I was talking to an ex driving student of mine, (He just passed his test) who is studying engineering, and he told me he was at a seminar where an injection expert, who had worked for a certain, high end car manufacturer (Cant say who but you would need a "Goldfinger" to afford one) And more recently, Skoda. He was telling the class that the VW/Audi group were hedging their bets in diesel engines being the forefront of automative transport for the next generation of vehicular traffic. this is despite hybrid and electric technology being persued by many!

Does this seem to be the an astute move by VAG or do you think they may have shot themselves in the foot, there?

All opinions welcome.

or

In the long term, I think they may have shot themselves in the foot. Short to mid term they are probably right on the money (I have a Gen 3 Prius though, and am loving the Hybrid Technology.

I would say that long term, even Hybrids are not the answer but Fuel Cell driven vehicles, like the Honda Clarity that James May tested in the US on Top Gear. There's only so much oil available and even if they switch to bio, with a world that struggles to feed itself (In some countries) how can you justify massive plantations of things like Rape seed instead of staples like wheat and spuds

The other thing I have in the back of my mind with regards to oil, is we as consumers are only small fry's when it comes to consumption in the grand scheme of things, Power generation, Military power projection, air travel, marine applications, and clothing / textiles consume vast amounts of the stuff.

I dread the day that I can't fire my bike up and listen to that offset burble of the triple motor.

Sorry for the mildly sensible and probably mis informed post :)

I blame the Prius

I was talking to an ex driving student of mine, (He just passed his test) who is studying engineering, and he told me he was at a seminar where an injection expert, who had worked for a certain, high end car manufacturer (Cant say who but you would need a "Goldfinger" to afford one) And more recently, Skoda. He was telling the class that the VW/Audi group were hedging their bets in diesel engines being the forefront of automative transport for the next generation of vehicular traffic. this is despite hybrid and electric technology being persued by many!

Does this seem to be the an astute move by VAG or do you think they may have shot themselves in the foot, there?

All opinions welcome.

or

I think VW/Audi group have got it right for the medium and long term too!

Diesel engines will be around a lot longer than petrol engines. Why? A whole load of reasons. Diesel engines are still electro-mechanically much less complex than their petrol counterparts. They are capable of much longer life spans than petrol engines. And, the diesel engine still has a fantastic amount of development potential ahead of it unlike the petrol engine (I know that's a bit contraversial but most manufacturers are saying petrol engines have almost reached the limit of development for the foreseable future. Diesel is much much more efficient at 60.3% thermal efficiency compared to petrol at 30.1%... meaning more energy can be produced per gallon of fuel burned, and/or more miles covered with much less CO2 produced. Diesel exhausts are getting cleaner, their engines are getting huge power increases and the miles per gallon figure is going through the roof...that last point is going to be one of the most important along with low CO2. But here's the thing...you can make diesel fuel out of almost any old thing. Bio diesel is the way forward...in the short term it can be grown, and turned into diesel easily, unlike the costly, lengthy and difficult procedure for making petrol or Gasahol. Bio petrol loses petrol engines even more efficiency and can be down to 26-27% (gas engine conversion levels). This means less performance from a petrol engine and less miles per gallon and more CO2, and the engine wears out more quickly too due to massive extra heat generated by Gasahol! Further more, already bio diesel is being produced in small amounts using a new technique that doesn't require the growth of an oil based crop such as oil seed rape. Long term this is the way forward. Instead it uses a benign bacteria that when feed the right nutrients grows quickly into a product that can be very easily turned into a very good quality highly refined diesel fuel. This supply will be plentiful according to reseachers and will not impact on food production. James May has already examined one of the processes and reported..."it works!".

Electric cars, fuel cell cars, gas etc are for now very much a distraction from reality. 30 years ago they were saying we would all be driving fuel cell vehicles and electric vehicles by 1995! It is likely to be another 30 years before they are even introduced on any sort of scale, that is if they can solve the problems which seem to be almost as big now as they were then.

Just my two bobs worth!

Edited 27 June, 201015 yr by Estate Man

When processed, a 35-gallon barrel of crude oil contains about 16 gallons of petrol, but only about 8.5 gallons of diesel (the rest is jet fuel, heavy fuel oil, liquefied petroleum gases, etc.). I thought this was the main reason why manufacturers are now developing small but high output petrol engines. These engines are capable of delivering similar mpg to diesels.

VAG already messed up as they failed to anticipate a change in emissions legislation that meant they had to discard their (arguably better technology) Pumpe Duse system for the same Common Rail system everyone else was using. Ross Clarke (Lummox) wrote a lengthy and excellent piece on this last year.

I've yet to see a hybrid that can do better fuel economy than a diesel and if you include the entire eco footprint of a car full of batteries it just doesn't stack up that way either.

Hydrogen fuel cells could be the answer but I'm not convinced it's not another huge fuel industry rip-off like lead in petrol. For the foreseeable future, diesel is the green option.

When processed, a 35-gallon barrel of crude oil contains about 16 gallons of petrol, but only about 8.5 gallons of diesel (the rest is jet fuel, heavy fuel oil, liquefied petroleum gases, etc.). I thought this was the main reason why manufacturers are now developing small but high output petrol engines. These engines are capable of delivering similar mpg to diesels.

Hi aixlad, I take your point. However, the whole of the 35 gallons of crude can be used to make diesel if required. There is no technical reason to prevent this. It is just the way the oil companies divide it up. Diesel can almost be made from the dreggs left in the bottom of the barrel, so it makes sense to use the rest for producing petrol which needs high quality crude. The small higher power, very technical, very complex petrol engines (good though they are) will never equal diesel engines for low CO2 and high mpg, or even longevity. Look at the new diesel engines on the market and what is planned. On paper petrol engines seem to be coming closer, but in actual on road driving fall far short of diesel mpg even when you try hard. Continued development is ensuring diesel will deliver both more economy and performace than petrol ever will for on road driving. The point about diesels is that you don't have to try very hard at all to obtain fantastic mpg. The laws of physics are on the side of the diesel. In terms of performance the sky is the limit for the newer crop of diesels. 1.3 and 1.4 litre diesels have been producing 100bhp for many years now and give fantastic mpg. Just take a look at the diesel engines in Peugeot, Citroen and Fiat (Ok the rest of the car doesn't stack up too well in my book but the engines are very good!). Going diesel doesn't mean lack of performance, if anything you gain more driving performance by going diesel...it's a win win situation for diesel!

True story: my brother in law went to our local dealers in Colchester last year to buy a new VW Passat Estate and wanted a petrol engined version with a bit of oomph! He's always been a petrol head and never looked at a diesel in his life! He was politely informed they hardly sell ANY petrol engined cars and it would need to be a special order. As a result it would cost more and there would be quite a wait. "Are you sure you want a petrol engine sir?" Stunned by the salesmans response, my brother in law was pursuaded to take a diesel version out for a spin...the 140ps 2.0 litre version with auto box. He'd been used to driving the 170ps 2.3 5 cylinder petrol version in saloon form, again with auto box. He can back jibbering...he could not believe how good the diesel was and how quiet. He gets 47mpg with a heavy foot all the time, compared to an average 25mpg from the 2.3 petrol engine. No contest.

Edited 28 June, 201015 yr by Estate Man

VAG already messed up as they failed to anticipate a change in emissions legislation that meant they had to discard their (arguably better technology) Pumpe Duse system for the same Common Rail system everyone else was using. Ross Clarke (Lummox) wrote a lengthy and excellent piece on this last year.

I've yet to see a hybrid that can do better fuel economy than a diesel and if you include the entire eco footprint of a car full of batteries it just doesn't stack up that way either.

Hydrogen fuel cells could be the answer but I'm not convinced it's not another huge fuel industry rip-off like lead in petrol. For the foreseeable future, diesel is the green option.

The 2010 Prius is made in a 100% Carbon neutral factory in Japan, and even thrashing the tit's off mine I can not get it to drop below 50.3MPG overall, and trust me I am merciless with it

There is a lot of information out there to counter the claims of the lack of green credentials for Hybrids. One thing that a Hybrid does do is reduce the levels of local air pollution, which can only be a good thing.

hybrids still use petrol though, and it's going to run out one day

I'm not anti-diesel (in come ways I wish I had gone for the 1.9TDI instead ot the 1.6 16v petrol in my Roomster) but with tightening emissions regulations I'm not convinved diesels are the future. The latest TSI petrol engines are getting a lot closer to diesel MPGs and C02s and their cheaper to buy and more refined too.

Stick stop-start and regeneratitive braking on a Fabia TSI and it would probably crack 60MPG.

I would imagine the future will be petrol-electric hybrids with improving battery technology making the big gains (by lowering weight)

I'd like someone to tell me where they think the electricity for electric cars comes from? I'm not knocking green vehicles, just the whole industry behind them which sells them as a magic cure-all to pollution.

There is no such thing as a carbon neutral factory producing electric cars, that's a load of cobblers. I'm guessing this isn't included in the "Carbon neutral" factory statement: -

The prius has a lithium-ion battery. Nearly all the worlds lithium comes from mines in the Andes. Simply put, you dig it out of the ground, process it and stick it in batteries. Digging it out of the ground requires vast amounts of water, in the middle of a desert, and you can't get it there without creating more pollution and damaging the landscape.

There is not an unlimited amount of this stuff with which to create batteries. You are replacing one finite resource with another and in 20 years time we will probably be talking about peak lithium production.

Out of town, my old Octy can pretty much match a Pious on fuel and pace. So imagine the possible effects of putting the Pious' electrickery bits into a car with one of the latest CR diesels.

Out of town, my old Octy can pretty much match a Pious on fuel and pace. So imagine the possible effects of putting the Pious' electrickery bits into a car with one of the latest CR diesels.

I would not disagree with you for one minute Ken, I only have a Pious because it makes sense as my company car though my own limited company. But it is a very very good car in Gen 3 format. The thing is, I have now done 2000 miles in the month I owned it and have done a couple of runs to Inverness from my place and last week thrashed it to Cardiff in "power mode" all the way and still got an average of 53.9mpg. When I say thrashed, I mean thrashed to within an inch of it's life.

I could get the old vRoomster remapped 1.9TDi down to very low 30's on the same run, and not get there any quicker

Putting the Pious electrickery into a new TSI engine, then we are talking.

Irv, I understand what your saying to, which is why I said that Hybrids are not a long term answer either, but what is? Bio Ethanol? Let's trash acres of Rain Forest and plant Rape seed, or let's trash acres of wheat fields to plant rape seed. The waste water from Toyota's new Prius plant is supposedly cleaner than the streams and rivers it's going back into and they generate a huge amount of the plant's electricity from solar energy http://blog.toyota.co.uk/prius-tsutsumi-eco-factory

Electric cars? nope, the power has to be generated somehow, either by fossils or nuclear, and nobody want's a Chernobyl on their doorstep.

Hydrogen Fuel cells? maybe there is long term value in this route, but Hydrogen, whilst abundant is difficult to convert into it's liquid state for distribution at pumps.

Derv, like Hybrids, is only an interim measure. Personally I am investing in Arc reactor powered suit's or maybe a hoverboard.

To re-itterate I only have a Prius because personally it saves me money, I had it on test for 24 hours and it was better than the golf bluemotion SE I also tested, so I bought one, I really am not interested in it's green credentials, or lack of them. What is funny though is peoples open hostility to the car, at least with my Gen 3 mot people don't recognise it is a Prius until it's to late :rofl:

fluffmeister, I think you did the right thing to buy the Prius for what it is and the fact that you liked it, rather than for it's green credentials. It's not a bad motor at all. My boss has an '09' version (don't know what gen that it) and he is pleased with it. However, recently I loaned my Fabia Estate 1422cc TDI 3cyl diesel to him. He had never driven a diesel before or been in one. He had a conference to go to in London with two of my colleagues. He normally uses his Prius for this trip. He came back from London at the end of the day muttering something about trading in the Prius and getting a Skoda diesel. Apparently, inspite of investing in a 'state of the art' petrol hybrid car he never ever got more than 57 miles per gallon on the trip in the Prius. Without even thinking about it, my Skoda had returned over 67mpg for the trip (152 miles total) which involved all the usual cut and thrust in London as well as dual carriageway and motorway driving at the legal limit. He also found it fun to use the torque to hurl it down the road and drove most of the time with a brick in his right boot because he said it was 'fun'! The thing that made him sick was the fact he had paid nearly £6,000 more for the Pruis than I paid for my Skoda.

Working in the trade, I've been following the development of both petrol and diesel vehicles and the fuel that goes in them for many year now. As a technician I saw huge changes in both types of engine and the problems they encountered along the way. I believe derv is the only way forward for the next 40 years or more, and privately, the manufacturers are aware of this too, which is why they are all investing so heavily in diesel development. Even with any further development, petrol aint going to cut it. Petrol cannot defy the laws of physics and become anywhere near as efficient as diesel - not even the new high compression petrol engines, already banned in most states in the US due to the huge amount of carcinogens in the large amounts of particulate matter produced. Petrol particulate matter is much more harmful than diesel particulate matter. Manufacturer are investing in hydrogen research too, paid for by government grants mainly. There isn't really a future for hybrids, they are definitely stop gap. Hydrogen is a very very long way from being anywhere near ready to let loose on the public and will require massive investment to make fundamental changes to fuelling and servicing depots etc. and realistically, although the government has said it will be 2030 before Hydrogen vehicles are ready for release, it will in actual fact be more like 2040-45 before we will have reliable hydrogen cars...or so the industry leading figures are now indicating. Funny, 30 odd years ago they were saying it would be another 30 years before we had hydrogen cars!

PS. I love the Triumph Tigers...lovely engines and a bit smoother than my V-twin!

Edited 28 June, 201015 yr by Estate Man

I was going to suggest a diesel hybrids myself but someone got there first... This would seem more logical than a petrolectric lump!

Also, with hydrogen I think it was, in MCN a while ago, they stated that the gas, being such small particles, would just leak out through the tank that it was kept in over quite a short time, (Think of helium in a ballon, going flat faster than an oxygen filled one) so making that next to useless for the average user. Fill up friday, leave it standing the weekend, no fuel for work monday! (Some might be glad of that, Tee-Hee)!

I may have mis-quoted the fuel element here, but the principle would remain... No use to anyone!!!

Hybrids, at least todays ones, are a red herring as they take MORE energy and resourses to build, run and re-cycle (Cradle to grave) Then usual engined cars, considering the advances made in both petrol and diesel for fuel usage and emmisions. However, you dont get better at building stuff by not building stuff!

It has only been around 10 years since manufacturers started to really do anything about fuel consumption/emmisions. Before, it was not deemed to be their concern. Now they are sh-worrying themselves as they will not get type approval or be out-priced at the pump/tax bracket and lose sales.

As usual, they wait to the 11th hour before trying to do something.

20 years ago, you would have thought manufacturers were sponsored by the oil companies, particularly the Americans and premium manufacturers!!!!

Edited 1 July, 201015 yr by mrgf

Hybrids, at least todays ones, are a red herring as they take MORE energy and resourses to build, run and re-cycle (Cradle to grave) Then usual engined cars, considering the advances made in both petrol and diesel for fuel usage and emmisions. However, you dont get better at building stuff by not building stuff!

Can we have the hard evidence of that please As I have a Pious now, I have to fight it's corner.

I would guess that Nickel for the batteries was actually mined before for other purposes, so not exclusively for use in Hybrid vehicles, and the container ships moving it around the world don't just carry a single battery pack but possibly contain containers of other goods that happen to be going that way to

The Sudbury mine in Canada has 1.1% of it's total nickel production bought up by Toyota for battery production (That includes Hybrid Lexii? as well)

Where is the other 98.9% of this evil substance required by the Japanese automotive empire going. :p

I'd like someone to tell me where they think the electricity for electric cars comes from? I'm not knocking green vehicles, just the whole industry behind them which sells them as a magic cure-all to pollution.

There is no such thing as a carbon neutral factory producing electric cars, that's a load of cobblers. I'm guessing this isn't included in the "Carbon neutral" factory statement: -

The prius has a lithium-ion battery.

Pious uses NiMH not LiON Toyota are holding off on Lithium until the technology improves .... so they say

Edited 29 June, 201015 yr by fluffmeister

Hydrogen is not so green. The idea is sold on only getting steam from your exhaust pipe however, a quote from Wikipedia:

Steam reforming

Fossil fuel currently is the main source of hydrogen production. Hydrogen can be generated from natural gas with approximately 80% efficiency, or from other hydrocarbons to a varying degree of efficiency. Specifically, bulk hydrogen is usually produced by the steam reforming of methane or natural gas. At high temperatures (700–1100 °C), steam (H2O) reacts with methane (CH4) to yield syngas.

CH4 + H2O → CO + 3 H2 + 191.7 kJ/mol

In a second stage, further hydrogen is generated through the lower-temperature water gas shift reaction, performed at about 130 °C:

CO + H2O → CO2 + H2 - 40.4 kJ/mol

Essentially, the oxygen (O) atom is stripped from the additional water (steam) to oxidize CO to CO2. This oxidation also provides energy to maintain the reaction. Additional heat required to drive the process is generally supplied by burning some portion of the methane.

Steam reforming generates carbon dioxide (CO2). Since the production is concentrated in one facility, it is possible to separate the CO2 and dispose of it properly, for example by injecting it in an oil or gas reservoir (see carbon capture), although this is not currently done in most cases. A carbon dioxide injection project has been started by a Norwegian company StatoilHydro in the North Sea, at the Sleipner field. However, even if the carbon dioxide is not sequestered, overall producing hydrogen from natural gas and using it for a hydrogen vehicle only emits half the carbon dioxide that a gasoline car would.

Overall not as carbon inefficient as running your car on conventional fuels but certainly not the green saviour of the future

Okay, wake up now

Blimey, my eye-lids went all heavy!

I understand the desire to fight the corner of the hybrid, but they are at present, (As stated, they will improve over time) not the solution as they are not as green as made out. The info I got was either from one of the car mags or MCN, discussing the pros and cons of differing systems.

BTW, Toyota were actually LOSING money on every Pius (Oops, sorry, Prius) they sold as an incentive to buyers, keeping their retail price artificially lower than they should have been. (I think this ended a while ago, though)!

In return, they got "Tax incentives" from the UK government, plus the free road tax and free congestion charge, which made a mockery of BOTH systems. They do cause as much damage as other road users to the repair/upkeep of the roads, which is what the tax (Or to give it its proper name... ROAD FUND LICENCE). And cause as much congestion with regards to space occupation, as any other mid to large sized car. This too, was why we had congestion charging proposed.. the "Greenies" Added the Co2 factor as a means of pushing it through but how can paying to use a road improve congestion? It just means those who can afford a fairly expensive vehicle, can travel for fre and others who can afford to pay the charge dont give a Jonathon Ross as they had less traffic, for a short while!

BTW, Who did the government make up the shortfall from in this case? Yup, everyone else so we are all paying for others to travel for less!

i have a £20 road tax car... nice, but everyone else is paying for that, too. In addition, they have been sneaky and not included motorcycles in the latest tax system, where they still pay £75 a year to tax a bike of any decent capacity, despite many getting reasonable gas-miles and causing less fume-pollution and recognised space and wear saving issues.The only exemption is the congestion charge and that is due to having forward-facing cameras that cannot read a bikes plate!

Bare in mind, I am expressing opinion, mixed with some fact or word of mouth but that is ALWAYS going to be the same for everyone as you only get a certain part of any picture, depending on the sourse of the information. I have no axe to grind against hybrids, diesels or any of the other fuels as I am of the opinion MOST of the green issue is crap, apart from the running out of fuel! This has been noted for decades!

Oil shortages are a myth! look at the leak of the gulf of mexico is it?

even if there is oil shortage nothing another war wont sort out same with all this global warming malarchy

Global warming is a whole new thread. But we won't run out of oil that's for sure. It's just how we get it or how we produce it in the first instance that will change. In other words when someone says we are running out of oil, they mean we are running out of oil taken from the ground! The only thing stopping us from producing all our oil as biofuel is the oil companies. Over the years they have been very effective in preventing new ideas and technology from surfacing which could impact on there 'patch'. The oil companies own more patents and rights to produce oil saving and alternative oil producing technologies, gas technologies including hydrogen production than anyone else. NASA paid some English guy millions in the '80's' to secure the patent to a device which produces hydrogen at the engine delivery point (avoiding the storage problems mentioned earlier). It works, it's proven, it's buried!! For now. It won't be waved around until they can make billions from it. Time isn't right yet.

My point is Bio Fuels have to be grown, so which portion of agriculture do you dump in favour of Bio Fuels? Don't get me wrong, I'm no tofu munching banana eating bean farting motherf**ker but there is only so much space on the planet, there are more and more people all of who need feeding, so where does the real estate come from for planting / growing bio fuels?

Pious uses NiMH not LiON Toyota are holding off on Lithium until the technology improves .... so they say

I stand corrected then, I thought they were Lion. NiMH is really old technology, but on the plus side all the nickel we use is recycled, it's easy to recycle.

You're never going to get a full comparison of the carbon footprint of a hybrid vs conventional vehicle, there is too much invested for this information to be made public. It's like wind farms - scout moor is the biggest inland wind farm in England. 26 turbines, if operating at maximum capacity could power 40,000 homes. But since they only run at 10% capacity (allegedly) they power 4,000 homes. So at that rate we would need just under five thousand, 100m high turbines to power England's 18 million households. With my fag packet maths, that's about one every ten square miles in England. Wind farms are a bad idea. Hydroelectric is a much better idea and the UK is perfect for it.

rant rant rant rant rant.

I'd have a Tesla tomorrow mind, instant torque

My point is Bio Fuels have to be grown, so which portion of agriculture do you dump in favour of Bio Fuels? Don't get me wrong, I'm no tofu munching banana eating bean farting motherf**ker but there is only so much space on the planet, there are more and more people all of who need feeding, so where does the real estate come from for planting / growing bio fuels?

My point, which perhaps I haven't made clear enough (see earlier posts), is that we do not need to take up agricultural land to produce our biofuel. That type of production is now recognised as a short term solution, certainly in the western world. Bio-mass production is the way forward, and is already proven to work in the US for diesel production, and is safe (although still being assessed in some countries including our own). This is being carried out by using that fuel in specified vehicles around the country under strict observation by various organisations. There isn't any question about the bio mass technique being viable and cheap to use, and the quality of the product is superior and cleaner than dino fuel. In the States, biofuel from microbial sources will, it is estimated, be in the pumps in 4 years. It won't be long after that we develop a thriving industry around the same technology. We need to since the government are pressing ahead with strict rules on how much biodiesel must be in every gallon we use, in addition to the amounts we already have that is. But it's good news for diesel owners...the new fuel gives better performance and better mpg, whilst reducing nox and general particulate matter even further. Engine life is not harmed at all and may even be improved. We won't know for sure until all testing has taken place on that last one. That's unlike petrol bio fuels which actually decrease mpg, increase CO2 and wear out your engine much more quickly.

You may be right............ But, Skoda, god bless 'em, have noted in their literature AND on the reverse of the filler cap of my Fabia, DO NOT USE BIO-DIESEL!

I think this may be due to the use of the particulate filter, fitted to the Greenline! It doea state that even one fill up could cause serious engine damage to the vehicle.

NASA paid some English guy millions in the '80's' to secure the patent to a device which produces hydrogen at the engine delivery point (avoiding the storage problems mentioned earlier). It works, it's proven, it's buried!! For now. It won't be waved around until they can make billions from it. Time isn't right yet.

And there was once a guy who was payed a small fortune for the rights to a match that would strike and light, over and over again, eliminating the need to buy more matches or lighters!