[SGVLUG] [OT] Especially for Tom & his Prius.... [my rebuttal, then I'll shut up]

[Dustin Laurence]

On Wed, Jul 12, 2006 at 10:00:07AM -0400, James Neff wrote:
> >
> I found this on GM's website.  They mentioned in the article that they
> choose a diesel hybrid because it seems more marketable in Europe.  Does
> Europe have more demand for diesel than the US?  If so, I wonder why?

Heh.  Here are some fearless half-baked opinions likely to earn me
flames from the Europeans, expats, and ex-expats on the list.  You guys
should have some first-hand knowledge, why not chime in?  I believe we
have members with ties to Germany, the home of modern diesel tech.

Oh, right, those opinions...

Some would say because they care more about fuel efficiency.  It's not
*quite* that simple.  It's mostly true, I suppose--since Europe taxes
fuel at a much higher rate, they were much more motivated to find ways
to cut fuel consumption, and diesels are inherently much more efficient
(which shows the tax law was a success--if we used the same incentives
our cars would look completely different too).  Diesels are inherently
more polluting, and with cheap gasoline there wasn't that much
motivation to see if it could be engineered around in this country.
Turns out (against my expectations years ago) that it can be--there was
a lot more latent capability in diesel than it looked.  European
automakers had both the motivation and technology.

There is also a matter of what you want out of a car.  US consumers want
their cars as much like their living room couch as possible, thus the
soft rides and automatic transmissions.  Diesels inherently require a
bit more knowledge.  I don't think it's an accident that VW diesels sell
mostly with sticks--the crowd that doesn't mind having to do more
things for themselves has a greater tendancy to like both.  There is
some correlation between preferring to row your car by hand and knowing
what the cloud point of #2 diesel is....

Like Linux people, come to think of it.  And the on-line TDI IRC channel
seems to be 50% Linux users, so there is some data to support that. :-)

It's not *quite* that simple, wowever--what the "hate Amerika first"
squad doesn't usually mention is that Europe also apparently taxes
diesel at a lower rate, so it also takes advantage of a quirk of the tax
code.  Not to say that diesel isn't great, the modern advanced diesels
are, but like anywhere else taxes skew the results.  So Europe actually
actively incentivized diesel.  By contrast with the very influential
CARB banning light diesels in the biggest and most influential car
market in the world, we strongly disincentivized it (if you can't sell
light diesels in California or New York, why bother to do all the
development work to EPA certify them in the US at all?).  The adoption
rates here and in Europe seem to follow the government incentives very
well.

> ...I
> know Europe has higher standards on diesel fuel than the US did but I
> think the new ULS should bring us in line with them.  Maybe by the end
> of 2006 the will see more of these kinds of cars aimed at the US.

Yeah.  I hope so, given the amazing fuel economy of the VW diesels.
They still require more knowledge than gasoline, but much more
convenient than they used to be.  I think you're right that the sulfur
standard is critical--I hope conditions will be close enough that it's
feasible to certify European-spec diesels here without much expense.  If
that isn't true I don't think they'll come--they can't justify the
expense of new development when there isn't an existing market.

They'll have to be smart enough to provide plenty of automatics, though.
In the US manual guarantees a niche market at best.  P.T. Barnum,
Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus Christ working together couldn't sell manuals
to the vast majority of the US car-buying public.  Whine all you like,
but it's absolutely true.

One of the few weak design points of the VW diesels is that you get an
unusually large MPG penalty for the automatic, like 20%.  It should be
closer to 5-7%, if my very poor memory serves.  That's probably not
better than my '65 Dodge got.  I suppose the torque converter doesn't
lock up.  Frankly I don't think VW knows how to make a decent automatic,
they should just admit it and buy good ones from someone else.

My conclusion is that VW has great engineering, so-so manufacturing, and
a very bad US marketing department.

> http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv_tech/100_news/astra_011005.html
> 
> If I did my math right, thats 152 MPG and "62 mph = less than 8
> seconds".  Where can I buy one?

You didn't do the math right.

100 km/4 l * (0.62 mi/km) * (3.79 l/gal) ~ 59 mpg

Nice, but not staggering.  I wrote that you were wrong before I checked
the numbers, because there is no way they got better than three times
the economy of a Golf or Prius with the technology they mentioned. :-)
Hybrid drive trains help, but not that much and mostly for city driving.

Dustin

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