacturers tried and failed to promote diesel cars back in the 1970’s. They failed mainly because the diesel engines they produced sucked hard. Add to that the crap diesel fuel we get in America and you have a recipe for disaster.
Diesel cars are starting to make a comeback due to recent gas price increases, but only by foreign manufacturers. American diesel fuel is supposed to be reformulated in 2006 and that may improve their prospects further.
I think it’s a matter of markets more than manufacturers. Ford sells small car diesels in Europe, but they don’t have a market in the US. Most of the US manufacturers have diesel options in their pickup trucks and some SUVs, so the fact that they don’t include them in their smaller cars is a matter of marketing, not technology. What about the Jeep Liberty? It’s an SUV, but a relatively small one and competes in the passenger car class.
My particular American company manufactures very good diesel vehicles, but only in markets that want them, which excludes the United States. Saying YOU want them, though, isn’t the same as saying the MARKET wants them, though.
There are a few roadblocks to diesel acceptance here in the US:
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Many people remember the GM diesels of the late 70s or early 80s. It was the most pathetic attempt at transportation EVAR. Ruined the whole concept.
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Currently available diesel fuel here is too high in sulfur content and too low in lubricity to work properly in the most modern European engines.
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Particulate emissions as well as NOx output are tough to make meet US standards even in the cleaner European engines.
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US emissions standards require that cars remain compliant for (I think) 100,000 miles with minimal service allowed. Also tough for the modern engines to achieve. Diesel engines get beat up much harder than gas motors.
Let me interject a personal note: Biodiesel! Yay!
I had a VW diesel when they first introduced it to the U.S.
It got great mileage. When it ran.
After the second engine blew a piston through the engine block at 65 mph on an expressway, I swore never to get a VW or a diesel ever again.
I haven’t and I won’t.
I do remember that when diesel cars were at their peak, every manufacturer had at least one diesel car, which usually, if memory serves, was a smallish sedan. Even so, even high-end marques like Cadillac and Mercedes produced diesel models, and every gas station had at least one diesel pump.
Yeah, GM’s great 350cid (5.7L) diesel. Basically they took their stock gasoline engine block and put different cylinder heads on it. Really, really bad idea. If you looked in NADA price books a few years after these cars came out you’d see how they’d always say:
*Take 25% off resale value for 350 diesel engine.
The gas engine engine components just wore out very quickly as diesel combustion is many times more stressful.
Yes, GM marketed several models across their divisions with the Olds 5.7 V8 and 4.3 V6 diesels. As was stated, the engine was basically a re-engineered 350 gasser.
GM later dropped the 4.3 and 5.7 from passenger cars and marketed a 6.2 diesel for use in full sized pick-ups and SUVs, later supplanted by a 6.5 turbodiesel.
Today, a 6.6 Duramax turbodiesel with intercooler and 4 valves per cylinder, co-engineered by Isuzu…is found only in the Chevy/GMC heavy duty pick-up.
BTW, Ford offered a diesel powered Lincoln with a BMW ohc turbodiesel…which required engine service at a BMW dealership. :dubious:
I see it as a chicken-or-egg thing. The US car manufacturers won’t do the necessary work and research to provide good diesel passenger cars in the US because they say nobody wants them. US car buyers don’t want them because American car manufacturers won’t do the work and research necessary to produce good diesel passenger cars in the US. If you build it, they will come, I bet. The US manufacturers aren’t willing to take that bet.
I drive a VW diesel. It’s the first I’ve ever owned. It gets 35 mpg in town. Diesel fuel is (slightly) cheaper than gas. And, except for a short warm-up period in the morning when the engine idles rough, I can’t tell I’m driving a diesel. No fumes, no noise, no difference from a gasser.
US car buyers don’t buy exclusively from US manufacturers. How does your theory that it all hangs on US manufacturers explain why VW and other non-US car makers find relatively little diesel market in the US?
I don’t know where you live, but where I live there is a great deal of resistance still to the thought of buying a “foreign” car, especially from one of our former enemies (Germany or Japan). A lot of people I know will only buy American cars.
And VW (and Mercedes) finds a great deal of penetration in the US diesel market, I’d say. They sell all that they import. Moreso in the past few months, as I’ve watched the diesel availability drying up here recently.
A simple survey of the cars driving down any given road in every place in the US I’ve been shows that there is very little general resistance to buying a non-US car. Buy-American advocates certainly exist and are quite vocal, but there are still a huge number of non-US cars in the US. Stats should be simple to find, but since the fact that a huge portion of American buyers will and do buy non-US cars is observably true, I don’t see the need in this context.
You may be right. I’d be very interested in a cite that showed VW sold all the diesels they import. That doesn’t mean a substantial market actually exists if the number they import is small and if they’re intentionally keeping their imports below demand. The question is, is there a substantial market that is going unsatisfied by VW and other imports which could be served by US manufacturers, or is the market very small (and already served by imports) and the US manufacturers see no value there yet?
I think another factor to consider in why Americans don’t want Diesel cars is the mindset that the average American has about Diesel.
If you say ‘diesel engine’ to the average American, they are probably going to think of large semi’s hauling thousands of pinds of cargo across the country. Couple that with the fact that most of the diesel engines in non-commercial use are used in large trucks, and you end up with most people assiciating ‘diesel engine’ with an engine that produces a lot of power, bad acceleration, and in general, not for them. They are just unaware that there are other ways to make diesel engines, and those engines are made that way because their use is for lot’s of power (especially in towing/hauling.) Just like you can make a gasoline engine perform differently depending on whether it’s in a sports car of minivan. likewise can you to do diesel engines.
There have been commercials recently for VW diesels – I think they said most VW’s are available with a diesel engine which allows you to go very far on a single tank of fuel. I knew someone a few years ago who had an SUV with a diesel engine. (Maybe SUV’s don’t count for the purposes of this discussion; it was huge, but it was used as a city vehicle.) It was loud, but it was very fuel-efficient, and in 1999 diesel fuel was unbelievably cheap. Gasoline was cheap too, but diesel was even more so. One problem the owner did have was finding fuel – in a huge city with few gas stations, there were only a few places that sold diesel. Diesel-engined vehicles are also, IIRC, more difficult to start in cold conditions, which is a problem in areas with harsh winters.
I’ve got a VW diesel and was a bit of a diesel fanatic for a while there. I am trying to remember this correctly, so I may be wrong, but I used to know this very well.
First, the problem with the ULSD (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel) that is available in Europe has to do with the complicated catalytic converter that is available on most European diesels. Common gut rot diesel in the US would destroy it. When they had the 3L Lupo cross the US they had to bring their own fuel.
Secondly, US and European emissions standards are biased against different kinds of emissions. IIRC European standards are more biased against climate changing exaust gasses, while American standards are more biased against soot and NOx which the diesel engines are more well known for. In northern Europe diesels are also very common (especially Germany) yet there is little smog. I suppose this has a lot to do with climate. California which has very stringent diesel regulations has huge problems with smog, so it would make sense that diesels would be particularly looked-down upon.
There were, and maybe still are plans to introduce American diesel cars. Well, if you still consider Daimler-Chrystler American. There were plans to introduce a Jeep Liberty with a Turbo diesel, and if I remember correctly there were also plans to introduce some ford as well. When I was looking into it, the percentage of Diesel engined-passenger cars was around 3 percent. In Germany 50 percent of all new cars have diesel engines.
I love my diesel, especially how I can’t even remember the last time I filled it up. There is a stigma against old-diesels, but the newer ones have advanced much more since the old GM diesels of yesteryear. The VW engines are called TDI which means Turbo Direct Injection. Before they were naturally aspirated, and had a combustion pre-chamber which robbed it of its efficnency. I can’t remember why they had these though. The new modern diesels use electronic wizardry to eliminate many of the old problems of diesels. First there is the new high-pressure injectors that spray the fuel in such a fine mist to make for the most optimum combustion. Secondly the turbo obviously helps with the amount of oxygen to be used for combustion. Thirdly, they all contain computers that measure the flow of air into the combustion chamber and inject no more than the exact amount of fuel that can be burnt. With a standard injection system, if you have the throttle all the way down, more fuel will be injected than can be completely burnt. This partially burned fuel is the cause of the awful diesel smoke
Starting in cold weather is no longer a problem unless you live in Minnesota or someplace. VW doesn’t even make a block heater. Around freezing temperatures, I normally have to wait about 5 seconds for the glowplugs to heat up. After that it runs fine.
That’s not an issue with modern engines. I know a guy who lives in Sweden and has an Alfa Romeo diesel car. Even in the coldest weather, it takes just about 5 seconds for the pre-heating system to warm up the engine.
they sell a different grade of diesel in winter, which is supposed to be less prone to waxing up.
Diesel was, at one time, radically cheaper here, and that persuaded a lot of people to switch. Now the tax has been increased to the point where the price is about the same. In Holland it’s about 2/3 of the price it is here.