- #21050 of 21504
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Re: diesels [ateixeira]
by xwesx
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Dec 01, 2008 (4:36 pm)
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Replying to: ateixeira (Dec 01, 2008 1:41 pm)
I am under the impression that road diesel is so expensive because of the new ULSD requirement. Here in Fairbanks, diesel is $3.70 per gallon today (reg unleaded is $2.64) and #1 heating oil is under $2.50/gal (not sure of the exact number). I am pretty sure that road diesel is no longer refined locally so it has to be shipped in while the gasoline is refined about 15 miles away. If there are fewer refineries making the stuff, and it is more expensive/intensive to create, it is going to cost more.
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- #21051 of 21504
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Re: diesels [once_for_all]
by dino001
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Dec 02, 2008 (5:18 am)
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Replying to: once_for_all (Nov 18, 2008 2:37 pm)
Why? At fuel costing now $1/gal more (or 50%) where are the savings? Let's see, you get:
1. Awkwardly short powerband
2. Increased engine noise
3. Clunky noise (have you every compared gas to diesel)
4. Increased and unfamiliar maintenance
Yeah makes perfect sense. Just as much as first hybrids did at 5 grand over sticker.
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- #21052 of 21504
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I forgot to add
by dino001
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Dec 02, 2008 (6:25 am)
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Diesels cost more, too...
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- #21053 of 21504
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diesel here
by nippononly
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Dec 02, 2008 (7:01 am)
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is $2.99, while regular unleaded is now $1.93. That's 50% more for the diesel? No thanks!
I can see why Subaru is weighing its options regarding making the diesel boxer 50-state compliant - they could bring it here just in time for gas prices to drop and no-one would buy it!
I wish they had gone ahead with the hybrid - they could have shared Toyota's HSD without much cost, presumably, since Toyota is part owner these days. I suppose it would have been difficult to develop that powertrain to include Subaru's boxer 2.0
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- #21054 of 21504
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Re: diesels [dino001]
by ateixeira
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Dec 02, 2008 (8:02 am)
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Replying to: dino001 (Dec 02, 2008 5:18 am)
Well, you still get 40% more driving range per tankful.
It's better suited for towing, if that's your thing.
Last thing may be longevity. Diesels tend to have a longer life, though Subaru's is new and not yet proven in the long-term.
Still, for $1800 more, with fuel costing 50% more, you simply will never break even. Actually, you'd pay more up front and continue spending more for the life of the vehicle, unless diesel prices drop.
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- #21055 of 21504
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Re: diesels [ateixeira]
by dino001
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Dec 02, 2008 (8:19 am)
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Replying to: ateixeira (Dec 02, 2008 8:02 am)
Last thing may be longevity. Diesels tend to have a longer life, though Subaru's is new and not yet proven in the long-term.
They used to. A lot of durability/ruggedness advantages of diesel were defeated with new pollution restrictions and turbocharging. Old Mercedes 300D diesel was a N/A engine that would literally last milion miles and run on a vegetable oil. No more - those new cute Bluetec diesel engines have about the same level of complexity and sensitivity as those high-output gas engines. Which means, very sensitive to fuel, very maintenance intensive and not as long lasting between overhauls, etc. That applies not only to those passenger car diesels, but also to those big truck/bus diesel engines as well.
If anything, it looks to me diesels kind to run into a dead end.
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- #21056 of 21504
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Re: diesels [dino001]
by paisan
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Dec 02, 2008 (3:03 pm)
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Replying to: dino001 (Dec 02, 2008 8:19 am)
I was under the impression, and I could be completely wrong, that diesel fuel is much closer to crude than gasoline, therefore less refining process and should theoretically be cheaper to produce? Could be the ULS stuff that makes it expensive.
-mike
Subaru Guru and Track Instructor
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- #21057 of 21504
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Re: diesels [paisan]
by cptplt
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Dec 02, 2008 (3:47 pm)
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Replying to: paisan (Dec 02, 2008 3:03 pm)
diesel price is high in the US as the overall market is smaller yet demand is not adequately met. refineries can only produce so much gasoline or diesel from a barrel of crude. there are essentially 2 different type of refineries in common use in the industrialized world and the US ones are of the type which tries to squeeze more gasoline than diesel out of that barrel of crude so production is skewed to make more gasoline. we actually export diesel to Europe (and Canada and Mexico) as the oil companies get a higher price and they are importing gasoline from Europe so those empty tankers get filled up with diesel to go back eastwards across the atlantic.the US exports 2 million barrels of oil products a day, mostly refined products like diesel etc.as it makes exxon more money to send it to mexico say from the gulf refineries than to ship it to New England or WA state. the whole issue of increasing drilling domestically is a joke if the oil companies are free to export anywhere they want and not keep it in the US as they have had written into all drilling legislation!
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- #21058 of 21504
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Re: diesels [paisan]
by dino001
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Dec 02, 2008 (7:34 pm)
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Replying to: paisan (Dec 02, 2008 3:03 pm)
Diesel is cheaper to make - but demand on it rose dramatically worldwide, more in proportion to gasoline, hence its high price worldwide. Mostly because of high commercial use (construction, agriculture, etc.) and small-car boom didn't help, either. On top of that in some parts of the world price of fuel has very little to do with actual cost and almost everything with taxes and tarrifs (in Europe those are 60-80% of fuel price) and diesel was not as much taxed as gasoline. So when you combined that with better fuel efficiency, diesels actually used to me sense (30-50% lower operating cost with about 20% higher initial cost and better resale value). People did not care for their clunkiness and other annoyances as long as they could trully save on fuel. That of course spurred even more R&D to make them quitere and cleaner, which of course created even more interest in diesels at at the time (they got less annoying, less noisy, almost competitive in terms of driving dynamics).
However, all that was recently put in question as the diesel price rose disproportionally to gasoline (currently in US we have almost 50% higher price; in Europe they are about even or diesel is just slightly more). The prognosis are for diesel price go even higher in proportion to gasoline. It really spiraled to levels at which passenger diesel practically defeats itself.
So yes - cheaper to make fuel became more expensive simply because more machines want it. I would say adding even more machines running on the same expensive fuel makes very little sense, especially that alternatives are better in those applications.
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- #21059 of 21504
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Re: diesels [dino001]
by volkov
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Dec 02, 2008 (10:24 pm)
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Replying to: dino001 (Dec 02, 2008 7:34 pm)
I have to think too that some of this might be a construct to big oil's benefit. They set the price of diesel you pay at the pump. If there were a huge shift to more economical diesel vehicles, the demand drops for oil overall. Just as a wave of 50 state compliant diesels converge with a growing interest the cost of diesel suddenly exploded relative to gas long before the demand was even there. A high price of oil over one year does not cause a significant shift in the vehicles people drive. It shapes which new vehicles are purchased, but that is a small percentage of vehicles on the road.
The demand for diesel in the US did not see a significant change over the last few years so it doesn't justify the spike in domestic prices relative to gas. Make it expensive for a while and it kills an emerging market to a point that it won't recover, and passenger diesels are an emerging market in the US. Seems a little contrived to me; you can make up your own minds.
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