Sailaways with diesel/hybrid engine

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

The above is only true during town stop/start type driving.

 

On motorways and A road, the fuel consumption is worse because of having to carry the extra weight of the batteries and electric motors, over and above that of an equivalent petrol engined car. The more the car needs to accelerate the bigger the impact on fuel consumption the weight penalty has.

Interesting thoughts. Must agree that it doesn't quite add up that you have to carry a load of extra weight to save fuel. Bit like having a full 200 gal fuel tank and expecting to use less of the stuff.

[ditchcrawler]

6 minutes ago, catweasel said:

Interesting thoughts. Must agree that it doesn't quite add up that you have to carry a load of extra weight to save fuel. Bit like having a full 200 gal fuel tank and expecting to use less of the stuff.

Its called ballast We all load it in out boats and hump round as well.

 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Its called ballast We all load it in out boats and hump round as well.

 

True, but not with the intention of saving fuel ?
The real problem is climbing hills with cars, when they consume so much more fuel. Trucks are even worse. You would think that in this day and age that all roads could be built facing downhill hence saving fuel.

[cuthound]

19 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Its called ballast We all load it in out boats and hump round as well.

 

 

Cars aren't tender though, with the notable exception of the Citroen 2CV ?

[IanD]

46 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

The above is only true during town stop/start type driving.

 

On motorways and A road, the fuel consumption is worse because of having to carry the extra weight of the batteries and electric motors, over and above that of an equivalent petrol engined car. The more the car needs to accelerate the bigger the impact on fuel consumption the weight penalty has.

Agreed, but if you're driving at almost constant speed (e.g. on a motorway) fuel consumption is mostly due to drag, not weight. Either way, I think we agree that the real-life savings are much smaller than the official figures -- at least under the old NEDC scheme, the new WLTP one is a lot more realistic.

 

Plug-in hybrids also mostly help in town driving, and only then if they're ever plugged in ?

[Sea Dog]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

 Plug-in hybrids also mostly help in town driving, and only then if they're ever plugged in ?

Yep.  The ideal vehicle at the moment would be a Euro 6 Diesel PHEV: quiet and zero emissions in town combined with the best current solution long distance.  Surprisingly still rare. Folk seemed to forget that petrol was the enemy when someone found out how dirty old diesels are.

[IanD]

6 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Yep.  The ideal vehicle at the moment would be a Euro 6 Diesel PHEV: quiet and zero emissions in town combined with the best current solution long distance.  Surprisingly still rare. Folk seemed to forget that petrol was the enemy when someone found out how dirty old diesels are.

I used to have a (non-plug-in) Mercedes E300 diesel hybrid, but it hardly ever ran on electric power and was only a few mog better than a straight diesel. Problem is that modern low-pollution diesels are expensive, hybrids are expensive, both together are doubly expensive -- this is why there aren't many.

[Machpoint005]

2 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

Is there any other kind? surely people aren't still in the 1950s with 3 pedals and a silly stick ? a

 

It always bothers me that the Memsahib's car has a computer that tells her which gear she should be in, but leaves her to move the pedals and stick. 

Mine (older than hers) not only knows the right gear, but puts me in it before I would even have decided to change. Quick overtakes are much quicker thanks to those clever little Czechs! 

[mrsmelly]

8 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

It always bothers me that the Memsahib's car has a computer that tells her which gear she should be in, but leaves her to move the pedals and stick. 

Mine (older than hers) not only knows the right gear, but puts me in it before I would even have decided to change. Quick overtakes are much quicker thanks to those clever little Czechs! 

Problem is many drivers have never even tried the modern auto boxes, thats something the UK is year behind looking at many countries. My fairly old 2007 mazda five speed box changes imperceptably and kicks down quicker than a manual box should the need arise. Gone are the days of heavier fuel consumption and longevity is no longer a problem.  Being able to control the gearbox i f needed manualy is always now an option. Most if not all police forces now use auto boxes for their pursuit cars, indeed Liverpool were using them in the early eighties. No in/out/in/out/in/out messing with a clutch pedal in the all too heavy daily traffic these days. I havnt bought a manual car for many years, about the same time as I switched to a telly that changes sides from my armchair via a remote control, do all these manual gearbox drivers still walk over to their tellies and push buttons to change sides?

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Problem is many drivers have never even tried the modern auto boxes, thats something the UK is year behind looking at many countries. My fairly old 2007 mazda five speed box changes imperceptably and kicks down quicker than a manual box should the need arise. Gone are the days of heavier fuel consumption and longevity is no longer a problem.  Being able to control the gearbox i f needed manualy is always now an option. Most if not all police forces now use auto boxes for their pursuit cars, indeed Liverpool were using them in the early eighties. No in/out/in/out/in/out messing with a clutch pedal in the all too heavy daily traffic these days. I havnt bought a manual car for many years, about the same time as I switched to a telly that changes sides from my armchair via a remote control, do all these manual gearbox drivers still walk over to their tellies and push buttons to change sides?

Must say I agree with much of that especially the highlighted bit. Our Shogun was auto and was amazing even on rough terrain. My current geriatric  Ford is manual, but I would have another auto no problem. well impressed by the Mitsu.
ps my mate claims his auto truck (volvo IIRC) does MORE to the gallon than the previous manual same model. 

[mrsmelly]

1 minute ago, catweasel said:

Must say I agree with much of that especially the highlighted bit. Our Shogun was auto and was amazing even on rough terrain. My current geriatric  Ford is manual, but I would have another auto no problem. well impressed by the Mitsu.
ps my mate claims his auto truck (volvo IIRC) does MORE to the gallon than the previous manual same model. 

I reckon its the eu that makes us all drive manual cars innitt ? ?

[Guest]

2 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

Cars aren't tender though, with the notable exception of the Citroen 2CV ?

I can give another example
The old chap back in the 70's bought a VW 411 which had a boxer engine in the arse end. It was OK until you took it on the M6 in a side wind when you needed valium. It was truly awful under those circumstances. It was soon sold on.

[TheBiscuits]

2 minutes ago, catweasel said:

I can give another example
The old chap back in the 70's bought a VW 411 which had a boxer engine in the arse end. It was OK until you took it on the M6 in a side wind when you needed valium. It was truly awful under those circumstances. It was soon sold on.

That would be a good candidate for filling the front end with heavy batteries!

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

I reckon its the eu that makes us all drive manual cars innitt ? ?

 LOL. To be honest when we go to stay with our daughter in Germaly, most cars seem to be auto there, especially the Merc taxis. We do see some bonny old cars there too, many of these being manual boxes. 
We have been very slow to adopt auto transmission here for some reason. However I would like to declare my hypocrisy at this point: I would NEVER have a bike with auto transmission! 

7 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

That would be a good candidate for filling the front end with heavy batteries!

Indeed it would! 
The other things that amused me about the same car: It used the spare wheel to pressurise the windscreen washer bottle, and being air cooled, it had a Webasto type heater to heat the cabin, which ran on petrol. They don't make 'em like that anymore....
Just remembered that the start battery was under the passenger seat.

Edited April 15, 2019 by Guest

[ditchcrawler]

back in the 70s a worked with a mechanic who had a part time job at a local dairy. Whenever they bought a new milk float he would drag the manual box off and replace in with an auto box before the milk delivery chaps could get hold of them. He said that with a manual the would wreck them, clutch engine and box, put an auto in and it made them bomb proof 

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

back in the 70s a worked with a mechanic who had a part time job at a local dairy. Whenever they bought a new milk float he would drag the manual box off and replace in with an auto box before the milk delivery chaps could get hold of them. He said that with a manual the would wreck them, clutch engine and box, put an auto in and it made them bomb proof 

Interesting. Probably the reason why buses and trucks are gradually going over to autos?

Edited April 15, 2019 by Guest

[peterboat]

7 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

The above is only true during town stop/start type driving.

 

On motorways and A road, the fuel consumption is worse because of having to carry the extra weight of the batteries and electric motors, over and above that of an equivalent petrol engined car. The more the car needs to accelerate the bigger the impact on fuel consumption the weight penalty has.

I am afraid you are wrong, my Honda Insight and CRZ both use the electric motor to aid acceleration, so in reality the engine has to work less, once its moving the extra weight hardly matters. If I hit  hill once again the electric motor assists, braking is a joy, regeneration  means I dont wear out brakes the electric motor creats electric to recharge the battery.  Engine starting is by the electric motor, same as stop start. So I will keep on driving my clean green Honda Hybrids, because I know it makes sense

[peterboat]

5 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Yep.  The ideal vehicle at the moment would be a Euro 6 Diesel PHEV: quiet and zero emissions in town combined with the best current solution long distance.  Surprisingly still rare. Folk seemed to forget that petrol was the enemy when someone found out how dirty old diesels are.

Euro 6 isnt clean! thats why most diesels bit the dust September last year! BEVs are the way forward really small turboed petrol Hybrids are just a stepping stone to get people used to silent running

7 hours ago, IanD said:

Agreed, but if you're driving at almost constant speed (e.g. on a motorway) fuel consumption is mostly due to drag, not weight. Either way, I think we agree that the real-life savings are much smaller than the official figures -- at least under the old NEDC scheme, the new WLTP one is a lot more realistic.

 

Plug-in hybrids also mostly help in town driving, and only then if they're ever plugged in ?

My insight has a drag of .25 and weighs just over 800 kilos the CRZ which is much newer has a higher cd and weighs much more, and they call it progress

[Sea Dog]

7 hours ago, peterboat said:

Euro 6 isnt clean! thats why most diesels bit the dust September last year! BEVs are the way forward really small turboed petrol Hybrids are just a stepping stone to get people used to silent running

I didn't claim it was, but with Euro 6 it's a massive step beyond the dirty diesels which I suspect your "most" refers to - the date of Sept 15 you quote is actually when Euro 6 became compulsory. It passes the requirement of the the new London ULEZ for example. I don't have a downer on petrol Hybrids by the way - I've enjoyed a very fun day in a BMW i8 - rather, my point was that the current diesel hysteria fails to recognise the Euro 6 advances. The petrol alternative ain't so great either and may now (following Euro 6) be worse, not least in terms of producing about 20 times more CO2, but there's no lack of other pollutants and it's also worse than diesel on CO (remember when that was the enemy?) and hydrocarbons.

 

Diesel is intrinsically worse on particulates and NOx,  but Euro 6 regulations made a decent job of pushing the manufacturers to address those with DPF and SCR respectively. Euro 7 is next and that looks set to significantly tighten up on CO2 emissions which will then draw one of petrol's biggest problems back into stark focus. CO2 is, of course, a big part of why the drive to switch to diesel occurred - and so the pendulum swings. Driven significantly, funnily enough, by EU regulations. 

 

I'd love to be driving an electric car and I don't doubt the day will dawn, but not whilst EVs are quirky designs (the new electric mini is a step in the right direction) and don't provide the range I regularly use.  Til then, I stand by my earlier premises that my ideal vehicle with today's tech would be a diesel PHEV. 

[peterboat]

53 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

I didn't claim it was, but with Euro 6 it's a massive step beyond the dirty diesels which I suspect your "most" refers to - the date of Sept 15 you quote is actually when Euro 6 became compulsory. It passes the requirement of the the new London ULEZ for example. I don't have a downer on petrol Hybrids by the way - I've enjoyed a very fun day in a BMW i8 - rather, my point was that the current diesel hysteria fails to recognise the Euro 6 advances. The petrol alternative ain't so great either and may now (following Euro 6) be worse, not least in terms of producing about 20 times more CO2, but there's no lack of other pollutants and it's also worse than diesel on CO (remember when that was the enemy?) and hydrocarbons.

 

Diesel is intrinsically worse on particulates and NOx,  but Euro 6 regulations made a decent job of pushing the manufacturers to address those with DPF and SCR respectively. Euro 7 is next and that looks set to significantly tighten up on CO2 emissions which will then draw one of petrol's biggest problems back into stark focus. CO2 is, of course, a big part of why the drive to switch to diesel occurred - and so the pendulum swings. Driven significantly, funnily enough, by EU regulations. 

 

I'd love to be driving an electric car and I don't doubt the day will dawn, but not whilst EVs are quirky designs (the new electric mini is a step in the right direction) and don't provide the range I regularly use.  Til then, I stand by my earlier premises that my ideal vehicle with today's tech would be a diesel PHEV. 

Sept was when euro 6d temp came in, euro 6 has been in for a while and was deffo not doing the job hence the majority of diesel cars disappeared. The problems with diesels is the add ons to clean them up, which bumps the price up and reduces fuel consumption, they are also very expensive to repair, so the question is why bother? A good hybrid  can produce better mpg and be cleaner than a diesel 

[IanD]

14 hours ago, catweasel said:

Must say I agree with much of that especially the highlighted bit. Our Shogun was auto and was amazing even on rough terrain. My current geriatric  Ford is manual, but I would have another auto no problem. well impressed by the Mitsu.
ps my mate claims his auto truck (volvo IIRC) does MORE to the gallon than the previous manual same model. 

Some car manufacturers are planning to remove manual boxes from most (or all) of their range in future, because modern autos (torque converter or DSG) can give better fuel economy than manuals -- both on test and in real life -- because the ECU is better at choosing the most economical gear than drivers are. This is driven by pressure on manufacturers to improve economy and reduce CO2 emissions; the downside for customers is that they're invariably more expensive than a manual.

 

And of course some people think they're less fun to drive; personally I'm happy to let my DSG choose gears by itself most of the time, and if I want to do it myself the changes are faster and smoother than any manual box.

 

Good (non-fiddled) Euro 6 diesels (and Euro 7 in future) which use AdBlue (urea) injection are pretty much as clean on particulates and NOx as petrol engines both on test and on the road, and do emit less CO2; the downside is that they're more expensive to make, and the hysteria resulting from the VW scandal has tainted them forever.

 

Petrol hybrids (non-plug-in) have impressive mpg and emissions on test (especially the old NEDC method) but are less impressive in real life, they have a habit of falling far short of the published figures -- and they're also expensive to build. Plug-in petrol hybrids do offer genuine gains *if* people plug them in, which many don't, and they're even more expensive because they tend to have bigger batteries and all the hardware for plug-in charging.

 

BEV are the only solution which really do give a big pollution/CO2 improvement and can't be misused because they *have* to be plugged in, but right now they're still expensive (cost of big battery packs), people worry about range, and the charging infrastructure isn't there yet (and is difficult for people who can't charge at home). In the long term they're the right solution, but right now they only suit some people.

Edited April 16, 2019 by IanD

[Stilllearning]

20 hours ago, Tumshie said:

Toyota is the only one I've seen call their car that in advertisements - They're running a campaign just now making a big deal out of the self charging bit. 

 

That's why I mentioned it - it was easy to find if someone wanted to do some research. No more no less. ?‍♀️

Yes, it’s that Toyota ad that I was referring to, in order to point out the insanity of marketing speak.

[Tumshie]

19 minutes ago, Stilllearning said:

Yes, it’s that Toyota ad that I was referring to, in order to point out the insanity of marketing speak.

I think you added that after I wrote my reply which might be why what I said sounds a bit disjointed. 

 

 

[Stilllearning]

Just now, Tumshie said:

I think you added that after I wrote my reply which might be why what I said sounds a bit disjointed. 

 

 

What I say sounds disjointed most of the time.

[Tumshie]

2 minutes ago, Stilllearning said:

What I say sounds disjointed most of the time.

I know that feeling ?