Non-hybrid fixes for MPG

The folks who might stop the EPA are the congresscritters who believe green is the color of money. The EPA itself is wanting green within the limits of practicality (and lets stretch).

 

Mike,
Those congress critters seem to obey! the lobbiests.

The insurance institute, wants heavier more expensive cars.

The UAW wants more suv's and trucks made in america that require more Union workers. CARB wants to squeeze NOx and particulates with pollution controls.

None of the lobbyist seem to want a compromise. Money is protected speach, but who will protect us from the lobbiests.

All the ideas sound good right. You want a safe car right. We need to regulate to make your car safe. But does it really need to be much heavier and more expensive than a car in 1990? Where is the limit?

NOx is dangerous, sure. Does it need to go to 0? Particulates? Same question. A 10 year waranty sounds good, should it delay adoption of hybrids and phevs with the added price? Will a phev with a shorter range from battery loss pollute more than a 8 year old ice? The logic is quite crazy.

American jobs and american made cars are good ideas, but they don't make the car I wanted in america. Shouldn't I get to have the choice to buy a prius?

 

My less snarky reply -

These two will be rapidly adopted now. They just are new. Turbo-charging for fuel economy is greatly helped by di, and this is a fairly new technology.

Not necessarily a bad thing. Only vw has gotten deactivation to work in a 4 cylinder. If the reason is that more efficient cars have down sized engines to 4 cylinder than that is progress not a problem.

I don't think there is huge savings going from 6 to 8 or cvt. The big thing is going from 4 to 6 speeds which is happening.

Both have cost and perception problems. Both should gain market share, but this have been slow.

Not mentioned here are some neat technologies like automatic grill shutters. These both improve aerodynamics and speed ice warm up. Because the epa tests are biased toward lower speeds and already warm engines we will see the difference more in real driving than epa testing.

I think we need to gut the epa and stream line things. Regulations are quite cryptic. There is no reason why the NHTSA and EPA and DOE and CARB are all regulating cafe, it should be only one. Three of these also put rules up that hurt efficiency. There is no reason that if we call a tall car a light truck it goes by one rule, if we call it a car it goes by a different rule, if it can use e85 there are two other rules. If we decide it is the EPA, and not those other agencies, then gut it from them. The agency that seems to have the fewest conflicts of interest on cafe would seem to be the DOE, but really I would be happy with one agency even with the conflicting interests instead of 4.

 

I noticed this morning that one of my tires looked low. I checked and it was down to 31.5. Since I have tpms I haven't been checking my tires. The tire guys must have under filled back to factory spec when I rotated... gr then reset the tpms. Maybe just a digital read out would help. I don't think we need to add air compessors just a little more information.

An eco + radar cruise control would help. The prius lacks good sound feedback on speed, and with the lack of feel on the gas pedal, I actually have to look at instuments, but.... so much traffic on the highway I can't just leave it in cruise. It would be great if you could buy that without upgrading also to an expensive trim with lots of things you don't really want. Link it in to gps and maps and it can do a great job anticipating hills and calculating aerodynamic/bsfc to hit an approximate average speed most efficiently.

 

The Fords have this now, and it does work well. They should take it a step further though and integrate it with GPS and Nav maps so it can anticipate hills, which will further increase fuel efficiency. They could also learn your route that you drive on a daily basis to go one step further. The Hybrids have what they call EV+ mode that learns your stops via the trip meter, and when you get within 1/2 mile will attempt to keep you on EV until you get there.

 

somebody is going to make a load of money when the turbocharger bearings go at 80,000 to 100,000 miles.


i will never buy another car with one

 

Sounds like the things I heard about the hybrid batteries. What year turbo broke on you?

 

For $32,000, the new BMW 320d Efficient Dynamics Edition gets 57 miles per gallon of diesel fuel. It can go 800 miles per tank of fuel. Zero to 60 is about 8 seconds. It has 280 ft-lb of torque making it easy to pass other cars and climb mountains. It has run-flat tires. It is a luxury car.

This looks like an absolute winner compared to the Prius Plug-In.

 

Is it available in the US? I don't see it as a choice at
BMW 3 Series Overview - BMW North America
.

From where do you get your "57 miles per gallon" from? I see BMW CO2 model finder : BMW 3 Series Sedan 320d stating 4.8l/100 km which translates into 58.8 miles per Imperial gallon or 49 miles per US gallon, on what is almost certainly an inflated European test cycle.

Per
Select a search : Directgov - Car fuel data, CO2 and vehicle tax tools

(you may have to visit the URL twice), the '12 Prius gets 72.4 miles per gallon combined... well, that's in Imperial gallons or 60.286 miles per US gallon.

 

57 MPG on NEDC cycle, regular Prius gets 60 MPG on that same cycle. The BMW is very, very good and in Europe cheaper to fill, because diesel is cheaper than gasoline.
But energy consumed is still greater, around 15% compared to Prius.

There is also new Mazda 6 2.2 diesel (110 kW) that gets similar numbers. If you look at 1.6 diesels there are many, but they are also underpowered.

 

As I posted, I suspect that "57 mpg" is using larger Imperial gallons, meaning it's 49 miles per US gallon vs. the Prius' 60 miles per US gallon on that test.

Or, if you want to stick w/Imperial gallons, it's 57 vs. 72.

 

No, on NEDC cycle consumption is 68.9 imperial MPG or 4,1 l/100 km:

BMW 3 Series Saloon: Engines

But as you noted the US version gets only 4.8 l/100 km on NEDC cycle, maybe stricter emissions, maybe cheaper or more robust drive train, maybe tyres, more kW (10 more) ...

 

Thank you for some corrections. Ok, so it's 68.9 miles per Imperial gallon for the aformentioned 320d vs. 72.4 miles per Imperial gallon for the ~$24K Prius. That figure is quite admittedly quite impressive.

As for the bolded part, there IS NO US version. I can find no 3-series diesels of any sort at
BMW 3 Series Overview - BMW North America
. Awhile ago, there was the (now previous gen) 335d 2009 BMW 335d - Road Test - Car Reviews - Car and Driver that started at almost $45K that achieved 27 mpg (US gallons) on the EPA test: Compare Side-by-Side.

Since some people here and elsewhere are so fond of looking at the "payback"/breakeven period of hybrids, C&D did that for the 335d. It was 960K miles vs. the 328i (http://media.caranddriver.com/files/2009-bmw-335d-2.pdf).

 

In Europe D4D 1.4l litre Toyota engine had some problems lately, and many went much sooner than that. Ford tdci engines also MY2007-
Two friends of mine saw their BMW320d turbos go at 80k miles, at 5-7years.

Turbos are prone to wear, as any moving part. May be later, but someday will fail, at a cost (fortunately not high)

 

The new BMW 3 Series diesel will be introduced (as 328d) at the New York International Auto Show later this month...

BMW Concept Active Tourer and BMW 3 Series Gran Turismo to Make North American Debuts; Diesel-Powered BMW 328d to Make U.S. Debut at the 2013 New York International Auto Show on March 27

 

"... mileage that could well exceed 40 mpg (official US EPA estimates will be available closer to the launch of the 328d)."

So that 57 mpg is clearly not EPA, BMW is not yet certain that it will get even 40 mpg on the EPA test. Perhaps it is time to re-read Cwerdna's post linking the story about how Euro MPG tests are doctored versions of unrealistic tests of specially optimized non-production vehicles, far beyond what happens in the U.S.

 

I agree.

Based on the relative difference between the Euro-spec 320d and the Euro-spec 335d, and applying that relative difference to the U.S.-spec 335d (23 mpg city, 36 mpg highway, 27 mpg combined in the EPA 5-cycle), the the 328d (as the 320d is apparently going to be called here) should get in the neighborhood of 37 mpg city, 47 mpg highway, 41 mpg combined in the EPA 5-cycle.

Looks like we should know for sure shortly.

 

Some part of turbo issues is that lubrication and cooling stop when the engine (with almost exclusively a mechanical oil pump) quits. A hybrid with an electric oil pump (none do yet) could be designed to continue to cool and lubricate a turbo after the engine quit. I can't help but believe that would improve reliability.