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Posted by D Sherman [72.47.153.24] on Friday, May 18, 2012 at 10:41:36 :
In Reply to: Re: OT... North Dakota ranks 2nd in US Oil production??? posted by JET [75.53.129.55] on Friday, May 18, 2012 at 10:02:22 :
Yes, Europe achieves better fuel efficiency in light vehicles via small diesel engines than we do with hybrids. Most of the world is following the European lead. The only real market for hybrids is the US, and that's because the EPA regulations essentially ban diesels. Everything argues in favor of small diesel engines rather than hybrids -- simplicity, reliability, first cost, fuel economy, and flexibility of fuels.
For whatever reason, however, the EPA has decided "No light diesels here", and so we're stuck with this miserably kludge involving two complete power plants, two complete energy storage systems, a lot of tricky electronics, and the need to schlep around the dead weight of a battery pack. Furthermore, the batteries are made out of lithium, of which there is very little in the US.
I read about electric cars in just about every issue of my trade magazines and believe me the engineers think they're even worse than the drivers do. There is no battery "breakthrough" on the horizon. Recent battery pack fires will make the batteries even more expensive and will reduce their power density even further.
Is Europe choking on smog from all their diesel-powered cars? I haven't been there but it sure doesn't look that way from the pictures.
I suppose a guy who really wanted a diesel Passat in America could buy the American-market model, and import the necessary engine and other extra components from Europe as parts, without going through all the red tape needed to import an actual vehicle, and then do the power plant swap himself.
Of course that would be a criminal offense comparable to murder in California or on the East coast, but in states like Idaho that still preserve a degree of liberty, nobody would ever inspect or care what sort of rig you had cobbled together so long as you put tabs on it and didn't violate any traffic laws. It's a shame we'd have to build a car ourselves and skirt the EPA/CARB laws in order to get the latest and greatest technology, though.
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