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Pickups Diesels Diesels in the News
8143 messages, Last post on Nov 27, 2009 at 12:10 PM
You are in the Diesels Forum. Your Host is kcram
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Chrysler Diesel Push quote- As the auto industry moves toward more fuel efficient, cleaner vehicles, there's a cluster of automotive, environmental, and energy experts rooting for the diesel engine. Perhaps their biggest challenge is to convince drivers that today's diesels aren't the slow, noisy, smelly diesels of the past. A leading voice in that effort is DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group, which in January started producing its second diesel vehicle for North America. Hitting dealerships soon is a diesel version of the Jeep Grand Cherokee. This comes after the automaker sold more than it expected of the diesel Jeep Liberty last year, Robert Lee, vice president of powertrain product engineering for DCX, told more than 100 people at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress on Monday at Cobo Hall. The Liberty diesel was an experiment to see if consumers would be willing to pay an extra $1,500 for a diesel vehicle. It worked well enough for Chrysler to release the diesel Grand Cherokee, which costs an extra $3,000, and is expected to save drivers $592 a year on fuel. Diesels make up less than 0.5% of the cars produced in North America — though a greater percentage of trucks. By 2015, diesel car production expected to increase to 15% and 18% by 2020, according to estimates from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. Offering an average of 30% better fuel efficiency than gasoline engines, diesels are a good gasoline alternative for highway driving, compared to a hybrid, which is ideal for stop-and-go city traffic, said Jim Eberhardt, a scientist with the Department of Energy.....end quote How about offering the Chrysler 300 Touring Diesel (Magnum in Chryler guise that is sold in Europe) for the USA? 
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Hmm, this is only indirectly related with diesels, but in any case it is a promising piece of news that deserves to be followed up. "A Spanish research team has reported today that it is successfully developing a process in order to efficiently produce petrol from algae. Such a process will consume atmospheric CO2 instead of 02. The end-product should be gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, plastics, etc... even coal." We will see, cautiously thoug with hope. Regards, Jose |
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A review of the 2007 ML320 CDI. ML320 CDI |
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Replying to: bristol2 (Apr 16, 2007 8:14 am) Economically The "surplus" animal fat available to produce diesel fuel will be immediately absorbed in the demand stream. The increased use of dead animal fat will then produce an additional up stream demand that has the effect of increasing the marginal rate of profit of animal production and therefore increase production itself. As producing animals for any purpose creates an additional demand for animal feed, this development will also drive that demand. Any increase in the growing load on the available farm land increases the cost of food for all consumption, animal or human. It will concomittantly increase the the use of water, which is in increasingly short supply, and also that of fertilizer which is largely fossil fuel dependent. Additionally, feed lot methane production, a green house gas, will be increased, ground water pollution from animal waste and chemicals, now down to the third level aquifers, will also become worse. The poluted water will become increasingly more costly and energy dependent to clean up, to the extent that it can be at all. I am sure that the corporations, who are the chief beneficiaries of this diesel petroleum scheme, will be more than happy to address the un-recognized costs of their enterprise. And that is only the tip of the ice berg. There don't seem to be any free lunches. |
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Replying to: hypnosis44 (Apr 16, 2007 12:23 pm) For change of behavior toward diesel, not much is really required as for ethanol. Just let diesel models be available, let them get 30-40% fuel economy over like unleaded regular models. This uses less resources than unleaded regular and even less resources compared to ethanol. The cost per mile driven is easily 20-40% cheaper. If you want to accelerate the changeover to diesel, cut the tax rate, volume and %. This is FAR too sensical and logical, which translates to political impossibility. Of course there is hydrogen. A Civic sized car gets all of 22 mpg. Current price of hydrogen per gal WEIGHT= 18 dollars per. |
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quote: German auto supplier Behr GmbH & Co. KG today introduced three parts at the SAE 2007 World Congress that the company says will reduce emissions and improve driver comfort in diesel-powered vehicles. They are: 1. Positive temperature coefficient heaters, which enable vehicle heating systems to emit warm air the moment the key is turned. 2. No-idle air conditioning, which enables vehicle air-conditioning systems to operate with the engine turned off. 3. High-volume exhaust gas recirculation coolers, which help reduce the amount of oxides of nitrogen, or NOx, produced by diesel-powered vehicles. -end |
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Replying to: hypnosis44 (Apr 16, 2007 12:23 pm) 
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