Hi All,

I'm very interested in hybrids, mostly from the mileage standpoint.
but for me it is a hard sell.

I've also been looking at diesels and it seems to me most diesels are getting better mileage, under normal driving conditions, than what i see posted here.

A recent visit to a diesel forum ( tdiclub i believe) showed me that for a jetta diesel stick, people were getting 49 mpg (us) and 46mpg (us) with an automatic. (better when they are going for the 'good' mileage) and they are getting around 800 miles on a tank. Diesel starts getting very attracive. add in biodiesel, and you have a very green compination to boot.

in europe where diesels are more prevelent they have a car called a loupo which is much smaller and has a tiny 1.2 liter diesel and gets in the 80 mpg range.
at that rate, a diesel has to be greener per mile than what i'm seeing so far in hybrids. plus now i'm hear that in europe they are already surpassing california emission standarts (yes better emissions than gas)

i'm not trying to put a stick into a hornets nest, but i really cant see the upside of hybrids. seems that the technology is much farther along on deisels and no comprimising. heck, mercedes has diesels, as does vw, in the usa, and in europe, most major manufacturers have diesels, in europes i hear about 50 percent of the cars are diesel. Diesels are know for thier high torque. and it seems that the mileage figures i've spot checked for modern diesels for other models in europe are in line with what i saw on the tdiclubs forum.

In a last factor, it would seem to me that in a hybrid there would be more components to have problems over time, where in a diesel, there are actualy less components over a gas car.

maybe somone can set me stright.

Thanks

Innkeeper,
Untill the whole of the US changes over to low Sulfur diesel, the emmisions seen in Europe will be far less than would be seen here.
Cheers,
Steven

First off, let me say that the comparison has been made before. If you'd look at our mileage database at https://www.greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/ you'll see some actual figures. There are even some diesel cars for you to compare (though these drivers are very good at what they do). The fact of the matter is that hybrids produce better emissions levels without having to go through all the work of biodiesel and such. They're naturally cleaner. Also, the technology is so "advanced" that it's particularly easy to add on high-tech features like the Prius has. May I add, you'll get more bang for your buck while they try to push the technology.

Your point is well taken.

I put about 40,000 miles on a car a year.
up till now i have stayed with japanese gas cars, and usualy get 250,000 miles out of them before i give them up for another one.

now i'm in shopping mode again. and for me, its very much a practical question/decision, and it all comes down to money.

lets face it, i wouln't be posting here if gas mileage did not matter. I admit, i'm hard on a car. rush hour traffic, two mountians to go over each way, and on the highways the traffic rarely goes below 80. my daily experience is probably not that unresonable for a commuter. id probably never see 50 mpg even on a car that could usualy get it. I usualy run 30-35% below the mileage i can get by going 55 on long flat drives.

I would be saving around 3,000 a year if i could get to the real world 50 mpg range.

my worries are reliability over the long haul. maintenance costs, fuel costs, cost of the car itself, and although i'm not looking for a speed deamon by any strech of the imagination, power when i need it is imortant.

I agree about the low sulfer and emissions, that is not here yet, or at least not wide spread (many new deisel trucks now require it, but who wants to re-fuel at a truckstop) but the partiulate filters being used in europe and in the usa on busses show promise.

but i'm digressing.
i'm leaning twards deisel mostly because i feel that the long term reliability is there. I dont think either has an advantage or disavantage from a mileage standpoint. unless we start comparing specific models, i think both diesel and hybrid are cabable of very good mileage compared to comperable gas cars.

i guess if the mileage with a hybrid was double over diesel, i wouldn't be having the conversation at all, id be driving a hybrid.

for me its all about the $ i spend between maintenance,car payments, and fuel each year.

Besides a possible replacement of the battery, you won't have any more costs associated with a hybrid. Actually, many believe you'll have less maintenance because there will be less wear on the brake pads, sometimes oil changes are less frequent, etc...

I just read your thread regarding diesel versus hybrid. I spent about three weeks recently in Germany May 4-25 of this year, visiting my relatives, and most if not all of them drive diesel vehicles. I have an Uncle who drives the A class mercedes which I find isn't being sold here in states, I guess because it's too small for our interstate highway system. His is also diesel and is standard shift. He told me he could drive from the southern part of Germany (Bavaria) to Bremen on a full tank, with plenty of diesel to spare. It's a cute little car, which is far too small for me considering my height. I'm 6'5'' and could barely fit in the front seat.
I was wondering, if in the near future, any of the car companies would also consider using diesel in the future hybrid cars.
:rolleyes:

Hi All,

I thought it only fair that I post an update.
I did purchase a car. I got a used VW TDI automatic diesel (with 53k on it)
I've gone through 2 tankfulls so far, and have done 42mpg and 45mpg respecively.
I'll have to revisit hybrids again once I wear this car out.
Thanks to everyone who replied. and thanks to this forum for pracitical infromation on hybrids.

some factors that made my decision for right or wrong
(i was choosing between all car types not just between diesel and hybrid).

matenance
diesel engine 10,000 miles between oil changes.
no tunups (eg no sparkplugs, wires etc.)
costs
lower fuel cost (diesel is much cheaper at the moment)
low mantenance costs, oil tunups etc.

est. fuel costs per year:
diesel 1466 (40,000 miles 1.65 per gal @45 mpg)
hybrid 1560 (40,000 miles 1.95 per gal @ 50 mpg)
gas 2228 (40,000 miles 1.95 per gal @ 35mpg)
gas 3120 (40,000 miles 1.95 per gal @ 25mpg) - what i retired

my savings per year est. 1644 (not including tunup and oil change savings)
I est about 300 per year maintenance savings over my old car.

Total savings of 1944 a year.

Your miledge my vary.
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Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Hey innkeeper,

Nice comparison of costs. What about an emissions comparison? What I've heard, "old" diesels cause acidification (NOx), over-fertilization (NOx) and cancer (particulate matters).

Cheers,

Hey John,
Well these new diesels are not the diesels of old.

CO2 emissions are 25% less than a conventional gasoline powered engine. CO, HC and NOx emissions are less than previous 'OLD' Diesels. Diesel fuel has lower evaporative emissions than gasoline. Diesel fuel also requires less energy intensive refining than gasoline.

Diesel engines generally emit higher amounts of NOx and particles than equivalent gasoline powered cars, even though CO and HC emissions may be lower, and total emissions are lower due to much better fuel consumption. The current TDI Volkswagens typically emit slightly somewhat lower than the Tier 1 limits for NOx and particles (around 0.052 g/mi of particulate matter [PM] and 0.82 g/mi of NOx per EPA data), but the CO and HC emissions are far below the Tier 1 limits and well below the emissions of the equivalent gasoline engine.

Furthermore, most of the unregulated toxic gaseous emissions tend to be lower for diesel engines. For example, benzene (which is a known carcinogen) is lower in diesels by nearly an order of magnitude (i.e., factor of ten) than an equivalent gasoline engine. Diesels also tend to be significantly lower in emissions of alkenes (e.g., ethene), carbonyls (e.g., formaldehyde), and semivolatiles like polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, many of which are known or suspected carcinogens).

PM has always been regulated by mass (e.g., grams per mile). However, very recent studies show that particle number may be the more important aspect of PM emissions. According to a "real world vehicle testing report" by University of Minnesota renowned combustion particle scientists, new data show that PM number emissions from modern gasoline cars may equal or exceed diesel PM levels. It goes on to discuss gasoline PM emissions and that fact that gasoline engines may need a particulate filter much like that of a diesel. The University of Minnesota study showed that newer and older gasoline vehicles matched or exceeded diesel PM number emissions at high speed/load . It appears that diesel engines equipped with diesel particulate filters (DPFs), as many are now in Europe, will have a significant advantage in PM emissions over gasoline engines. Other recent studies are suggesting that gasoline PM is generally more toxic that diesel PM.

The emission levels from diesel engines tend to remain more-or-less constant throughout the useful life of the engine, whereas gasoline engines have many more emission-related components which deteriorate and lead to higher and higher emissions as the engine gets older.

Speaking of cancerous stuff..., we have/had MTBE in our gasoline here, that stuff scares the crap out of me.

I can say, my old gas car would give a nice plume of smoke from time to time as it burned oil, and not to mention dripping it out of the leaky seals. talk about environmentaly unfriendly. theres no way the tdi is producing more emissions than the car i gave up

now as for the diesel, i've yet to see smoke, i cant even smell the car running (you know that typical diesel smell) this car is much better than my old one when it comes to emissions. The VW TDI has the lowest emmissions ever of any diesel powered car. have to gimme credit for burning 1/2 the fuel as well.

i never said it was a simple choice, but i'm still happy with it

Hi again Johan.
sorry about mis spelling your name before,
just some info on NOx emissions on Gas v.s. Diesel

U.S. Department of Energy-supported studies have strongly suggested that the strict control of NOx emissions may have the unintended consequence of making ambient ground-level ozone worse. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has put increasingly strict emission limits on NOx emissions in an attempt to reduce ground-level ozone (ozone is an inhalation health concern), for which Southern California is notorious. However, many previous studies have shown that ozone levels are actually higher on weekends (WE) than on weekday (WD) (WD/WE effect) when diesel truck traffic decreases relatively much more than automobile traffic (which mostly are powered by gasoline engines). The DOE studies have confirmed that NOx is reduced significantly more than VOC (HC) and as a result ozone levels increase. It has been discovered that most large urban areas in the U.S. have similar conditions in which ambient ozone levels rise with decreasing ambient NOx levels and that NOx controls in Southern California (and other urban U.S. locations) are generally counterproductive for reducing ambient ozone, they actually increase ambient ozone levels. Were it not for large concurrent HC emission reductions on weekends, weekend ozone would be even higher than it is, and the weekend/weekday ozone difference would be even larger. DOE concludes that gasoline exhaust and gasoline vapor account for ~80 percent of ambient NMHC (VOCs) in on-road samples and at regional air monitoring locations suggesting that gasoline emissions are responsible for the majority of ozone found in the SoCAB. Whether these recent findings change CARB's (or even EPA's) ozone control strategy remain to be seen.

In addition, other recent studies are suggesting that carbon monoxide (CO) emissions (most of which are from gasoline engine vehicles) are becoming more and more responsible for generating ground-level ozone. The National Research Council's (NRC's) report confirmed the importance of carbon monoxide in the formation of urban ozone, concluding that more than 20 percent of vehicle-related ozone pollution comes from carbon monoxide. The Council also notes that carbon monoxide emissions will play an even larger role in ozone formation as volatile organic compound emissions from vehicles continue to decrease. Another source concludes that CO emissions may be responsible for as much as 35% of the ground-level ozone.

CARB (and to a slightly lesser extent EPA) focuses on reducing NOx. But atmospheric scientist Gary Whitten of ICF Consulting notes that if the tradeoff of reducing NOx is to increase hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions, the environment would be poorly served. The reason, according to Whitten, is that a reduction in hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions has a much greater beneficial impact on ozone formation than an equivalent reduction in NOx. Whitten concludes, "The effectiveness of THC for reducing ozone in these simulations must be as much as 8 times better than NOx reductions on an equal percentage of the mobile emissions basis." Since diesel engines tend to have significantly lower emissions of CO and HC (VOCs), while generally higher emissions of NOx, one could conclude based on these recent studies that an increasing market share of diesel-powered cars and light trucks will have a positive impact on ground level ozone rather that the negative impact which has always been assumed.

So for me i dont buy into the NOx emmisions problem with diesel.

The current move to partiulate filters is great, and hope to see them on both gas and diesel engines. But, what of all the carsengenic emmisions from gasoline.. alkenes, carbonyls, and semivolatiles /PAHs ???

(sorry for the long posts but you asked)