SHOULD I BUY A DIESEL CAR OR DRIVE THE MAIN ROAD IN A GAS BURNER?

Driving the road less traveled is where we are going with this comparison. If you buy a car with a diesel engine you are immediately going to join a very small group. So unless you are willing to make an alternative fashion statement with your car you should just buy a gas burner and drive on.

Diesel cars have never been popular in North America. Today, in North America, less than three percent of all the passenger cars on the road are diesels.   There's more than one reason for this and they are all good ones! The purpose of this article is not to prove that diesel cars are a better choice than a gas burning car. I'm going to come clean right now and let my new readers know that I'm an alternative guy.

I run Linux on my computers while Microsoft controls around 90% of the world's computers, I drink craft brewed real ale while 95% of the world drinks industrial lager.....And I drive a diesel Mercedes on the road with all my neighbours in their gas burning cars happily roaring along beside me.

But what fun is this? This forum is where I rant! What kind of rant doesn't rant? Am I just going to write a dry article that lays out a few facts and says there you go, have fun with your gas burning ,V6, silver minivan! I have to take a position! Alright, Alright. Diesels are better....uh... slightly and depending on where you live.

So, if so few of my good Canadian neighbours are driving diesel cars, why is it that virtually all commercial trucks are diesels and nearly half of all European cars are diesels?

Here's the short answer. Diesel engines get better fuel economy.

Is that it? 

Well sort of. As is the case with most things in life, nothing is what is seems.

What did you say? What's the long answer? Okay, you asked for it.

Diesel engines get better fuel economy because the nature of their compression ignition generates more power with less fuel and less refined fuel that costs less. That's it. Period, end of story.....Well sort of.

So if diesels use less and cheaper fuel why doesn't everyone buy one?

Well because they are more expensive to buy.

Oh.

But diesels are cheaper to maintain aren't they?

Well they can be if the owner maintains his diesel car religiously. But if you treat your diesel car the way most people treat their gas burning cars, repairs will occur that are more expensive than would be the case with a gasoline engine. Also since the repairs will occur later in the life of the machine, the decision of whether or not to spend lots of money on an old car becomes a difficult one. Especially since the owner paid more for the car to begin with. And people mostly don't want old cars. They don't want to spend thousands on their old cars, they want to buy new ones and change them after a while, not keep them for a lifetime. And that's where the car industry directs its advertising, to the fashion, lifestyle appeal and the status symbol of driving a late model car. On the other hand, fleet trucks get regular maintenance, especially oil changes. With top notch maintenance diesel engines last a long, long time. I mean a really long time...decades! So the businesses that operate the fleets can wring the last dollar out of their trucks. People generally don't want to do this and that, in a nutshell, is why virtually all commercial trucks are diesel and almost no private passenger cars are diesels. But people who are using their cars to commute long distances and have good maintenance habits and who aren't interested in buying new cars can save a lot of money with a diesel car.  

But what about emissions? Don't diesel cars smoke a lot and aren't they noisy?

First of all, yes, they are noisier than gasoline cars because the high compression required to burn diesel oil generates noisy explosions in the engine. However insulating the engine compartment can mask this noise well. Car makers go to more or less effort in this area. Mercedes cars are very quiet while tractors are loud, but the engines essentially generate the same amount of noise.

Now, about emissions. With low sulfur diesel fuel and good maintenance, high quality diesel engines don't smoke. But old engines with worn cylinders and glow plugs will smoke. Especially when cold and when accelerating. Which is why top notch maintenance is required for diesels. But while diesel smoke is what ordinary people see and therefore think is pollution, as usual, nothing is what it seems.

Even a worn and smoky, old diesel will not emit carbon monoxide at all, will emit less carbon dioxide, and only very slightly more nitrogen oxide than a similar sized gasoline engine. Diesel smoke is unburned fuel, particulate matter. It's ugly but not particularly (sorry) harmful.

And now that carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring gas, is being viewed as a pollutant, the diesel always wins this race simply because diesels burn less fuel therefore they emit less carbon dioxide. So, if everyone drove a diesel car, the world would cut carbon emissions from cars by about twenty percent...but there'd be more smoke around.

Oh.

Incongruously, with all of the green rhetoric being emitted into the air today, the misunderstood diesel car remains marginalized in the North American car market ,especially in the USA. Largely because people and their politicians continue with the mindset that diesels pollute more than gas burning cars. Now there's a bit of a buzz on with Volkswagen especially soapboxing about its new “clean diesels” as if there's some big revolution going on in diesel technology. Well the new technology is the urea additive that breaks down nitrogen oxide emissions and yes that does lower emissions slightly. And the direct fuel injection system helps a little, and the higher compression helps along with the precision of computer technology, but the real improvement isn't in the car engine at all...it's at the pump! Yes! It's ultra low sulfur diesel fuel that has lowered emissions for all diesels. Car makers didn't take the biggest step in improving fuel emissions, governments did by legislating that all fuel sold has to have less sulfur than was the case in decades gone by.

Mercedes still makes and sells diesel cars in North America and wades its way through the morass of red tape to get to the consumer who's willing to spend seventy-five thousand plus for a car. Currently, in Canada, the only diesel passenger car available for less than the fabulous Mercedes machines are Volkswagens .  Recently, for two years running, THE ONLY NEW, DIESEL,  PASSENGER CAR AVAILABLE IN CANADA WAS THE MERCEDES BENZ SEDAN! The exception was the diesel powered  Smart Car (Mercedes) which is well worth discussing but let's not go off on a tangent here!
Why don't the other car makers sell diesel cars?
The answer is they do! Virtually all the other car makers sell diesels in world markets, but not in North America. There are several reasons for this. The main one is that emission standards are different in North America than elsewhere. Politics are what mainly keeps the other automakers like Honda, Toyota, BMW and everyone else from offering diesel cars for sale in North America...read USA. Emission control standards are set by the American Fed, but the they are driven (sorry) by politicians and bureaucrats in California.  The attitude in California it seems is that nitrogen oxides and particulates are more harmful than carbon dioxide.  Because the standards for those emissions has been set so high that no car maker in the world can meet them at a reasonable price so they don't bother to sell diesels in the USA. (Mercedes cars are great and available and they meet the standards but the price isn't reasonable) So here my friends is the bizarre result of not allowing diesel cars for sale in the USA.  Firstly, The USA in its entirety, has missed the chance to reduce its passenger car related, carbon footprint by more than twenty percent by setting the emission standards in California TOO HIGH!. Plus, because the Canadian car market is comparatively small, since no one imports diesel cars to the USA, Canada doesn't get any either!....That's right! Since the USA isn't gettin' any, neither are we.   Life is absurd after all.
The second reason is the price of fuel. Fuel is relatively inexpensive in the USA and even in Canada. In areas where fuel is very expensive, because it's heavily taxed or just difficult to obtain, diesel cars thrive.

Where diesel cars are common, diesel mechanics are common so getting your diesel car fixed is easier. If you drive a diesel car in North America you will have to go to some trouble to find a competent diesel mechanic. Easily obtaining good maintenance and parts is important and this is difficult in North America, especially in the USA.

You don't have to buy a new diesel car to have a clean burning diesel.. A nice used Mercedes diesel however can be had for somewhere between three and nine thousand dollars depending on the age and condition of course. 2.5 lt. turbo diesels and 3.0 diesels are around and so are the economical Volkswagen Jettas Golfs and a few Beetles. All are excellent cars although the Mercedes cars are much more luxurious

Virtually all diesel cars on the road are old Mercedes and Volkswagen cars. They are all extraordinary cars and outlast their gas burning relatives by years...even decades.
But are diesel burning cars made differently than other cars or is it just the engine?
The short answer is that it's just the heavily built, precision made engine, but the long answer as we've seen is much more complicated. It involves who buys and drives new and used diesel cars, who makes them, and which governments allow them to be sold in which jurisdictions.

So should I buy a diesel car?

Well, if you're an alternative type like me, yes, you'll never look back. You'll find a nice, old, European mechanic who knows everything about your 1983 Mercedes, you'll go to truck stops for fuel.

You'll consider burning fryer oil in your car..( a subject for another rant). Some of your friends will think you're weird and others will admire your beautiful diesel Mercedes.

THERE'S NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN ... INCLUDING THE ELECTRIC CAR

Who Killed the Electric Car? is a buzz phrase that conspiracy theorists just love to repeat. Debunking urban myths is great fun...can we do it here?
A recent TV ad run by reeling, multi-national automaker General Motors contained a clip read by a young woman saying “ I want a car I can plug in” People should be careful what they wish for. Let's look at what that would mean.

First of all, let's take trip to the Okanagan. Considering today's electric car technology, we'd make it there but not back (500km round trip) so we'll need a place to “plug it in” . How long will it take to charge and where will we charge it? Even a Tesla currently takes 3.5 hours to charge. And that's the very best currently available electric car

And this assumes that we have a place to fully trickle charge the battery before we leave. “Just plug it in at home” you say.

A recent analysis of parking places for cars in the USA showed that there are only 54 million garages for the 247 million registered cars in the US, and the rest were on the street or elsewhere. In San Francisco, only 16% of cars are parked in garages.

“But herein lies the conspiracy" the theorists shout! "What about having electric charging stations on street corners like gas stations?"

This site explains the massive amount of power required to charge a car battery quickly, meaning ten or fifteen minutes. In short, the amount of electricity that the average entire office building consumes would be needed for just four fueling lines.

Can you imagine how much power it would take to replace even a tiny fraction of the gas stations that currently form our infrastructure? And, where would that power come from?

First of all, if a customer waiting to charge his battery had a couple of cars in front of him, he could easily find himself spending thirty to sixty minutes getting his car charged. And that would only take him about a hundred kilometers or so and he'd be back in line.

All this is assuming that only SOME of the necessary power would be available.

Well it might be inconvenient in terms of range and fueling hassles, but we'd be "green" at least wouldn't we?...Not so fast my tree hugging friend. It's true that in certain locales some of the cars on the road could be charged with hydro electricity but in most locations, the over whelming majority of the power IS and WOULD BE supplied by thermal electric power stations burning natural gas, oil, coal and by nuclear power generating stations.

What about wind. What about solar energy. These systems are great for HELPING our current energy needs. And todays windmills are better than the picturesque ones we see on Dutch post cards aren't they? Yes they are but not nearly better enough to charge all our cars. And solar panels are great too when the sun shines and when we have countless millions of them. And we should have them. But I don't think we'll be charging our cars with solar panels any time soon.

In Germany where oil is as scarce as hen's teeth, massive amounts of public money has been spent to reduce that country's overall dependency on oil. Not only has this government subsidized program spawned an entire alternative energy industry, but it has actually been successful in exceeding the oil use reduction targets originally set out.

In Denmark massive wind farms help keep the lights on and in France, nuclear power takes the chill off the winter to the tune of much of France's power needs. But none of these systems are running nor could they run all the cars on the road.

This not about doom and gloom, this is about debunking myths!

Hey, in the distant future, when we actually have run out of oil worldwide, if mankind survives, we'll likely be thrilled with our solar power and other systems. But I don't agree with those who think an electric car is a reasonable alternative to a Honda Civic or a diesel Jetta or a Freightliner truck that currently moves most of our consumer goods.

The thing about batteries is that they always need charging. That might be alright for a suburban homeowner with a garage charger wanting to bump over to the grocery store once in a while, but a family, a commuter, a business person, and a host of other drivers that utilize our current fossil fuel burning cars' infrastructure would find the the electric car to be very limiting by comparison.

And making and recycling batteries IS NOT A “GREEN INDUSTRY”.

Dead batteries litter the landfills world wide. A recent CBC Marketplace production of a community “battery drive” showed how easy it was to get a FULL SIZED PICKUP TRUCK FULL of dead batteries in just a few days in a small Ontario town. Rechargeable or not, they die. I've purchased tool batteries, car batteries, solar power system batteries, mobile phone batteries, computer batteries, watch batteries, flashlight batteries and the list goes on and so has everyone else no doubt.

NEWS FLASH! It takes a lot of oil to make electric cars and to keep them running.

The current gas burning cars on the road are highly evolved, ergonomic, fuel frugal machines that are not going to be displaced by small, complicated, expensive, range limited, hard to fuel electric cars any time soon and I say hooray for that.

This doesn't mean that I'm not “green” my faithful reader. Yes I drive a diesel car, yes I ride a bicycle to work, yes I recycle my beer cans.....hey I'm so damn green I'm glowing green and it's not a recent fad, this is how I live.

Hybrid electric cars have proven themselves helpful in reducing fuel consumption. Modern diesels are also very good. And despite these success stories these excellent vehicles comprise only a minuscule fraction of overall auto sales.

Who Killed the Electric Car? The movie isn't "truth" even though certain things did actually occur. And Al Gore and his “An Inconvenient Truth” scenario, as entertaining as it is, isn't truth either.

The future is uncertain and predicting it is fun and sometimes useful, but it is, at best, an inexact science. Doom and gloom sells but I'm not buyin' … I'm not drinking the Koolaid. Nothing is what it seems. Things are complex. The point is that the electric car is not a reasonable alternative to a regular car except in specific applications as an "alternative" vehicle even though it's a popular idea.

One of the best conspiracy theories being thrown around is the idea that evil, multi-national oil companies in concert with the devil incarnate auto makers have scuttled the electric car and its panacea technology to maintain current sales and to keep us addicted to the black gold.

Look every major car company in the world is working to produce all electric or plug-in hybrids and they'll form part of our transportation needs in the future... it's all part of the green shaft and this is a fun area of R&D as well

Well I suppose anything's possible. And a one of the things that makes a great conspiracy theory great is that it can't ultimately be totally dis-proven. The grassy knoll and recent Elvis sightings being cases in point.

JulianOnePlanet Publications copyright 2008