another story knocking the prius

This author is so biased toward diesels. I owned a Peugeot diesel for 6 years or so. After just 2 years the body began, literally, falling apart. I had to replace the head gasket on that diesel 3 times. It was a 4-cylinder diesel and never got better than 27-30 mpg, with standard transmission no less. Very cold weather was always a problem, producing tons of smoke at start-up. I will admit that diesels have some advantages, but this author grossly overstates them. And I, after my experience, would NEVER, NEVER recommend Peugeot to anyone. This article is best ignored.

 

I've owned two Peugeot diesels I was very happy with and one Mercedes diesel I was much less happy with. But now with diesel fuel costing more, I don't see why anyone would want to go backwards. After my Prius I might want another, but by then I hope it is either griddable or else runs on hydrogen.

Diesels are as obsolete as regular gasoline engine cars.

And forget bio-diesel. All of that they can make can be used for heating our houses till we can get those off oil heat.

 

At one point my wife and I had 2 VW diesels; 95 Passat wagon TDI and a 99 VW Jetta TDI. The oil changes with cartirage filters and Mobil 1 oil for both cars every 3,000 miles ran around $70.00 each. My wifes car never got more than 46mpg even on the longest trip, although my Jetta did get 51mpg on nonstop driving. VW as a car company absolutely SUCKS!!!! The cars basically were crap. Parts broke, fell off, and generally were designed to bring in more money for the service department. If someone gave me a VW diesel I would not consider them a friend. The part that amazed me the most was when I went to the Acura to buy 2 new 3.2 TL's the Acura dealer did take the VWs on trade in, for $1,500 more than the VW dealer offered me. Never again Europe... Impatiently awaiting White 06 package #7.

 

Hi All,


I think what is going on is that we have some very cold, serious corporate shenanigans here. What does the CEO of Ford, GM or Diamler/Chrysler need? He needs to unload his inventory and buy time so that the engineers can match Toyota. So, what does he do, he tells marketing to get that inventory sold, and to try to slow down Toyota. So, what do we see in the public, we see a slime campaign based on the comments of industry insiders (who are probably being force fed by disadvantaged car company marketing departments).

In sales and marketing, there is always a hegemony between the company that pays the bills and the third party representatives. These third party representatives usually make a good living when things are flat. But when a new technology comes down the line, they are the first to loose there income. So, its no suprise that the journalists who deal with these third parties as their sources, are getting spoon fed.

And, I think its working. People who are in the market for a new car read this stuff, and now they have reasonable doubt. With reasonable doubt, they tend go with the more familiar. In the end, the disadvantaged companies are going to get their one car life buffer time to develop a response. Remember, patents only last for 17 years. So, half of the advantage that Toyota paid its engineers for is going to be lost by this confusion tactic. From the point of view of the marketeer, "Hey, why not do it(lie)?" He gets to keep his job, his boss gets his breathing space, so what if the USA has to send more kids to the middle east, he gets to keep up the mortgage payments on the big house suburban Detroit or other auto-industry town.

This is why dramatic improvements in the car industry are so slow. There is no guarantee that an improved car will sell, and its easier to talk down an improvement (one good slime mearchant talking to a journalist) than proving the improvement (10 s of thousands of cars showing excellent performance). The improvers are then left with no return on the capital investment (work of high end engineers) to show. Now, to most Americans, this is not the American Way. But, its is the American Car Industry way, and it drives the real engineering brains out of the land-transportation work. Which puts the USA at a disadvantage, and its why revolutions in Transportation come from Europe and Japan since the 1950's. Only in the servicing of the car industry does change happen in the USA. Mostly in cheaper and more accurate parts manufacture and assembly organisation. The car companies demand this change to improve profits (some buisness people say to maintain the union welfare state).

I guess what we should reply to this slime campaign is: " If Car Companies can demand beter performance from its Suppliers, Why cannot Car Consumers demand similar improvement of the Car Companies?"

The HSD concept saves considerable expense to implement a hybrid car. No other company has this advantage, without licensing it from Toyota. There is no short-term match to this concept, and something like another 10 years of the patent to run. In that time, Toyota and its licensees will probably take over half of USA new car sales.

The HSD is as revolutionary as the Mini was in 1955, but in a world that is much smaller. I think it will take less than a decade for this change to ripple through the world, rather than four decades it took the concepts of the Mini to.

Diesels are their only short term response to the fuel economy comparison. Ford, GM and Diamler/Chrysler all have this technology in hand due to their European operations. But there really is no advantage in comparison to the Prius. The diesel engine is more expensive and heavier (cast iron) that the Atkinson engine in a similar output HSD. The diesel still requires a heavy expensive transmission, and all the auxilliary stuff hanging off the front of the engine, that tends to fail. Mechanical CVT's have yet to show excellent reliability. Diesel has 113 % of the energy of gasoline, and is similarly more costly. To match a 50 mpg gas car, the diesel car needs to be doing 56.5 mpg. I have not heard of a diesel offerings in the Prius class that does this. Enviromentally, diesel would have an advantage if all petroleum sources were legally restricted, and diesel transportation was required to run on recent biological sources. Which would never happen.

 

Actually DR Dos was better than MSDOS. The problem was years earlier, when the originator, rather than sue, allowed IBM to list their CP/M product as a catalog item alongside PCDOS, which was a blatant ripoff of CP/M. PCDOS sold for $25 versus the $100 DR wanted for CP/M. Guess which consumers bought? It was all downhill from there, even with a superior product later introduced to emulate MSDOS. Classic Beta vs VHS story. Point of story...you can't stop the ignorant masses, which is what these Detroit-friendly authors are trying to do...confuse the consumer so they stay ignorant. This herd mentality is going on not only with engine technology, but also safety. As an example, Europeans consider stability control the number 2 safety feature after airbags. 90% of consumers in the US don't know what it is and half the time think you are referring to traction control. Our government has had to step in to mandate stability control in all SUVs by 2009 because the carmakers here don't want to spend the $400 per vehicle Detroit claims it costs. In the meantime, you think your kids are safer in the SUV, but an Explorer, set gently on its roof, will collapse to the doorsill from the chassis weight. Every kid that hops in any SUV adds to raising the center of gravity, combined with inexperienced driving and the distraction with multiple kids in the vehicle causes these horrific rollover issues. Besides mpg, safety should be the the highest "performance" measure of the vehicle. Ignorant masses will prefer the badge that says "hemi", assuming carmakers are taking care of safety. Caveat Emptor.