U.S. Comeback?

[Pat Dolan]

Pat, what are your thoughts on marine transport?

I must apologize, I missed your post when it was fresh

That is a very large topic (big ship joke, forgive me). Putting a cargo on the water is a very fuel-efficient way of moving stuff, but the real questions are "what are we moving' and "why are we moving it?". Container traffic, for the most part is Chinese garbage with very short lifespan killing of jobs and businesses that once produced longer lasting products with a minimum of transport involved. A lot of bulk cargo - including crude oil - is on the sea to provide the resources that China will containerize to kill of other economies. Worse yet: the bottom of the pit in quality means the resources and environmental costs will be squandered regularly and often to replace said items. The best thing we could do to reduce marine traffic is to REQUIRE products imported into Western economies meet quality, environmental, labour and human rights standards before earning entry.

If you are going to ship by ship, the real effort needs to be in doing so efficiently. Cathedral 2 strokes do better than any other current technology, but they too can benefit from a host of technologies to increase their thermal efficiency. I would love to see cargos under sail instead of power, but the increase in fleet size needed due to the low speed would be very counterproductive. The answer, of course, is NOT to ship at all.

 

[kjclow]

Although it has nothig to do with the title of the thread, the costs of refining and transporting a gallon of diesel fuel and gasoline are basically the same. The percentage of gasoline or diesel out of a barrel of crude is dependent on the type of crude. Once basic refining is done, the heavier distillates, like diesel, can be cracked into lighter offerings, like gasoline. This is related to the supply and demand and often is driven by which fuel is currently making better profit. One thing that makes refining diesel slightly more expensive is the desulfurization step. Adds a few cents per gallon. The finished product is mostly sent through pipelines to most places in the lower 48.

The difference seen at the pump is the goverments share of the pie. State, federal, and local taxes all get a piece.

 

[UhOh]

Although it has nothig to do with the title of the thread, the costs of refining and transporting a gallon of diesel fuel and gasoline are basically the same. The percentage of gasoline or diesel out of a barrel of crude is dependent on the type of crude. Once basic refining is done, the heavier distillates, like diesel, can be cracked into lighter offerings, like gasoline. This is related to the supply and demand and often is driven by which fuel is currently making better profit. One thing that makes refining diesel slightly more expensive is the desulfurization step. Adds a few cents per gallon. The finished product is mostly sent through pipelines to most places in the lower 48.

The difference seen at the pump is the goverments share of the pie. State, federal, and local taxes all get a piece.

One thing that can be factored in is that of transport costs/BTU. Loaded tanker truck of diesel heading to offload is delivering more energy per trip than one delivering only gasoline. NOTE: Yes, often they have multiple compartments/tanks that will be filled with different fuels; my point is that there's more efficiency happening (call it "potential energy") when transporting diesel than when transporting gasoline.

Higher mpg (petrol vehicles) means less stopping for refueling. That's a time savings as well as an energy savings.

 

[whizznbyu]

VW in Europe still sells diesels. I computer shopped and built me an Arteon with a 6 speed manual.
I suppose Europe cares less about emissions.

 

[kjclow]

No, they care about different aspects of the emissions. CO2 mainly. They also have much higher fuel and vehicle taxes so any boost in economy helps keep a few Euros in their pockets.

 

[Freeroamer]

Just gimme a Silver 2011 Amarok with 2.0L and a 6MT.. I'll be happy then.

 

[quartersaw]

Agreed. If I never drove it I would still have my 2003 Jetta TDI. SUPER-cheap car to never drive. Sadly as much as I drive it's just cheaper to convert the sunlight that hits my roof into fuel than to have to pay for diesel (or any other fools fuel derivative like petrol).

I can't justify paying $50k for a Tesla, when I only drive a few thousand miles/Yr. It's something called "ROI".

 

[kjclow]

Just gimme a Silver 2011 Amarok with 2.0L and a 6MT.. I'll be happy then.

I gave up waiting and went with the Ram 1500 Ecodiesel.

 

[tomo366]

I gave up waiting and went with the Ram 1500 Ecodiesel.

I have been looking at Rams for months can’t justify the 76K + 6K markup….l

 

[kjclow]

I understand that. I bought mine a little over 3 years ago when they were giving them away. Think it was almost $15K under sticker before trade.

 

[tomo366]

The One I was looking at is still there…..6 weeks later and they are now 3 K under,but no longer interested….I was just concerned my Jeep’s might do what a lot of Eco Diesels have done ..…..explode…..
but I have an extended Warranty but I hear engine replacement in 12-14K

 

[kjclow]

If you get closer, message me and I'll share my experiences in as much detail as you want.

 

[joyjoy22]

If you get closer, message me and I'll share my experiences in as much detail as you want.

You should share it on this thread so that everyone can read it.

 

[kjclow]

Ok, I have a 2017 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel. It was updated from the factory while being built as a result of the EPA sales freeze. I therefore got all of the benefits (?) of the emmsions updates with none of the extended warranty. I purchased in March 2018 for about 20% off of MSRP not including my trade. I have had a few issues with things like the windshield washer lines not being connected and the rear window not being properly seated. Both of those took time to resolve but with about 50k miles on it, everything seems to be working as it should. Most recently, it had a recall completed for replcing the EGR system. Whatever they did seems to have dropped my mileage about 10%. I think it's time for a tune.

So far, I'm averaging 22 mpg with an all time high of 27 for a tank running across central Ohio on state roads. Speed limits was 60-65 for the about 500 miles. No engine issues to date.

 

[Humanaquarian]

Dieselgate destroyed diesel. I still contend and I will until the day I die, this was an orchastraded attack on a car that was just too good.

 

[compu_85]

There's a reason the Chevy Cruze cost more, was louder, and got worse economy than a VW TDI. It was emissions compliant, the VW was not.

-J

 

[Humanaquarian]

There's a reason the Chevy Cruze cost more, was louder, and got worse economy than a VW TDI. It was emissions compliant, the VW was not.

-J

Yeah, if you recall at the time the EPA were looking at other car manufacturers and every single one was not emission compliant when under load, up a hill… which is the value they used for VW. Nah man, then, you stopped hearing about all the others and the focus was on VW.. which they in turn made a genius move to put their “fine” money into Building a electric car infrastructure for recharging stations and such. They were prolly going to do that anyway.
It’s like lifting the carpet and seeing a bug (pun intended) then lifting more and seeing more bugs and just squishing the first bug because that was easiest.

 

[turbobrick240]

VW got squashed because they were the foulest bug of the bunch. By a large margin. Interestingly, the subsequent shift to EVs by VW may be their saving grace. As painful as the fallout was in the short term, dieselgate may have saved VW from much more future pain as the industry electrifies.

 

[UhOh]

Psst! Hear about LithiumGate? (do a search on Musk saying that he/we [as in US] would coop anyone he/we wanted!)

It's about externalization. Externalization is happening all around us, and much goes unnoticed; some, however, like DieselGate, doesn't [go unnoticed]. BMW also got nailed (or was it Benz, or both?), though its clientele is more "upper class," so it was reported on in kinder ways; kind of thinking that Ford (and maybe Dodge?) also got nicked. VW was the top dog in the industry and was therefore a target: this, clearly, provides no justification for the actions that it undertook; just saying that this kind of cheating might not have been exposed at all if it had been with a lesser-side manufacturer. Keep in mind that years ago there was a successful lawsuit (California?) against Toyota for overstating FE claims on the Prius. If FE is overstated then that means that one is actually burning more hydrocarbons, one is polluting more than they're led to believe: cheating on pollution numbers to be sure.

 

[turbobrick240]

I haven't heard of Lithiumgate, but I suspect it's brought to us by many of the same great minds that brought us Pizzagate.

 

[kjclow]

Remember that VW's biggest crime was trying to game the system by not putting AdBlue into the Golf based cars and admitting it through company emails.

 

[atc98002]

Remember that VW's biggest crime was trying to game the system by not putting AdBlue into the Golf based cars and admitting it through company emails.

Yep. All the news sites were throwing the 40% over limits number out, which was the worst case for the non-urea cars. My Passat was at worse 10%, and in normal use right around the limit. I would try to explain it to non-VW people, but overcoming all the nonsense from the news sites was extremely difficult.

EDIT: 40 times, not 40%. Stupid fingers typing the wrong stuff...

 

[turbobrick240]

As I recall, the EPA was reporting 10-40x the NOx emissions standard for the 2 liter cars. Couple of orders of magnitude from 10-40%. Granted, it was a fairly strict standard. As far as I'm concerned, they did the crime, and they did their time.

 

[atc98002]

Yes, the non-urea cars were up to 40%, but the urea cars were at most 10%, and under most conditions compliant or close to it.
EDIT: 40X and 10X, not 40% and 10%

 

[turbobrick240]

10-40x = 1000-4000%

 

[atc98002]

You're right. I don't know why I used the % symbol. My brain wasn't using it. Just my fingers...

 

[turbobrick240]

10-4

 

[compu_85]

Remember that VW's biggest crime was trying to game the system by not putting AdBlue into the Golf based cars and admitting it through company emails.

VW's biggest crime was having 2 completely different sets of maps in the ECU, one which was emissions compliant and one that was not. Initially if you drove gently the car would use the emissions compliant maps, which defers DPF regens and was causing the DPFs to crack. Then VW updated the software so if any single check failed the car would use the non compliant set of maps for the remainder of the key cycle.

-J

 

[nicklockard]

I hope VW makes a serious effort to electrify, and fast. They need a sub-$27k electric car. Their current lineup is too diluted & too bland. WT frank is an arteon? If they were smart, they'd retire the slow-selling and brand-diluting vehicles and put that money into real EV development:

Kill off the Arteon, Golf, and Golf-R and electrify some of the other platforms more, or work on a platform-level electrification strategy. Edit: oh, and rename the Taos. It sounds too much like a Hyundai.

 

[Nickmk7]

I hope VW makes a serious effort to electrify, and fast. They need a sub-$27k electric car. Their current lineup is too diluted & too bland. WT frank is an arteon? If they were smart, they'd retire the slow-selling and brand-diluting vehicles and put that money into real EV development:

Kill off the Arteon, Golf, and Golf-R and electrify some of the other platforms more, or work on a platform-level electrification strategy. Edit: oh, and rename the Taos. It sounds too much like a Hyundai.

Kill off the Golf? I hope you're making jokes.