Now, Lexus Fires Up Diesel Owners

Thanks for replying. I didn't state this was a measure of efficiency. I merely pointed to a fact about my experience that I enjoy with the Jetta. I generally get more miles out of one tank. This is a slight advantage to me on longer trips out of town.

Yes, the tank size is larger and so it makes sense that one would get more miles out of a tank. Thanks for pointing that out. But again, there was no mention of efficiency based on miles-on-a-tank. I did also state that I was receiving lower mpg's in general. This, to me, would be a better measure of efficiency.

Again, thanks for your reply.

 

Yes more miles per tank is nice to have. It is nice to be able to take a road trip and drive without having to stop for fuel until I reach my final destination for the day. It's true that not all stations sell diesel but I've only had that problem once (solved by driving a block down the road to the next station), but having to fill 30% less frequently more than makes up for it in my experience.

BTW you can fill your car with B5 with no worries about warranty. Anything higher is too much though.

 

While another poster already replied, it is worth repeating --

That classification is driven by old diesels without emission controls, including heavy industrial equipment, not by the current generation of emission-controlled passenger cars.

The equivalent gasoline engines were also a serious and immediate health hazard. Their CO content was so high that they were commonly used as a means of suicide.

If you use of the sins of the old diesels to argue against the modern diesels, you should do the same for gasoline engines.

 

Wow. I don't know how this could apply to the fcv Lexus is pushing. I mean there are only around 18,000 gas stations that sell diesel, that must be a problem. For hydrogen the numbers are much better 8 in southern california, 1 in northern california, and the range of the vehicle isn't good enough to make it from southern california to a northn california hydrogen station. That is much more convient than diesel or a phev.

 

Lexus has a perky PR firm these days. Good for them.

 

If you have to resort to putting down other technologies, diesel in this case, you've probably got an issue selling cars. Clearly Lexus is worried about potential sales being lost to BMW, Audi and Mercedes. this week. Last week it was Tesla.

Honestly it's one of the dumbest ads I've ever seen......... Uh I can't find a diesel station. Really, what fricken century are you living in. Couple that with a diesels atypical large tank, long range capability. I mean seriously, I could think of some other great points, but not finding a fuel station is beyond LAME!!!!

 

Too bad Lexus/Toyota can't advertise that way ... touting the good points. You start slinging mud, and you end up with dirty hands. What a shame. That said, has diesel exhaust reached the level of SULEV in both EU & US markets?
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I haven't seen a sulev one yet, but does it matter. I think SULEV is just some dumb name carb added to confuse people. Don't see any SULEV lexus that isn't a hybrid. So here we have the lexus is and the bmw 3d

Compare Side-by-Side
In texas they both get pollution ratings of 5 (not so good compared to the prius, but great compared to 20 year old diesels). Lexus can't really hit up diesels on pollution when its similar to their competing car.

They can talk about price performance, but EPA is saying you'll spend $4K less in 5 years on fuel with the diesel, so its just really performance.

They could try selling the Lexus ESh versus the bmw 3d, but really the camry hybrid might be a better competitor. That doesn't help sell Lexus.

 

the wiki says the difference defined by CARB is that ULEV is 50% (versus 90% SULEV) less emissions than the average car for a given model year.
Ultra-low emission vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That would seem to be a pretty hefty difference. But with autos getting cleaner & cleaner, eventually that'd seem to be a diminishing difference/quantity of pollution.
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Reminds me of a conversation from last year:
- "I like your Beetle"
Thanks It's a diesel-powered car and gives me 50 mpg.

- "Oh I don't like diesel."
Why not?
- "It smells."
Do you smell anything now?
- "Well no."
And you said you liked the car.
- "That was before. Now I don't like it because it's diesel."

(sigh). I never invited her to ride to lunch again. I really need to move back to the northeast where people are not quite so..... calcified in their views. Like Brian Cooley on CNET said, "I live in San Francisco. If I drive a truck or a diesel car, they will key it!"

I really don't understand the anti-diesel attitude. MPG Car Rental near LA has mostly hybrids, but also diesels. They are open-minded about it. And several reviews of the BMW with straight-six engine said, "It's so quiet you think it's gasoline. But much better driving." Wards Auto gave it an award for best engine (three times).

 

Diesel runs the economy - look at how goods are delivered - by truck and rail. Both powered by: you guessed it: diesel.

DBCassidy

 

Let's look at EPA
the Lexus IS 250 and bmw 328d both are level 5 in bin 5. That seems straightforward. There are 10 bins for light vehicles, and bin 5 is for fleet average. The jetta diesel also level 5 bin 5, but the camry hybrid is cleaner. It is bin 3 and 7 (lower bin number is cleaner, higher number is cleaner). Ok we can tell the differences and the numbers are on a scale.
Compare Side-by-Side

Now on the CARB side, that epa in its poor judgement may adopt, we have low emissions, which really is the highest allowed in a new car. Wth. Are we back to 1984 and the ministry of propaganda. OK Low is the highest. Then we have ultra low, which I guess is half way. Nothing about safe emissions I think they decided that was low. OK so if your in the middle you are ultra low. Now the jetta diesel and lexus IS are right in the middle of the pack according to the EPA bins (average fleet emissions) but get ultra low for CARB. The bmw 328d, probably is right there, but one number crosses the threshold and it's low not ultra low. Seems pretty arbitrary, but you know if all are low and half are ultra low, you need to make up anouther word, how about super duper ultra low. Nah get rid of the duper. Super ultra low. So some cars are right on the cusp here, but don't make it. Why? NOx is broken out independantly. They may make it so its NMOG + NOx as a single number, then things like the 2010 volt make it, and other cars don't because its some kind of percentile thing. Wait the 2010 volt ueses its ice for less than half the miles, so polutants are actually lower than SULEV cars, but it missed a number, and no credit for electric miles, or net impact of all polutants.

Now CARB decided they needed a new ranking and figured PZEV, hell because they may have thought super duper ultra low sounded too stupid even for them. What do we get here, yes waranty requiements. You get lower emissions if the manufacturer provides a 15 year 150,000 waranty. Oopsy, the prius couldn't do that waranty, so they got a waiver. Yes waranty or waiver for PZEV. I don't like it, and its just going to get worse.

We have that in the BEVx, the only one, where CARB decided the size of the gas tank determines how high the emissions are.

 

I can see how they would think that. the more fuel it holds the more it can burn, right?

 

Hey seftonm,
Thanks for this info. Yes, I do remember the dealer stating that B5 was okay. I usually just stick to the pure Diesel 2 for now. If there was no problems with the warranty, I would love to try B100 to improve CO2 emissions. But I'm a rule follower and I like to play it safe.
Thanks again.

 

Hey Troy,
I kind of agree with you. Views change so slowly in the world. I don't see anything wrong with Diesel vehicles at the consumer level right now. My only concern is that any fuel efficiency is cancelled by the price of fuel. If you compared a Diesel vehicle to another luxury vehicle that gets 26mpg and requires super- or supreme-unleaded, then I can see choosing Diesel. But if you are looking for the most efficient vehicle in terms of total cost over 5 years, I would have to say the Prius hands-down.

I completely agree with you that the smell is a non-issue.

 

We might already be at the point of diminishing returns with pollutants being measured in hundredths of a gram per mile. LEV is equal to bin5 EPA. To meet the 11yr/120k mi target, a LEV car would have to emit less than 982g per year of NMOG. For an ULEV one, it would be 600g. A SULEV, 109g. For NOx, the LEV and ULEV would be limited to 764g. The SULEV car at 218g. The numbers look big, but a gram is equal to 0.035274 ounces. We are looking at a little over 2 pounds for worse emission level to @3.5ounces for the lowest. A 30mpg car would have burned 364gals of fuel during that time. A Prius would have used 218gals.
Emission Standards: USA: Cars and Light-Duty Trucks—California
DieselNet: Diesel Exhaust Emission Standards
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

I think the the BMW 328d could meet SULEV, but the company may not have wanted to warrant it out for the 11yr/120k mi limits. Keep in mind exceeding a limit for just one pollutant category puts the car into the next 'worse bracket regardless of how well it did in the others. The CO limit is really for gas vehicles. Diesels fly past that one. The EU standards are separate for petrol and diesel. The diesel CO limit is a fraction of the petrol one. NOx tends to be the difficult one for diesels. A hypothetical diesel car can meet SULEV for everything else, but is the NOx is high, it is labeled an ULEV or even LEV. I wish it was easier to get a car's actual numbers for emissions.

Use B5, it is safe for your car, and is probably better for the fuel pump and injectors than straight US diesel. Because VW injects fuel into the exhaust stroke instead of directly into the exhaust for DPF regeneration, higher concentrations of biodiesel can lead to it gunking up in the cylinder and getting into the oil.

 

All the cities in the world with smog problems where cars are major contributors should disagree with you.

If you think a mg is a small amount, consider how many miles cars are driven a year in the US: About 3 * 10^12 miles

 

Yep, but like many in government, they forgot that you can fill it up more often, and burn the same amount as a bigger tank. I think maybe carb doesn't want these BEVx cars to be easy to drive out of state

Ok, I think its great that we have minimum emissions standards that work to reduce pollution in most places (maybe too high for LA). Why label this as Low emissions vehicle? I think we have dumbed down low emission, if every new vehicle is low emission.

We do know that on at least one pollutant the jetta tdi is in the middle of the pack. The prius is lowest group, by some arbitrary standardard. If I were to guess its NOx that is the pollutant, and they could make it lower with a little bit better SCR, but why pay the money if its low enough for the potential customers. The jetta tdi should be much lower in pollutants than the average car driven in southern California, but the prius probably releases cleaner air in LA than goes into the engine.