FCA to quit diesels

[dznf0g]

Enter mods...stage left......

[moosetags]

We are watching, and this thread is already crossing the "no politics" line. Also, being nice is required.

Brian

[Mollysdad]

Originally Posted by jcl

I understand the new small GM diesel came from GM's diesel centre of excellence in Italy, ...

Sorry, but I read that and started chuckling. My bad. I guess it was that Fiat I once owned.

[jcl]

Originally Posted by Mollysdad

Sorry, but I read that and started chuckling. My bad. I guess it was that Fiat I once owned.

The centre had close ties to Fiat. It is in Turin, the T in Fiat. It was part of a joint Fiat GM powertrain effort. It works on diesel projects for GM for worldwide markets, including the Duramax.

Interesting article here, including some discussion of the future of diesels for GM:

http://europe.autonews.com/article/2...h-into-diesels

All that said, if we are going to slag Fiat then that opens up the whole question of them owning Ram.

[sbowman]

Apologize if my self humor caused issue w/some, was not my intent.

Understand we have the motor and the battery is the issue. Also understand HAZMAT issue's w/batteries, whether being made or disposing of. Most people do not look into this issue.

My intent was nothing more than, when one starts to research on the why, what, and where in a every changing industry such as vehicles and moving forward, government regulation and politics has been and continues to drive the industry for many years now. Not saying bad or good, just stating what is what.

Yes a few at VW committed criminal actions. Do not disagree. Remember the FORD Pinto exploding gas tank?

I digress, apologize.

Me I do not see Diesel going away in my life time. Could be wrong. Hopefully some engineer is working on something along the lines of such fuel used in "Back To The Future Delorean". Humor please note.

Best regards and safe travels

[Rocinante]

...and then, there's this story. A German court has ruled that in Germany, cities and towns can ban diesel-powered vehicles (I think the focus is on cars) from their cities and towns: https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ckle-pollution

Perhaps another incentive for FCA to "quit diesels" - at least in cars.

[soling917]

According to what I read FCA will drop diesel from cars, but not trucks.

[jcl]

Originally Posted by sbowman

Me I do not see Diesel going away in my life time. Could be wrong. Hopefully some engineer is working on something along the lines of such fuel used in "Back To The Future Delorean". Humor please note.

Best regards and safe travels

I don't think diesel is going away any time soon. But recall that the article was about passenger vehicles, so all the examples of heavy trucks, and even medium duty trucks, is a whole other issue.

With heavy trucks (eg class 8), there are bridging solutions being developed. Prior to retirement, I led an engineering product development team at a developer of LNG fuel systems for heavy trucks (and rail locomotives, and marine, and so on). Those trucks are on the road today. The locos are still in early demo stages, the marine products are operating. We used a dual fuel approach (standard diesel engine mechanically, new custom injector with dual concentric sprays of diesel and natural gas) whereby the NG was injected first, but didn't ignite due to the characteristics of NG, then a small amount of diesel (eg 5%) was injected and it ignited just like it would in a diesel, but now acting as a type of "liquid spark plug" for the natural gas mixture in the cylinder. So the engines worked just like a diesel, had the same power and torque characteristics, were significantly cleaner at the tailpipe due to less diesel combusted, were noticeably quieter due to the different combustion characteristic, and so on. More expensive up front than a straight diesel. Cheaper to operate due to NG fuel prices. Of course, to get the range required, one had a cryogenic LNG tank on board and all that entailed (a little back to the future-ish, I suppose). But the point of all this? The diesel was still there. It couldn't go away, it was what made igniting the NG possible. Sure, you can build a natural gas recip engine with a spark plug, but then you have the power and torque characteristics of a gasoline spark ignited engine, and truckers like the characteristics of a diesel in terms of lugging ability, and so on.

It won't be one answer in the future. Urban delivery will go electric IMO. Trucks or buses working from a set base of operations can use natural gas with refueling at the depot. Long haul will depend on there being a network of stations being built for whatever fuel is used. But the solution won't be homogenous, they will all be in the mix. One thing I am confident of is that it won't look just like today.

Cheers

Jeff

[Countryboy59]

Originally Posted by dznf0g

But, recent scuttlebutt in the industry says both European consumers and govts have fallen out of love with diesels. Landscape is changing....again.

Europe is phasing them out in passenger cars.

[Voltair]

Thanks Jeff,
A very good sensible contribution.
I tune my mechanical pumped diesel in such a way as to get the efficiency in power output eg how little money goes in the tank to tow something the longest distance with the least pollution being emitted .
Bottom line above is the most important for our grandchildren's future here, so it would be good for me to follow up on this Natural Gas addition, what would be emitted out off the back end, I wonder?
This could alleviate the concerns off the masses regarding the use off smaller diesel cars.
Russ

[jcl]

Originally Posted by Voltair

Thanks Jeff,
A very good sensible contribution.
I tune my mechanical pumped diesel in such a way as to get the efficiency in power output eg how little money goes in the tank to tow something the longest distance with the least pollution being emitted .
Bottom line above is the most important for our grandchildren's future here, so it would be good for me to follow up on this Natural Gas addition, what would be emitted out off the back end, I wonder?
This could alleviate the concerns off the masses regarding the use off smaller diesel cars.
Russ

The emissions reduction of a dual fuel diesel/NG engine can be anywhere from 10% to 75% reduction in tailpipe emissions, in very rough numbers. Lots of qualifiers, though. It depends on the technology used, and the source of the gas. With a class 8 truck, we thought of ballpark 30-40% reduction figures, but we were working on tailpipe emissions, starting from the tank, and in the real world you also need to think about well-to-wheel emissions if we are going to do this for our grandchildren's children. That means thinking about the emissions at the well and during transportation. If we use recycled NG (landfill) on the other hand, the gains are impressive.

For existing diesels, there are retrofit kits for larger engines that essentially add NG at low pressure in the intake, and then require less diesel to produce the same power. Those are low tech designs, generally. They don't have precise fuel mixture control, so don't show big savings on emissions. We had a local ferry running here with Cat 3406 engines with such a dual fuel system. With the high pressure direct injection NG solution such as offered by Westport (www.westport.com) there were significant benefits to emissions, but this is not a retrofit kit, it is a new engine optimized with a control system, and equipped with a cryogenic LNG tank and a high pressure pump. That type of equipment is too expensive for smaller vehicles.

But all of this does show what sorts of things are coming.

Jeff

[guskmg]

I have always wondered how we, as a society, keep making the same mistakes over and over again. 15 years ago, I commuted daily for a 90 mile round trip in a VW Jetta Diesel and consistently got 54 miles per gallon on each tank. My '07 GMC Durmax gets 22 miles per gallon on the same route, but probably weighs 3 times as much. With the trailer the mpg drops to 12. This kind of economy is producing very little polution per mile. Then we turn around and make people use ethanol in gasoline that not only produces less fuel efficiency, but does nothing to reduce pollution because of this lessened efficiency. The polution per mile goes up. The only benefit is the corn farm subsidies. When you add the cost of production to the cost of the tax increases to pay the subsidies it looks even more bleak. Now, that's real improvement. We need to reevaluate the cost/benefit ratio and see where all this is going. All the above emission improvements are slowly deteriorating our vehicle reliability. Except for an issue with a bad fuel ejection rail check valve, and a cracked soot filter pressure line, almost all my trucks shop visits for repair were emission equipment repairs and they were from inadvertantly using biodiesel. That was also supposed to improve the enviorment. I really think that if the EPA wants to clean up the air they need to get thier testing out of the labs and inspection stations and use modern technology to monitor all vehicles in every day operation. Then, let the engineers decide what change need to be made to for overall improvement. One of the biggest problems is the "one size fits all" mandates. Rarely do they fit any situation, less all of them. Enough!
guskmg