World's Only Diesel-Electric Honda Insight 687
Jake Staub writes "Just replaced the gasoline engine in a Honda Insight with a Diesel engine. On a 3,000 mile cross-country shakedown journey the car averaged 92mpg over 1,800 miles. Around a very hilly town in Northwest Washington, the car is averaging 78mpg. These mileage averages are without the electric side of the vehicle fully functional. With a bit more tinkering on the electric side and through a slight gearing change through tire size, it is anticipated that the car will likely average 100mpg. The build for the car has been documented on the web site and is as close to open source as my time allows. The car was built by two guys in a garage in Southern Maryland. If we can do it I don't see any reason why major auto manufacturers can't do it since we used their parts."
Re:Gutless? (Score:1, Informative)
Probably as "gutless" as this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audi_R10_TDI [wikipedia.org]
Re:Frankly I Recommend Such Things (Score:4, Informative)
significantly cheaper at the pump
I don't think that's correct. [doe.gov]
Re:Gutless? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not saying this one isn't gutless. But current diesel technology allows for some serious horsepower and the acceleration of some vehicles I have been in are on par with other vehicles of their size.
Unfortunately Diesel has a bad name. Partly because many gutless vehicles were made with it. I'd like to know this vehicles specs so I'm off to RTFA.
Re:Gutless? (Score:5, Informative)
No, modern diesels are nothing like the anemic POS that GM released in the 70s. Mainly because of the addition of the turbo charger (which diesels benefit greatly from), but common rail, higher injection pressures, advances in metallurgy.
My TDI is quite peppy, mainly because the shape of the torque curve. BMW has a 335d and X5 which they are selling here now. VW and Benz have been selling diesels here almost non-stop since the 70s.
That's why I always laugh when Chevy's ads come on trying to sell me this AMAZING 29 MPG car.
I got 48 MPG in a '86 IDI Diesel (that was a bit weak, but who needs more than 50 HP?)
I get 45 MPG in a '98 TDI diesel that is quite peppy. I have upgraded injectors and a special chip tune. I bet I'm just barely over 110 HP, if that.
Re:Frankly I Recommend Such Things (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, you should have told everyone diesel was significantly cheaper than gas last November/December. You might have got a black eye from one of the guys who actually needs to drive his diesel truck/van to make a living.
Diesel was touching $5.00 a gallon, and gas was hovering around $3.00. It would cost me nearly $60 to fill up my Jetta TDI. By the way, the first fill up in 2002 cost me $16.53.
Re:Frankly I Recommend Such Things (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'd buy this car. (Score:3, Informative)
TDI = Turbo Direct Injection (Fuel is injected straight into the cylinders)
SDI = Stratified Diesel Injection. (Same as above, no turbo).
IDI = Indirect Injector. (Fuel is injected into prechamber.) Came with and without a turbo.
Re:Gutless? (Score:3, Informative)
All diesels in the 70s where gutless. Heck simple truth was all cars in the US in the 70s where pretty gutless. The 70s was when we where trying to get emission controls to work and computers for controlling fuel injection and spark where primitive or just not available.
GM got such a bad rap on the diesel and for the most part it was unfair.
The GM diesel where sold to people that didn't know how to maintain them and by dealers that really didn't know how to maintain them. People that bought a 300D where used to paying Hans the big bucks. Olds buyers where not.
Also GM didn't put in a water separator. That was shouldn't have been an issue but right then quality of diesel went to crap and you had a lot of failed injector pumps.
Again MB was used to crap fuel and put in the extra filtering needed.
Re:Because .. (Score:5, Informative)
Well, the big issue was diesel was much dirtier in North America (high sulfur content) than in Europe, and a lot of the technologies that make diesel cars behave like gas cars tend to require the clean diesel. These days though, I believe the legislation has made low-sulfur diesel mandatory, which is why we see VW and Mercedes starting to import more diesel cars.
Quite a change, really - drive a heavy SUV that gets 5L/100km or better (probably spewing less CO2 than the little car next to you...). Or the fact that the engine lacks the traditional diesel clatter normally associated with trucks, or hell, doesn't Mercedes have a thing that mixes ammonia or something with exhaust that makes the exhaust even cleaner still?
Re:Diesel is so obviously better for hybrids (Score:5, Informative)
Except that you're talking about a series hybrid drive, and only the Chevy Volt works that way at the moment.
The Insight and the Prius are both parallel drive hybrids, which means the gas engine turns the wheels as well as powers up the batteries. The electric turns the wheels sometimes. The Volt's big thing is that it's a series hybrid, the drive is always electric and the gas engine runs at its high-efficiency speed to charge the batteries, then shuts off again.
Meaning that your comment would be correct if all hybrids were series hybrids, but as of now your comment would only apply to the Volt which isn't in production yet.
Re:Gutless? (Score:5, Informative)
Arco Gas Station down the street from my house - Regular 87 Octane - 3.05/g diesel 2.85/g
this is in Southern California.
two words: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Because .. (Score:3, Informative)
The main reason is the EPA.
US emissions restrictions are different from Europe. Not necessarily stricter, but different.
As I understand it, US emissions regulations are very strict about particulates and NOx emissions (both drawbacks for diesel. Particulates is easy to solve and has been solved, NOx is much harder.)
Euro emissions regulations are very strict about unburned hydrocarbons IIRC, which is good for diesel but bad for gasoline. They are far less strict about NOx.
Re:Isn't it a feature of diesels that... (Score:4, Informative)
That's a characteristic of ALL internal combustion engines, not just diesels. The reason it has been associated with diesels is that the common applications of diesels are those that lend themselves to narrow-range or constant rpm applications like trucks and diesel-electric trains. You could easily optimize a gasoline or methanol engine for a particular RPM range wtih similar results - a restrictor plate NASCAR motor being a hallmark example. It jusy runs around at an almost constant RPM the entire race, and it highly optimized for both power and mileage.
Brett
Re:Diesel is so obviously better for hybrids (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it's just the opposite - due to the fact that they throttle simply by adjusting fuel supply to the cylinders and typically do not have a throttle plate, diesel engines are FAR more efficient at reduced power levels than gasoline engines are.
As a result, one of the two main hybrid advantages (running the engine at peak efficiency) is negated. On the other hand, due to the high compression ratio, diesels are simply more efficient.
The other big hybrid advantage (regenerative braking) is still quite applicable to diesel, and in fact may be far easier to apply to diesels than to gasoline, since "ghetto hybrid" approaches like belt alternator-starter and flywheel alternator-starter can still provide great benefit. (Downshift to rev the engine and get the electric to spin - in a gas engine this will result in engine braking. Diesels don't, and in fact can't without special tricks, engine brake, so having an electric generator tied directly to the engine would still be quite effective.)
Re:Frankly I Recommend Such Things (Score:5, Informative)
If you follow that link and look at the gas-pump shaped chart on the right you will see that Diesel has far higher taxes imposed on it than Gasoline, or put another way Gasoline is subsidized through lower taxes than Diesel. And still Diesel averages only a couple of pennies per gallon more expensive.
Re:Frankly I Recommend Such Things (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Gutless? (Score:3, Informative)
Um. Maybe you should google that. Carnot is 0<=n<=1 (theoretically). Last I checked .51http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_efficiency [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_heat_engine [wikipedia.org]
For example, a typical gasoline automobile engine operates at around 25% efficiency, and a large coal-fueled electrical generating plant peaks at about 46%. The largest diesel engine in the world peaks at 51.7%. In a combined cycle plant, thermal efficiencies are approaching 60%.
Re:Gutless? (Score:2, Informative)
Unfortunately, the dealer problems still persist with VW diesels, it's well known amongst TDI owners that the majority of dealers screw up simple timing belt replacements in TDIs way too often. Just take a look in the forums over at tdiclub.com and search for "dealer timing belt". It may be as minor as the injection timing being set incorrectly, resulting in a minor loss of power and MPG's, or they get cheap and lazy and don't replace the idler pulley or water pump, causing the timing belt to break soon after and the valves to crash into the pistons. Good news for me, I never go to the stealership, I work on my own vehicles anyways. Also, taking your PD TDI to an oil change place that doesn't use the correct 505.01 rated oil can cause costly camshaft, follower and injector damage.
There were also some serious design flaws with the early GM diesels, they blew head gaskets and warped heads like crazy. This really damaged the reputation of diesel engines amongst people in the US in general.
Re:The real story (Score:2, Informative)
Is that 65 mpg for the Jaguar in imperial gallons? If so, that's about 54 mpg (US). Also, IIRC, that was mostly motorway driving, which uses less fuel than average driving. This Insight apparently got 92 mpg under similar driving conditions.
Re:Because .. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Gutless? (Score:3, Informative)
I had only ran into the dreaded injector pump death. That often caused a cylinder to fill with fuel followed by a bent the rod and or broken crank.
Diesel + Hybrid = Expensive (Score:5, Informative)
Diesels are more expensive than gas engines. Hybrids are more expensive than non-hybrids. Diesel hybrids are the most expensive of the bunch. The market just isn't willing to pay an extra 8-10k for more efficiency. As it is, hybrid buyers have to wait many years to make up the difference versus similar but non-hybrid cars.
Compare the Honda Fit to the Insight.
Insight Base MSRP 19,800
Fit Base Auto MSRP 15,550
Insight MPG 41
Fit MPG 31
Assume fuel is $4.00 (higher than now) and 15,000 miles driven per year.
So basically, assuming you keep the car, you break even when you've saved 4250 on fuel. That will take 9 years.
So say you take the 50MPG diesel and turn it into a 66MPG diesel. The amount spent on fuel each year will be much smaller in the first place, so it will take even longer to pay off the investment.
Re:Gutless? (Score:3, Informative)
If I remember right RON tends to be 8 to 10 points higher than MON or Motor octane number. The RON MON average used in the U.S. would be 4-5 points lower than the RON for the same gasoline.
87 in the U.S. would be around 91 in Europe
91 or 92 premium in the U.S. would be 95-97 in Europe.
Re:two words to explain why not ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Diesel is so obviously better for hybrids (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The real story (Score:3, Informative)
If we ever get a shift towards series hybrids (think train engines), then diesel is a perfect match.
Re:Gutless? (Score:3, Informative)
It's not an issue of "past" versus "present". Yes, modern diesels are far cleaner and more powerful per unit mass than they were in the 1970s. But you know what? So are gasoline engines. Modern diesels still lag well behind gasoline engines in both respects. Show me a single SULEV diesel, for example. The modern "clean diesels" generally barely meet modern US emissions reqs. The only reason they're so widespread in Europe is because they have more lax emissions reqs.
Secondly, this entire thread is based on two huge fallacies.
1) That one driver's (likely hypermiling, and at least anecdotal) mileage reports actually reflect a difference over EPA numbers; and
2) Diesel gallons are roughly equivalent to gasoline gallons.
Both of those are just that: fallacies. Vehicle mileages should only be compared on standardized test cycles, because driving habits from one person to another can vary *dramatically*. And diesel is *not* equivalent to gasoline. It's almost 15% denser and releases correspondingly more CO2 per gallon burned (as well as far greater amounts of many other pollutants). And it's no longer true, thanks to modern desulfurization reqs, that diesel takes significantly less energy to refine, offsetting the difference.
That said, even per unit mass, diesel engines do tend to be more efficient (usually about 15% average in real-world driving). Does the CO2 and operation-cost savings justify the higher release of other emissions? That's a tough call, and depends on how much you value different aspects.
Re:Gutless? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Diesel is so obviously better for hybrids (Score:3, Informative)
No. They knew it would be practically impossible to build a mechanical transmission to handle the unbelievable loads required of a locomotive... If they wanted added efficiency, they sure screwed the pooch when they designed dynamic braking to use giant resistors, and throw away all that braking power as waste heat.
Locomotive engines certainly don't run at constant RPMs. There's no battery where the excess power would go, nor to draw on when the supply at a given speed is insufficient. It wouldn't work.
Direct-drive is more efficient than converting to/from electricity in the best case, and a huge waste in the more typical case a few years ago... Batteries are still very expensive, and were previously astronomically expensive.
Not to mention that, up until a couple years ago, gasoline was very, very cheap, and even major efficiency gains were deemed worthless at the time, and reasonably so.
Re:Gutless? (Score:3, Informative)
I was working on a project comparing a Prius to a 2009 Jetta TDI. We drove both from Portland, ME to Portland, OR and you would never know the Jetta was a diesel. AND... on highway driving it destroyed the Prius on gas mileage.
Newer diesel technology is amazingly clean, efficient and powerful.
Re:Isn't it a feature of diesels that... (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't it a feature of diesels that they run best in a narrow RPM range?
That's a characteristic of ALL internal combustion engines, not just diesels. The reason it has been associated with diesels is that the common applications of diesels are those that lend themselves to narrow-range or constant rpm applications ...
Wait a minute. That's misleading.
All engines have some RPM where they have an efficiency peak and for a narrow range around that they are essentially at their peak efficiency (because the slope of a continuous function is zero at the maximums and minimums).
But the Otto cycle (spark-ignited gasoline engine) has a broad peak where the efficiency is near the max while the diesel cycle (compression-ignited) has a much narrower peak. This is largely because the compression heating and mixture requirements for ignition imposed more stringent limits on the amount that the operating parameters of a diesel could be adjusted for power/RPM combination than the spark-ignition of the gasoline engine did. (Better control of fuel injection and turbocharging is improving things for diesels now, though.)
Combine the narrow efficiency peak of a diesel - requiring more gearing in the transmission, increasing weight and reducing time lost to shifts, with its stronger structure requirements to survive higher compression, also increasing weight and impeding rapid RPM change, and the gasoline engine and its transmission had a significant power-to-weight-ratio and accelleartion advantage for passenger cars - at least in the pre-computer days.
Modern cybernetics and materials are putting turbocharged diesels on a better performance footing, while diesels are retaining their fuel efficiency advantage.
But of course for a hybrid - either with a pure electric transmission or an electromechanical one - the diesel's power curve is much less of an issue while its efficiency is a big win. So the diesel is a better match.
Re:Diesel is so obviously better for hybrids (Score:3, Informative)
When I don't use my brakes to slow down, I can maintain speed in lower gears on idle. For example, when coming to a stop, I cruise in relatively fast on minimal gas, and plan for a longer braking cycle; Some people keep full accelerator pressure to stay at full speed, and then brake sharply, holding the engine at higher RPMs.
More pertinently, most people tap their brakes to go around curves, or use their brakes and accelerator to control speed. Rather than a brake-gas-brakes-gas cycle, I relax the accelerator to slow down, allowing me to maintain speed without letting the engine spool down and then having to speed it back up again to cruise. Also when going around curves, I downshift, allowing the momentum of the car to drive engine compression and keep the engine speed and vehicle speed higher to avoid the need for further acceleration when leaving the curve.
When you brake, you waste energy you've gathered by accelerating and maintaining cruising speed. More gradual stops and more steady speed reduces the amount of acceleration you need to perform, which reduces fuel consumption. Engine braking also reduces brake wear and increases vehicle control, making drivers safer.
Re:Clean diesel (Score:3, Informative)
>>>Here's the most recent one that fueleconomy.gov has
You are such a fucking liar. You've done it twice now, first by claiming a modern diesel only gets a "1" and using old old data. And now again by claiming 2006 was the most-recent available year. False. 2009 Jetta Diesel == 6 on the EPA pollution scale. LINK - http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/2008car2tablef.jsp?column=2&id=25262 [fueleconomy.gov] - That's equivalent to what the gasoline version gets.
And the Diesel has a smaller "carbon footprint" - 11.9 diesel versus 7.3 for gasoline
European countries, which have signed the greenhouse gas reduction treaties, are encouraging diesel and diesel-electric cars as the cleanest technology. Once again the United States is falling behind its E.U. neighbors with bass-backwards antidiesel policies, just the same way its falling-behind in internet speeds, cellphone speeds, and so on.
Re:Diesel is so obviously better for hybrids (Score:3, Informative)
Does "parallel" not imply being able to operate independently?
The series/parallel difference is how the engine is used.
Parallel means that the engine provides the power to move the vehicle and the electric motor assists in parallel when needed. "full" hybrids can also run on just the electric for a time at low speeds, whereas "mild" hybrids (which use smaller, cheaper electric motors) cannot.
Series hybrids just use the engine as a generator and the electric motor(s) provide all the power to the wheels. The engine has no mechanical connection to the wheels.
Re:Diesel is so obviously better for hybrids (Score:1, Informative)
Also, the Insite uses a CVT - so you COULD run the diesel at a constant RPM and use the tranny to change speeds. not that you'd want to, but using a CVT makes using a diesel even more appropriate.
hmmm. trannys.