Diesel Scrappage Scheme

I will again get a diesel, when I get my new BMW next year. I love the driving experience of the diesel, and it makes me very very fast...which is a big advantage on the German roads...

Hi again Clay,  since retirement I am a bit disconnected & most of my new knowledge base is www sourced, but even so my old work colleagues are enthusiastic about new & significant improvements in new engines.  Its my understanding that work is still going on at a pace with diesel, & yes its predominantly in Europe,  but Japan is also in the game.  The big funding, high profile research is focused on new technology & all new fuels.  Lesser funding but more auto cmpy financing is on fine tuning hybrid in its various forms for the sort term future.

At the moment diesel accounts for aprx 50% of annual new car sales in Europe  (I understand its aprx 1% in US) .   As I pointed out in my previous post, emissions controls for NOx & also PM (soot etc) are more complex & going forward will require relatively new technologies & higher costs.   I have just finished reading a paper on the future of diesel & it forecasts diesel market share declining but continuing past 2030 in Europe.   The main problem is diesel engines are significantly cleaner & known future developments are set to continue along that trend.  The question is can they keep up with faster growing & ever tightening clean air & emission regulations,  these appear to be the pace setters & all the rest have to keep up..

Re the "cheating" related issue;  The European Council has moved on this; its accepted diesels generate higher emissions on the road than in laboratory conditions.  Its specifically focused on NOx & have given approval for a new package of rules to build up to new RDE tests. The changes are bought in in two phases starting Sep 2017 & following phase two in 2020.  

150 miles without style.............

..........but for sure it will accelerate !

A bit more distance, style and grace.

Mike-B is very well informed on this.  Europe is really the only major market for light duty Diesel, other than India & S Korea.  The rest of the world is primarily petrol/gasoline for cars.  The USA does sell a lot of Diesel for its personal vehicles, but these are the large SUVs & pick-up trucks that will typically have a Cummins ISB Diesel engine or equivalent 6-7 litre V8 Diesel in them.

At the moment, Diesel is widely perceived to be the Devil's fuel, mainly because of urban, roadside pollution levels in major cities.  Major arterial routes in London have NOx levels typically 150% of EU mandated safe limits.  Oxford Street is on average 400% of World Health Organisation safe limits for NOx.  

Ironically, TfL went through a huge programme to retrofit Diesel particulate traps (DPF) to older buses.  They worked.  The DPFs reduced particulates by 90%+, which is a good thing.  As a side effect though, DPFs need to regenerate from time to time (i.e. burn off the accumulated soot).  This regeneration process then produced a load of NOx.  Net result?  Particulates fell by NOx rose in central London.  Pick your poison, I guess.

Talking of which, Diesel is bad and petrol is good.  Are you sure?  Which would you prefer: a relatively small number of large exhaust particles in the air, or a far larger number of very fine particles?  Diesel makes the former, the latest petrol engines the latter. Oh...

Fortunately, neither is a major contributor to Sulphur Oxides.  For that, we are indebted to the shipping industry, which runs mainly on heavy fuel oil (HFO).  HFO is up to 3% sulphur, though new legislation will bring that down to 0.5%, which is still a lot.

Meanwhile electric cars appear to be saintly.  Until you look at the embedded CO2 emissions involved in manufacturing the batteries, motors and power electronics.  Then a different picture emerges. 

The best solution still seems to be to minimise the amount of energy that we use in the first place, regardless of how we choose to generate it.

Great discussion Mike, Foot Tapper. Learning a lot. Appreciate your taking the time. Mike, I absolutley understand what you're saying and how your friends feel. I just think the die has been cast policy-wise within government and industry. It won't make any difference what they find in the lab in terms of passenger vehicles. Commercial vehicles are another matter.

Bert, enjoy your new BMW. Great car. Finally, I know I'm alone in this but I like the look of the i3

Yr right Clay,  the die might be cast,  but I just think the actual die'ing part will take a little longer than you think - in Europe for sure,  & you never know,  the die might have a reverse gear.

But you've burst the agreement luvy stuff bubble when you say you like the i3 -  eeek  yuk -  I was loaned one as a service car when my big lump was in for service,  I just asked the i3 specialist sales guy to explain the technology (I knew the basics already,  was looking for more detail) & "zap" in a flash I had one for the day,  hence my eek yuk comment.   I did like the 330e tho'   

Mike-B posted:

Yr right Clay,  the die might be cast,  but I just think the actual die'ing part will take a little longer than you think - in Europe for sure,  & you never know,  the die might have a reverse gear.

But you've burst the agreement luvy stuff bubble when you say you like the i3 -  eeek  yuk -  I was loaned one as a service car when my big lump was in for service,  I just asked the i3 specialist sales guy to explain the technology & "zap" in a flash I had one for the day,  hence my eek yuk comment.   I did like the 330e tho'   

LOL. Well, I did say I was alone! I am also going  to look at the new BMW e versions.

Clay Bingham posted:

Great discussion Mike, Foot Tapper. Learning a lot. Appreciate your taking the time. Mike, I absolutley understand what you're saying and how your friends feel. I just think the die has been cast policy-wise within government and industry. It won't make any difference what they find in the lab in terms of passenger vehicles. Commercial vehicles are another matter.

Bert, enjoy your new BMW. Great car. Finally, I know I'm alone in this but I like the look of the i3

 

Don't despair too much Clay, I'm sure there is somebody out there somewhere who could share your dream !

I'll let you know if I ever meet that someone

Bert Schurink posted:

I will again get a diesel, when I get my new BMW next year. I love the driving experience of the diesel, and it makes me very very fast...which is a big advantage on the German roads...

Yes, you need fast acceleration between all the construction works indeed.

Difficult to beat the low end shove of a nice torquey Diesel engine for everyday driving. I'm hanging onto mine for a while yet while waiting for the Gov to decide which way they are going with Diesel and what happens with Electric. Big take up of electric will mean some interesting challenges for the grid - interesting times ahead. 

Reading the thread it highlights the different views of pros and cons of either dual based on geographical location 

US - petrol is cheap, hence one reason for diesel not taking off

UK - Diesel is more expensive than petrol so probably goes along way towards more petrol vehicles

Mainland Europe - Diesel is cheaper than petrol...hence why there are so many more diesel vehicles than petrol (I pay 1 euro a liter which means a full tank is about 80 euros...when over in the UK I end up paying at least 100 pound !)

oh and I jut wish i could get down to an average of 12ltr per 100km out of two of my vehicles - so obviously these are not bought for absolute economy 

its going to be interesting to see how diesel gets replaced in Europe (especially in countries like. France) when something like 70% of vehicle sales are diesel and even fuel stations are configured to cater for the diesel majority. That's a lot of infrastructure change, right back to storage, supply chain etc.

The "Headlines" might be "The Environment" but the real driver will be MONEY.

Can the particulates be filtered out of the air, can technology be developed to clean the polluted air in the cities?

james n posted:

Difficult to beat the low end shove of a nice torquey Diesel engine for everyday driving. I'm hanging onto mine for a while yet while waiting for the Gov to decide which way they are going with Diesel and what happens with Electric. Big take up of electric will mean some interesting challenges for the grid - interesting times ahead. 

I had a small Honda CRZ petrol hybrid that very much mimicked that effect. The small battery (charged purely by the engine during deceleration/braking) would give extra boost low in rev range and the petrol would then be delivering more torque as revs rose and boost fell off. It was no flying machine but  it was effective and a really nice thing to drive and own-yet sales appear to have been weak as I hardly ever saw another one. Struck me as an excellent compromise at this price/performance level and a good example of how a mild hybrid added to driving pleasure not just economy.

As the owner of a three cars, a small capacity petrol turbo, a 2.0 turbodiesel and a (classic) 3.0 V8 I'm happy to say they all have their qualities and very much fit their roles. The latter produces a whiff more C02 mind you!

Bruce

Derek Wright posted:

Can the particulates be filtered out of the air, can technology be developed to clean the polluted air in the cities?

Is this a rethorical question?

Derek Wright posted:

Can the particulates be filtered out of the air, can technology be developed to clean the polluted air in the cities?

Our Victorian ancestors planted Plane trees throughout London to absorb pollutants. The bark, which readily  falls off, takes the pollutants with it. I don't know if this would work with diesel pollutants or if it could cope with the quantities generated.

Derek Wright posted:

Can the particulates be filtered out of the air

And pumped into the cabin of the vehicle to see how effective the filtering is

Derek Wright posted:

Can the particulates be filtered out of the air, can technology be developed to clean the polluted air in the cities?

Hi Derek,
Diesel particulates are very effectively filtered out by a particulate filter called a DPF.  

Gasoline particulates are much, much finer, so are harder to trap the same way.  However, gasoline particulate filters, or GPFs, are on their way for most developed markets in the next 2-5 years.

Nitros oxides can be (and are) controlled in 2 ways.  First, by making sure that the flame inside the engine doesn't burn too hot, as it is the peak flame temperature that allows NOx to form from atmospheric nitrogen and atmospheric oxygen.  Many engines today now recycle some of their own exhaust gas.  This reduces the quality of the air in the engine, so lowering the flame temperature below the threshold level and preventing NOx formation.  Second, manufacturers put a large, catalyst coated, ceramic filter in the exhaust, which then traps or reduces the NOx passing through.  One is called a Lean NOx Trap, or LNT.  The more common and effective one is called Selective Catalytic Reduction, or SCR.  With SCR, a small quantity of injected ammonia (NH3) reacts with the NOx in the exhaust, converting NH3 and NOx into steam and nitrogen.  The SCR system is very (i.e. typically 90%++) effective.

The best way to take away Sulphur oxides is to take the sulphur out of the fuel, hence low sulphur fuel.  Sulphur tends to poison most exhaust catalysts, so has to be removed before it reaches the engine.

Hope this helps, FT 

Foot tapper and others with the technical knowledge

Is their much scope to alter fuel specifications and characteristics for petrol and or diesel to reduce pollution, or have we more or less pushed that as far as it can be done (within cost constraints)?

Bruce

I think there is always more that can done as FT sugggests - but it will get to be a point of diminishing returns - just like with hifi. The step wise change will be with fuel and usage change - and possibly diesel / electric hybrids.

But currently the key differences between petrol and diesel Euro 6 is that diesel produces 50% of the the CO compared to petrol per km  and 33% more  NOx per km (i.e. 0.08 mg/km compared 0.06 mg/km). With NOx this is a step wise improvement for diesel over Euro 5

A good summary here from last summer:  http://www.theicct.org/sites/d...briefing_jun2016.pdf

S

Fuel can be improved, problem is it has a price penalty & gets into limitations for use in existing engines.  As I understand it,  with tighter spec's based around existing fuel standards coupled to developments/advancements in engine & exhaust technology,  the biggest bang for buck is in advancements in the engine.   

In my experience the quality of fuel at the pump is a real problem & I'm not talking UK, EU or US.  Outside those areas its very easy (common) to find fuel that bears no resemblance to what you & I know as petrol or diesel.   My old company had fuel attributable failures that were easily identifiable by country/region.  We had problems enough with Euro-2 engines,  but those problems turned to nightmare levels when we moved to Euro-4;  MTBF with fuel attributable causes changed by a factor of 3 between Euro-2 & Euro-4,  but by a factor of >10 comparing failures between EU & 'other' regions.     I have every sympathy with the engine manufacturers,  the drive for clean air in Europe is all well & good & pushes engine advancements,  but these advancements do not work in other regions were fuel is poor,   & it's ironic that these regions have 'normal' air pollution levels that would take us back to the industrial revolution.

There's some really interesting knowledge being shared here and I'm learning a lot. Keep it coming guys. I may buy another diesel yet.

Talking of fuel quality, I know it can fall outside Europe but even within I'm cautious about brand. I almost always buy Shell and have even persuaded myself that the car engine runs more smoothly if I fill it with the premium grade diesel (I have Merc C220D and the diesel power plant is a bit agricultural).  However, prior to that I used to run an E-class with a lovely 3.0V6 diesel. One day I was seduced by some money-off vouchers at out local Tesco and filled it with Tesco branded diesel.  Bl**dly hell, didn't I regret it! The engine ran rough until the whole tank (80 ltrs) was exhausted. Once replenished with Shell it immediately returned to running a sweet-as-a-nut.  Never again will I buy 'cheap' fuel.

Clay Bingham posted:

Friends

Diesel for passenger vehicles is dead....period. Never a big seller here in the US (>1.5% of the light vehicle market) the recent VW cheating scandal will end up being the final nail in the coffin. On top of that, it turns out that most manufacturers (BMW & Mercedes being the exceptions) haven't been meeting diesel standards in the EU either. They haven't been caught because the EU allows manufacturers to contract for their own testing. Scary information for those of you breathing in Europe. The move now will be solidly, electric, hybrid, and enhanced petro engines. Five years or so from now I doubt you'll be able to buy a new diesel car in the major markets of China, U.S. and Europe.

 

I don't think the diesel market is totally dead in the U.S. as General Motors  will offer a 1.6L turbo diesel for the Chevrolet Cruze in 2018. This diesel engine have been homologated and meet emissions for the U.S. 

My F350 is diesel ... 6.7 litre engine ... twin turbo ... leather interior ... full surround sound with custom DAC ... its the DBs