Will diesel become significantly more popular soon

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Grr... I hate having to try to elaborate in so few characters in the title. Anyway, do you think diesel will become more popular in the US in the nearish (10-20 yrs) future? Does high percentage biodiesel work very well on modern engines with DEF and EGR and all that junk?

What do you think it'll take to get diesel to overtake gasoline? It's really hard to produce biogas, but extremely easy to produce biodiesel, so there's that. IMO it's just a matter of production.
 
Only if/when diesel fuel is cheap enough compared to gasoline to compensate for the inflated prices of diesel vehicles. In Europe cost of fuel and fuel economy helped diesel vehicle sales.
 
We need a revelation that 25% more NOx is okay if 25% less CO2 comes with. Or that NOx that's no good in the Los Angeles basin is okay in... Iowa, and a car with GPS can figure this out and tune its output appropriately.

Or we could acknowledge that making people drive better will save more lives than airbags, two ton econoboxes, rearview cameras, and whatever other junk they have now.

We could also use biodiesel for home heating which would displace natural gas for spark ignition vehicles, lots of ways stuff could sort itself out.
 
IMO, diesel could become significantly more popular, but the following things would have to happen:
-Some kind of advancement in engine emissions or after-treatment that significantly reduces the upfront cost of diesel engines.
-A change in the relative cost-per-mile between diesel and gas. Right now, at least in my area, diesel is more than 20% more expensive than gasoline, but the efficiency improvement from gasoline to diesel is about 20%. You'll never recoup the higher initial cost at that rate.

At least in the US, I don't see that happening.
 
There is a reason that manufacturers aren't rushing to put diesels in vehicles. Diesels make NOx and soot and you need to put chemical treatment equipment to spray ammonia and particulate filters that need to regenerate like self cleaning ovens. Ammonia freezes at low temps and needs to be heated. On top of this, light duty diesels operate with a lot of excess air, meaning that you have to recirculate a higher percentage of exhaust gas to lower the excess Oxygen to control the NOx. Higher EGR rates means more carbon build up.

Add to it the fact that diesel fuel is lower cetane and quality here than in Europe and it's way too much complexity to deal with these issues for the bragging rights of higher efficiency. Now that gas engines have fuel injection and other valve timing features, the benefits of diesel have narrowed.

From one who knows from first hand experience.
 
One of the advantages that people always cited about diesel engines is higher torque at low rpm's. The new turbocharged gas engines have leveled the playing field in that regard. Now it comes down to primarily a financial comparison.
 
About the time I bought my 2007 diesel Ram pickup, the US was switching from low sulfur diesel (<500 ppm S) to ultra-low sulfur diesel (<15 ppm S). The process used to reduce the sulfur content makes the fuel more expensive, removes some naturally-occurring lubricity in the fuel, and slightly lowers the energy content. Before buying my truck, diesel usually cost slightly less than 87-octane gasoline. Now it costs more; usually about the same as mid-grade gasoline. Another thing that affects the cost of diesel fuel is tax. The federal government taxes diesel more than gas. In Europe I think it's the other way around.
 
In the 1980s when there was a gas crisis a lot of people bought a diesel. I bought a diesel Rabbit as did many others. Some years latter I bought a diesel Jetta. But then the price of diesel went above the price of gas and at the same time gas cars started to get better mileage.

I think today people looking beyond gas may go hybrid.

But my pickup with a Cummins is great as a pickup and for towing.
 
Originally Posted By: Miller88
Not in America. It's going to get worse. The EPA does NOT like any sort of diesel.

That's it. I can see their concern about pollution in places like Los Angeles, but the rest of us suffering because of that is disheartening.

I'd love a diesel wagon with a manual transmission; Forester, Audi A4 Avant, BMW 320d. I'd take out a loan for my holy grail, a new Land Rover Defender.

Oh well.
 
Originally Posted By: Burt
There is a reason that manufacturers aren't rushing to put diesels in vehicles. Diesels make NOx and soot and you need to put chemical treatment equipment to spray ammonia and particulate filters that need to regenerate like self cleaning ovens. Ammonia freezes at low temps and needs to be heated. On top of this, light duty diesels operate with a lot of excess air, meaning that you have to recirculate a higher percentage of exhaust gas to lower the excess Oxygen to control the NOx. Higher EGR rates means more carbon build up.

Add to it the fact that diesel fuel is lower cetane and quality here than in Europe and it's way too much complexity to deal with these issues for the bragging rights of higher efficiency. Now that gas engines have fuel injection and other valve timing features, the benefits of diesel have narrowed.

From one who knows from first hand experience.


All good stuff, but it all applies equally in Europe, yet over here in some countries diesel sales outstrip gasoline. We have become quite attached to surging along on a wave of low-speed torque. So what is it about the USA that is different? One difference is the absolute cost of fuel; here, today, I pay over $7 per US gallon for gasoline. Diesel is around 4-5% more expensive, but typically better than 4-5% more fuel efficient (on a like-for-like basis). We look to the US with your low fuel costs and jealously remark that we'd also drive gas-guzzlers if fuel was that cheap.
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
We need a revelation that 25% more NOx is okay if 25% less CO2 comes with. Or that NOx that's no good in the Los Angeles basin is okay in... Iowa, and a car with GPS can figure this out and tune its output appropriately.

Or we could acknowledge that making people drive better will save more lives than airbags, two ton econoboxes, rearview cameras, and whatever other junk they have now.

We could also use biodiesel for home heating which would displace natural gas for spark ignition vehicles, lots of ways stuff could sort itself out.


Agreed. Trade one emission for another, makes sense. Apparently not to others.

I had high hopes for biodiesel, and was one of the reasons I bought my Jetta. I like running bio, didn't mind paying extra; but life got busy and I stopped driving out of my way to get it. Now these later engines do not seem to tolerate bio. Shame.

I'm not sure what is cheaper: one do-all vehicle, that "must" run on diesel, in order to be economical (all costs, per year); or two cheaper gassers, one small one for pedestrian use and one huge but rarely used one.
 
Originally Posted By: weasley
Originally Posted By: Burt
There is a reason that manufacturers aren't rushing to put diesels in vehicles. Diesels make NOx and soot and you need to put chemical treatment equipment to spray ammonia and particulate filters that need to regenerate like self cleaning ovens. Ammonia freezes at low temps and needs to be heated. On top of this, light duty diesels operate with a lot of excess air, meaning that you have to recirculate a higher percentage of exhaust gas to lower the excess Oxygen to control the NOx. Higher EGR rates means more carbon build up.

Add to it the fact that diesel fuel is lower cetane and quality here than in Europe and it's way too much complexity to deal with these issues for the bragging rights of higher efficiency. Now that gas engines have fuel injection and other valve timing features, the benefits of diesel have narrowed.

From one who knows from first hand experience.


All good stuff, but it all applies equally in Europe, yet over here in some countries diesel sales outstrip gasoline. We have become quite attached to surging along on a wave of low-speed torque. So what is it about the USA that is different? One difference is the absolute cost of fuel; here, today, I pay over $7 per US gallon for gasoline. Diesel is around 4-5% more expensive, but typically better than 4-5% more fuel efficient (on a like-for-like basis). We look to the US with your low fuel costs and jealously remark that we'd also drive gas-guzzlers if fuel was that cheap.


That's the thing, if our fuels were priced like yours, we would be much different than we are now.
 
I don't think diesel will grow very much in the US. The cost of aftertreatment systems, the penalty that they have wreaked on the efficiency of the engines, and the higher cost of ULSD has taken away the economic advantage of diesel.

But gasoline engines are going to get more expensive in the future, too. Research is being done to add the same alphabet soup of aftertreatment systems to gasoline engines that have already been added to diesels.
 
Originally Posted By: kozanoglu
Only if/when diesel fuel is cheap enough compared to gasoline to compensate for the inflated prices of diesel vehicles. In Europe cost of fuel and fuel economy helped diesel vehicle sales.
The dead hand of the bureaucrat meddles in the price of diesel in Europe. The question of which, in the end, has the lowest cost per mile is hidden in the political gamesmanshp.
 
You don't need to worry about the details. The EPA and the government will take care of us. In fact Senator Harry Reed said that oil was bad and made us sick and that we need to stop using it. So that would make diesels bad, right?

Harry has our best interests at heart, doesn't he? He has stated that we should drive electric vehicles because they have zero pollution. He may have forgotten that the electricity comes from somewhere but after all, he's an administrator and a politician and they don't delve into minor details like that.
 
Originally Posted By: weasley
Originally Posted By: Burt
There is a reason that manufacturers aren't rushing to put diesels in vehicles. Diesels make NOx and soot and you need to put chemical treatment equipment to spray ammonia and particulate filters that need to regenerate like self cleaning ovens. Ammonia freezes at low temps and needs to be heated. On top of this, light duty diesels operate with a lot of excess air, meaning that you have to recirculate a higher percentage of exhaust gas to lower the excess Oxygen to control the NOx. Higher EGR rates means more carbon build up.

Add to it the fact that diesel fuel is lower cetane and quality here than in Europe and it's way too much complexity to deal with these issues for the bragging rights of higher efficiency. Now that gas engines have fuel injection and other valve timing features, the benefits of diesel have narrowed.

From one who knows from first hand experience.


All good stuff, but it all applies equally in Europe, yet over here in some countries diesel sales outstrip gasoline. We have become quite attached to surging along on a wave of low-speed torque. So what is it about the USA that is different? One difference is the absolute cost of fuel; here, today, I pay over $7 per US gallon for gasoline. Diesel is around 4-5% more expensive, but typically better than 4-5% more fuel efficient (on a like-for-like basis). We look to the US with your low fuel costs and jealously remark that we'd also drive gas-guzzlers if fuel was that cheap.


Europe's growth in diesel was initially driven by tax policy and occurred before tougher emissions standards were in place and in fact the US implemented the strict standards, necessitating SCR, a few years sooner than Europe. In many ways we were the testing ground for the new systems.
 
The diesel bubble peaked when using waste cooking oil to home-brew biodiesel became popular on tv.
 
No the EPA killed it. Diesel made a lot of sense until about 10 years ago.

Now you couldn't give me a diesel vehicle.
 
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