OK TOYOTA, Now give us our diesel hybrid.

Diesel VW Sportwagen gets about 25% more mpg than gas VW Sportwagen, 33 mpg to 26 mpg.

 

I'm now seeing reviews indicating the Volvo's 'Hybrid' mode is definitely a blended mode, using both the ICE and plugged-in electricity. This is not the same as the non-plugin Prius hybrid mode.

The European diesel V60 Plug-in Hybrid D6, is being 'sold' (ordered) now for production starting in November 2012, for deliveries starting in December. In Hybrid mode, it is variously rated under NEDC as 49 gm/km of CO2, or 1.9 l/km, or NEDC 117 or 124 mpg.

The U.S. won't get the above diesel, but will likely get a turbocharged gasoline XC60 Plug-In Hybrid a year later, otherwise borrowing heavily from the V60 Plug-in powertrain. It appears to have NEDC Hybrid ratings 53 gm/km CO2, or 2.3l/km, or NEDC 102 mpg. These are not quite as good as its diesel sibling, but fairly close.

Highlighting the vast difference between NEDC and EPA scales, The XC60 Plugin's EPA Combined Hybrid mode rating will be the same as a non-plugin Prius: 50 mpg.

The XC60 will have a 14 gallon gas tank, smaller than its gasoline-only siblings but 17% larger than Prius' tank. XC60 will have a 12kwh plug-in battery, slightly larger than its diesel sibling and 800% larger than Prius' non-plug-in battery. With this larger fuel tank and huge precharged battery, it as a total range up to 600 miles -- a whopping 1% greater than Prius 595 miles.

I'm feeling like someone -- not Volvo -- has fed us a bill of goods. If Volvo's claims are realized, their hybrids seem to be a slight improvement over the Chevy Volt.

XC60 overview

Re: V60. "... Here we step into the difficult world of measuring the fuel consumption of a vehicle, which can operate on electricity or diesel only, or both. Like with the range-extending Vauxhall Ampera, there are circumstances where some owners doing very short daily journeys might hardly ever need to start the engine. By contrast, some owners might never charge up the battery from the mains, in which case they are using the diesel engine to charge the battery and the fuel consumption would be much higher."

"... Volvo says that as a rough guide, the plug-in V60 will attain fuel economy about 20 per cent better than the standard diesel model, but that contains some mighty assumptions about usage."

 

PS, my comment was regarding possible fuel economy improvement of a hybrid-diesel vs a hybrid-petrol.
Ignoring the energy/volume advantage (of ~ 8%) that diesel fuel has over petrol, diesel engines outperform petrol in passenger cars mostly because of a higher expansion ratio, and no air restrictor that leads to pumping losses. The hybrid-atkinson drivetrain solves those problems too, so a diesel ICE has little extra to offer a hybrid, fuel economy wise.

 

From Fuzzy's link

Let's break this down into components; but first, a correction: diesel has about 13.5% more energy/volum than petrol.

The Volvo manages 105 MPGe all electric, compared to 94 for the Chevy Volt. This implies that the car absent ICE use is 11.7% more efficient in energy/mile. When we switch to diesel-hybrid mode (no plug-in contribution), that 11.7% multiplied by diesel fuel's energy advantage implies that fuel economy over a Volt is 1.117*1.135 = 126.8%. So if a Volt ran a diesel engine that only benefited from the energy density, and had the Volvo's electric efficiency, volt-diesel fuel economy would be 37*1.26 = 46.62 MPG.

Now we know the diesel ICE advantage: 50/46.6 = 7.2%. But remember, this is compared to the mediocre petrol engine in the Volt.

Addendum:
A simpler argument --
The Volvo's hybrid MPG is 50 mpg by assumed EPA, or 44 MPG once we correct for diesel fuel's higher energy/volume. This car is a wagon, so I'll compare it to the Prius v -- 42 mpg by EPA. Diesel ICE advantage: 4.7%.

 

As for Europe this is easily explained: When the domestics don't produce hybrids, the majority of advertisement and pretty much all auto journalism will ignore the tech, or even fight against it (see Top Gear). The result is obvious and no one in Europe is complaining ... except those living in larger cities... and those selling hybrids... and environmentalists who know what is going on... oh, and a single diesel driver on some Prius message board.

 

Race car tech as in the premise of OP.

You really thing the fuel eonomy would rise like that by simply adding the diesel engine? Which diesel engine, btw? The only relatively light diesel that Toyota has is the 1.4 D-4D, and even this engine is heavy as hell, pushing almost 250kg with intercooler and turbo included. (vs 68kg for the 1.0 petrol engine which is standard in the cars that use this diesel engine)
If you compare it to the 3008 hybrid you must remember that Peugeot's system drains the batteries significantly more than Toyota allows the Prius to, and thus receives a huge bonus on the largely slow speed Euro fuel economy cycle.


You can't just pull those 25% out of nowhere.
And you can't get Toyota to make a diesel hybrid until diesels are just as clean a petrol engines.

 

Eyup...that's the same rating originally quoted from the original Volvo press release. Good to see it hasn't changed.

This is an AWD drive capable vehicle. A question is whether it will be available in FWD mode also, like the Ford Escape with the FWD version getting higher mileage due to less gear train and weight. And are the higher FWD mpg numbers the advertised ones, as Ford would do when advertising the Escape hybrid.

The Puegot 308 AWD Diesel Hybrid 62 mpg using US standard is likely a good guide.

The Diesel to gas conversion should yield a 25% improvement which would make Diesel Prius a 62 mpg vehicle BUT it is FWD while the Volvo V60 and the Peugot 308 are AWD.

With Volvo and Puegot out now with Diesel/EV/Hybrid AWD vehicles with 25% better hybrid mode mileage than the Prius, be fun to see where they are all at by 2015.

 

Please take it outside guys.

 

Depends on how you look at it. 100 and 150 can have a 50% or 33% difference. The 13.5% and 8% are both correct. (We can discuss the Fair Tax use of % in politics)

If the goal is to compare gasoline to diesel vehicle fuel efficiency, then use MPGe. It was developed for comparing all alternate fuels, not just electric.

MPGe=(total miles driven * energy of one gallon of gasoline)/total energy of all fuels consumed

The 50mpg of the Volvo diesel hybrid is 44.8MPGe. About a 10% difference. Ignoring things like increased weight with a diesel and turbo, a diesel Volt would get around 40.7mpg.

We can't apply differences in EV efficiencies to determine the hybrid ones. The 2013 Volt added a little to the battery and increase the SOC range. Its MPGe increased to 98, along with a bump in EV range. This had no effect on its fuel economy in CS mode.

 

I think this should be MPGe; MPG by your calc would be 40.7*1.135 = 46.2. Not too far off from my calculated 46.6. The difference is explained by your use of 11.6% more energy/volume in diesel, while I used 13.5%.

DrInnovation also objects to my use of EV MPGe numbers to isolate ICE efficiency performance differences between cars, but it makes sense to me
As you can see, the numbers match up.

 

Considering that Volvo's current system is a 'through the road' hybrid -- front wheels powered by the ICE, rear by the electric, so the mechanical connection between them is 'through the road' -- it is inherently AWD. To get a FWD, they will need to develop a different system.

You mean a Diesel PiP running in blended ICE/Plugin mode. Any non-plugin Prius mpg rating is not comparable to the Volvo's blended Hybrid mode.

Several videos and write-ups, and the MPG / Range / Fuel Tank combinations, make crystal clear that Volvo's mpg ratings are dependent on using both energy sources to get that hybrid mode rating. It cannot keep up this mpg for a full tank without stopping to plug in to recharge multiple times.

See my comments above. Volvo's hybrid mode includes a plug-in contribution.

Volvo's 50 mpg-EPA is for the gas version. I'm guessing the diesel version would be a hair above 60 mpg-EPA, in blended hybrid-plugin mode.

 

Excellent. That means the 117 mpg hybrid mode you posted is for AWD and not a FWD version.

 

As long as you keep mentioning mpg ratings without maintaining any real clarity (or reality) about what is really being measured on what scale, should I also mention that Prius PHV has a 143 mpg rating?

And that is even US gallons, not Imperial gallons.

 

You were the one who posted that that Volvo V60 was rated at 117 mpg.

 

I got it from post #23 of this thread:

and post #70:

and post #95:

 

Never mind just got skooled by qbee.

Huh?

Imperial gallons are larger than US gallons. So comparing the smaller (US) to the larger (Imperial) and noting it, isn't a salient point. YMMV

1.00 Imperial Gallon = 1.201 Us gallons.

 

You got it from the Volvo V60 press release just like I did. The point is you are complaining about it on one hand and fluffing it as "good info" on the other.

 

The Volvo materials are ordinary marketing fluff. You have pushed the misportrayal envelope well beyond that.

 

I really want to see the look on your face when you see it!