NY Times: Cruze "Fossil fuel milage champ"; hybrids still win city, burbs

Yes I popped up the fuel econmomy with similar cars the jetta diesel, the eco cruise, the jetta hybrid. They go from higher to lower in fuel dollars and ghg.

Where diesel seems to shine is on heavier vehicles, where the weight penalty is not as high. Diesels work well in lean burn, that works much better than say a gasoline engine on a heavy vehicle like a bus. Even the bus was outfitted with a plug-in hybrid system there could not be much engine downsizing, meaning a diesel hybrid bus would do best. On a light vehicle like the cruise and jetta, diesels will appeal to a segment of buyers, but it won't out do the performance of an ice (VW GLI) or the fuel economy of a hybrid. The diesel premium has increased with emissions requirements, while the hybrid premium is shrinking (although not fast enough for me). In europe with tax policy favoring diesels, and emissions requirements still allowing more pollution and lower costs, there is a different market.

 

If we judge by fuelly, only plug-ins really make this benchmark.

22 is the median fuel economy. I would say 33 - 50% better than median is quite good, while the prius and prius c are excellent. I don't know why people want to call good numbers terrible. We heard it on the volt also. 37mpg that is awful. When we do the math though a 33 mpg car at 15,000 miles per year will use 455 gallons of fuel a year a savings of 227 gallons of that average car. A prius at 48 fuelly (I'd like a better measure but diesels seem to do slightly better in the real world than on epa tests) consumes 312 gallons, or 133 less than that diesel. That volt will use only 145 gallons (and a bunch of electricity).

Again I would set good at 33mpg, and move it up as the average moves.

 

Automatics have come a long way in improving economy, and the sad fact is that manuals have maybe a 10% take rate in the US. Then the auto marketing seem to think that only euthusists want manual. So, if there is a manual manual, it will be geared for performance, and not get much better in fuel economy over the automatic.

If it's reasonable, why does only 2 of Toyota's hybrids reach it?

Have you actually seen the hard numbers behind the emission ratings?
Light-Duty Vehicle, Light-Duty Truck, and Medium-Duty Passenger Vehicle Tier 2 -- Exhaust Emission Standards and Implementation Schedule | Emission Standards Reference Guide | US EPA
The pollutants are measured grams per mile. Only CO is actually produced in grams. The rest are down in the fractions. These cars are far from filthy. Considering gasoline emissions has a couple decades of advances on them, diesels are doing well at this point. They can be cleaner, but improvements take time.

 

Yes

Does that make you feel better ? How about hundreds of micrograms a mile ? You have to look at the combined effect of a fleet using these levels of emissions on environment and health.

Faint praise, and not my concern. Let me know when diesels are cleaner than a Prius.

If you want to talk about truck diesels getting cleaner in a separate thread I'd be interested. To read, not to buy.

 

The repair costs of a Volkswagen - a European car - is similar to that of other luxury automobiles. Thus if you like luxury, the repair cost is no big deal.

In California, the legislature increased gasoline taxes by 30 cents. This makes diesel equal to regular gas in price. Thus for California drivers who drive long distances, diesels are cheaper than gas cars since they also get higher mileage.

 

Yes, the Cruze is more fun to drive than a hybrid. Acceleration - particularly in curves, mountains, and from 60-120 mph is much better. The Cruze is like the hare and the Prius is like the tortoise.

Realize that car enthusiasts hate hybrids because they simply don't have sports car driving characteristics.

 

Some drivers have lead feet, had acceleration, and fast drives, They will obviously drive the fuel economy down.

The average Cruze Diesel driver on Fuelly.com gets 41.4 MPG. That is pretty good compared to the average Prius III driver who is getting 48 MPG.

The difference in cost of fuel: the Cruze Diesel driver pays about $29 more a month for fuel than the Prius III driver when driving 25,000 miles a year and the cost of fuel at $4.25/gallon.

 

Darn, wrong car again.

Bob Wilson

 

It could be more fun to drive if you can quick accelerate it from a stop light without high noise level and big time turbo lag, and based on the discussion at Autoline Daily, maybe half of the Prius mileage in stop-N-go traffic.

 

New turbos are much better in regards to the turbo lag. Of course, nothing compares to the instant torque of an electric motor.

 

Eight or so years ago, Ford had diesel hybrid car and SUV. They would have met the SULEV of the time. Cost was the reason Ford never brought a diesel hybrid to market. It is possible to make a diesel as clean as a Prius. It isn't available now because of cost and/or negative impact on fuel economy. But emissions control of diesel passenger cars is still relatively new. So there is room for improvement, and no reason to not see it.


As for the fleet now, diesel cars are a smaller segment than hybrids. Compared to the best selling, and larger fleet on the road, family sedan and its smaller stable mate, the Cruze and Jetta diesel are just as clean. (I have no idea why some cars have two emission ratings on the EPA site. Used to be federal and Carb, but now you can select the state and still get two.)

Compare Side-by-Side

 

The NYT review is essentially advertisement for the Chevy Diesel Cruze. I agree - Fuelly needs at least a full year of data ( with winter driving conditions) to get a reasonable overall MPG profile of a vehicle. It is about 110 miles (0ne way) from Monticello to Brooklyn NY so even if the reporter was talking about a round trip 220 miles in 4.5 hours - that means the author is going about 48 mph most of the time to achieve the reported highway segment 49 mpg using Diesel -- which cost $4.15 per gallon in Monticello, NY (rather than using cheaper gas which cost $3.85 per gallon in Monticello) . A Prius driven at about 48 mph for 110 miles one way is going to get about +60 mpg.

Diesel tend to accelerate a tad slower unless they get a turbo booster. Diesel engines are a tad more fuel efficient than the Atkinson Cycle gas engines that are in hybrids like the Prius and much more fuel efficient than a conventional Otto cycle gas engine one would find on a standard Cruze. However, even with low sulfer clean diesel fuel - diesel emission levels are just so so. The Prius emission levels are much lower. Diesel fuel is also more expensive than regular gasoline use by the Prius so cost wise diesels cost more per mile. Diesel has a higher freezing point than gas and in cold temperatures have a harder time starting up ( Diesel engines benefit more from an engine block heater in the winter time than a gasoline based engine). Diesels fuel efficiency shines in highway driving but is so so in the City. Diesel based designs are also mechanically and electrically less complex than a hybrid based design - so diesel in theory can be more reliable and having lower maintenance cost than a hybrid design.

 

You should visit Europe and watch "clean" diesels in their daily service, not on paper or by manufacturers marketing...

No vehicle is clean, but black fumes do persist in diesel even with cleaner exhaust control, not to mention the blue emissions when regenerating DPF...

 

According to the EPA, burning diesel fuel emits about 14.5% more CO2 than burning gasoline. So, for global warming purposes, the 41.4 mpg for the Cruze diesel is comparable to 36 mpg vs. the 48 mpg of the average Prius driver.

 

The Prius and some other cars are much cleaner, but if you define diesel emissions as so so or filthy, you likely have to say the same of the majority of gasoline cars sold.

Of the few diesel cars and trucks I have seen, that fall under the current emission regulations here, none were smoking.I see more older gasoline cars smoking or just stinking.

Now, diesels are more reliable than gasoline vehicles. At least, their higher inherent value and rarity makes repairing them more attractive. ULSD only became available in 2006. So, the chance that any diesel seen on the road being pre-emissions are pretty good.

Considering the amount of attention the average person gives to the MY differences of most cars. They are probably clueless on the pick up truck changes. Them thinking the old, dirty diesels are actually new, cleaner ones is likely. They may not even notice the new car next to them is a diesel.

 

A LOT more than 14%.

This graph is from fueleconomy.gov data of combined tailpipe and upstream emissions:

 

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/documents/420f11041.pdf

Grams of CO2 per gallon burned:

10,180 / 8,887 = 1.145

Diesel requires slightly lower refinery losses than gasoline since it is less processed but otherwise has the same upstream emissions.

 

THEN, during the days when diesels had no SCR, no DPF, no high pressure injectors ... they were more reliable than petrol cars.

In order to meet least stringent pollution requirement in the US, diesels have lost their CO2 and reliability advantages.

 

Not according to fuelEconomy.gov

 

The counter to that is that the Cruze can burn B20.
As of now, diesel has the better chance of being displaced by renewables than gasoline. The unfortunate thing is that the manufacturers haven't had the incentive to make their engines more compatible with them.