Subaru Diesel

Diesels are hugely popular in Europe, the hold up in this country has been partly demand since the fuel is usually more than gasoline, plus waiting for some sulphur regulations to settle down.

And Subaru seems to have a history of being the last to jump on a trend.

I dunno

Carl

Hi,

Yes, I read last year approx 37% of cars sold in Europe were diesels!

Once we in the US get our heads out of a dark spot regarding the ongoing horsepower race (who REALLY needs 300+ hp to be stuck in traffic?), the "diesels are dirty" thing (many of the new ones are as clean as gasoline models but REQUIRE low sulphur fuel or the emissions equipment will "break"--we're just starting to require it here, but should be settled in on that issue within the next 6 mos to a year from what I've read in the biz pages) and the "but diesel costs more than gasoline" issue (get out your calculator, boys and girls: just for example, a US model Toyota Land Cruiser gets around 16-17 mpg or so, a Euro model of the same vehicle w/ a diesel gets 29 mpg. Now which costs more to run?) issues, I hope to see car-based diesels start making inroads in this country. Many of them do BETTER than hybrids for fuel economy, and we don't have that huge pile of dead batteries building up on the horizon to worry about!

As to Subaru being late to the table on some "trends," we've gotta remember as a car company, it's pretty small, and I don't know what kind of "allowance" FHI gives our favorite kid! So I'd guess budget considerations are probably the biggest roadblock to "progress."

Rick

I think DaimlerChrysler is making a heavy push for diesels in their Jeep brand.

Yousuf Khan

Doesn't seem to be a myth -- they're going to be bringing out both hybrids and diesels. The hybrid tech is from Toyota; diesel tech is being done in-house and should be available in 2008 (possibly end of

2007), taking precedence over the Toyota-developed hybrid tech. See:

The big question-mark hovering over all this is the availability of low-sulphur diesel in North America. Not if, but when.

It's akin to when everybody was talking about Bluetooth in the mid-late nineties -- it was always supposed to be available Real Soon Now, but it took a LOT longer. It's really only now that we're starting to see it "everywhere".

So, will be a boxer diesel be available in the U.S. in 2008? If so, what kind of diesel will it drink? Will you be able to get low-sulphur diesel any place that currently sells "funky" diesel? I don't know the answer to any of these. Does anybody?

In the US, as of September 1, all on-road diesel at distribution terminals must be Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel (ULSD) and by October 15, everything at retail locations must be ULSD. I know it has already hit in Seattle, diesel fuel went up about 30 cents a gallon in the last two weeks while gasoline was falling in price.

Very interesting -- thanks!

Is ULSD at the same level as what is currently used in Europe? As of October 15th, will there be anything to prevent the newer diesel automobiles currently used in Europe from being used in (most of) the U.S.?

Also, I believe I read somewhere that even ULSD cars won't pass California's super-strict emissions tests. Is that correct?

I've read that about the ULSD not being enough to pass emissions effictively. Apparently, when new vehicles meet 2007 emissions, they are supposed to have some sort of device to spray urea into the exhaust system to reduce the NOx before it reaches the catalyst. And I remember reading it will run at about 1 gallon of urea to every 10 gallons of diesel burned. Sounds like fun times to me. (-; Of course, the urea system is still up in the air, and they may figure how to get a NOx absorbing catalyst to work instead, but so far even with ULSD the absorber is poisoned by the sulfer in some 2,000 miles.

They have had the ULSD at the Chevron in town here for a few months and when it was brought in, the price jumped accordingly. People whine, but I think they don't understand why the price went up. They all just want the same low price their local supermarket diesel pump gives them.

~Brian

Are they really gonna sell urea by the gallon to the same public that can get pool chlorine? Sounds like a recipe for explosive disaster.

Carl

If diesel catches on in this country, what will stop people from putting heating oil in their cars? It's essentially the same substance, but it isn't taxed nearly as much and it's illegal to use it in motor vehicles. IIRC, they add some sort of dye to heating oil so they can tell who's been putting it in their fuel tank. This probably works fairly well with trucks, since they can do spot checks at places like weigh stations. But for the average consumer in the northeast, where heating oil is very common, it would seem that there's very little that anyone can do to keep him from dipping into his heating oil tank. Even if he did get caught, he could argue that his wife brought the car home last night with the needle sitting right on empty and he just needed the fuel to get to the next gas station.

Maybe that is one of the reasons why diesel was not widely promoted in US (?).

Now that low sulphur diesel will be required for newer diesel cars not many people would want to foul or ruin their sensitive emissions system by putting in heating oil, right? Unless the heating oil is also some low sulphur formula.

M.J.

Bingo! Use heating oil, fail emission tests, spend big $$ to repair. On the other hand, biodiesel (including home made) won't bother the emission controls at all.

Hi,

Can't answer that for sure, but as a California resident, I've been told by diesel owners they currently don't have to go thru emissions testing. That may change now with more emissions equipment on the engines... California seldom misses a beat at taking our money to fulfill some new testing requirement!

Rick

"Nick Danger" a écrit dans le message de news: CSOLg.118$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe09.lga...

Regarding illegal use of heating oil, here in Switzerland you get a small fine the first time you get caught, but they check you again after a while, and if you get caught you just pay the double of what you could have saved by cheating in the previous 5 years. If it's a business with trucks, it might go bankrupt. Regards.

Well, it's a dirty little secret but it's not a coincidence that many farmers drive diesel cars and trucks and aren't particularly careful to keep the untaxed ag-diesel separate from the taxed road-diesel.

Furnace oil is also dyed. Here in Canada, any mechanic shop detecting the orange dye in the vehicle is required to report it.