2011 Mustang: First car with 300 hp and 30 mpg.

Totally just saying, but diesels have won the Le Mans 24hr for the last few years.
 
I'm sure they mean gasoline-based (aka petrol), not diesel. Here in the US we have almost no diesel options at all. VW and Audi have TDIs but they're very few and hard to find. Even the Chrysler 300 turbo diesel was never sold here.

That's because of your crazy regulations regarding diesel imports and exhaust limits (or shall we say protectionism?). The other major factor is that the quality of diesel throughout your country is very different (most of it being worse than McDonalds frying oil after three days in the pot), so you can't have a proper reference or ensure any consistancy as far as "guaranteed" exhaust limits go.

Modern diesels have way lower consumption than gasoline cars, but will never drive nearly as responsive. So there is still no be-all-end-all solution.

EDIT: as for that consumption figure, while it does sound impressive at first, it's not the real-life consumption. All of us lie there, the tests are rigidly defined and there's lots of cheating going on everywhere. Modern engine ECU will even recognize the test pattern and adjust accordingly.
 
2011 Ford Mustang V6 – first car to break 300 hp and over 30 mpg

Hasn't even GM (yeah, I know...) had a 3.6l V6, A6 combo with >300hp & ~27mpg available for over a year already? In a heavier platform, to boot.

The other major factor is that the quality of diesel throughout your country is very different.
This is a serious issue for modern diesels, whereas diesels of old could handle any hydrocarbon approximation without much fuss.

Heard anything about the VM Motori 3.0l V6 diesel?
 
I'm sure they mean gasoline-based (aka petrol), not diesel. Here in the US we have almost no diesel options at all. VW and Audi have TDIs but they're very few and hard to find. Even the Chrysler 300 turbo diesel was never sold here.

Not too many +300hp diesels out there and those that are, probably consumes more. When I first saw the thread title I was getting ready to post LMAO type post, because there are many cars in Europe that does +300hp and 30mpg on a highway, Petrol and diesel, but that's with the European highway consumption measurement method. I checked and those same cars do less than 30mpg with the USA method. I think in Europe they are only dynoing the cars, and not actually driving them. In any case the highway consumption figures are vastly different for the same cars.
 
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That's because of your crazy regulations regarding diesel imports and exhaust limits (or shall we say protectionism?). The other major factor is that the quality of diesel throughout your country is very different (most of it being worse than McDonalds frying oil after three days in the pot), so you can't have a proper reference or ensure any consistancy as far as "guaranteed" exhaust limits go.

Modern diesels have way lower consumption than gasoline cars, but will never drive nearly as responsive. So there is still no be-all-end-all solution.

EDIT: as for that consumption figure, while it does sound impressive at first, it's not the real-life consumption. All of us lie there, the tests are rigidly defined and there's lots of cheating going on everywhere. Modern engine ECU will even recognize the test pattern and adjust accordingly.

Protectionism doesn't enter into it as it affected domestic vehicles as well. Ford, GM, and Chrysler all had many diesel vehicles throughout the 90's and 2k's, however due to emmisions regulations which were much higher than Europe, it was relegated only to light trucks and other generally commercial vehicles which were largely exempt from the stringent emmision regulations.

That didn't prevent Ford from actively producing, researching, and marketing diesel passenger cars for other countries however.

By the time "clean" diesel became a reality for mass production in the past couple years we also just happened upon a president that is so enamoured of pure electric vehicles that he has virtually made it a mandate for US car companies to go electric. As a result influencing the "green"/GW crowd in the US towards electric = good, diesel and petrol = bad.

Regards,
SB
 
I'm not so sure how well a diesel engine would work for an American sports car. I've driven a few normal diesel cars and you always have to rev their nuts off in the lower gears.
Totally just saying, but diesels have won the Le Mans 24hr for the last few years.
Doesn't most of the passing happens in pit stops.
 
I'm not so sure how well a diesel engine would work for an American sports car. I've driven a few normal diesel cars and you always have to rev their nuts off in the lower gears.
Are you sure thats not because you've been driving turbo diesels?
 
Are you sure thats not because you've been driving turbo diesels?
Well the last one was a turbodiesel Jaguar station wagon. My point is that driving them is pretty different and probably just isn't a realistic engine change for an established American car like the Mustang.
 
New turbos are either two-stage turbo (a little fast rotor for lower engine rpm and a big one for high rpm), or adjustable blades, so that is not a problem any more. But still it's way less responsive than a gasoline engine.
 
@xxx
Have you guys tested biodiesels? These seem promising, at least from a health perspectve because they have no aromatics so they are less carcinogenic than petroleum diesels.
 
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I know some people who were willing to try frying oil (filtered), but the project wasn't concretized. that's stuff you'd better try on a diesel car from the 1980's though. Modern diesels can't cope with vegetable oil.
 
In fairness though Mize we have solid reasoning behind our lack of diesel cars, diesel cars do suck and all. :yep2:
One of these days, you'll turn over the page of the calendar, and you won't need to be reminded that it's not 1991 anymore. Well, I suppose if you'd like to fantasize that you're still a teenager, then wanting to continue living in that time period might explain your need to delude yourself that you're still in the era when exotic sports cars could be had for under the price of an average home, and diesels still spewed clouds of noxious black smoke. You might as well continue to indulge in that delusion... but be careful where you tread. Espousing a personal delusion as a truth claim is the realm of religion, not automotive engineering.

Diesel has lower emissions if you use the same rules as for gasoline cars.
Not in the U.S. The US doesn't measure emissions based on mileage the way other countries do. They really only measure air quality per unit volume of exhaust, not total quantity of exhaust gas components per unit of distance traveled. Yes, I suppose if the EPA actually understood that people drive distances rather than cubic meters of exhaust, they might put two and two together, but the domestic manufacturers are probably also happy to be able to keep certain competition out of the picture, and since gov't agencies are invariably ruled by the highest bidder, I think that pretty much defeats that idea.

Still, it does mean that, for instance, a giant honking SUV can theoretically have a better emissions rating than a small subcompact vehicle with a low compression ratio. Also, since emissions scores for each and every component is considered separately, the fact that a comparable diesel would have lower emissions overall is typically stamped out by the argument that its NOx emissions are higher... barring urea injection, that is). While urea injection does work, the EPA's argument against it is valid -- namely, that they believe the American public is too stupid to manage one more fluid to top off regularly.

The other major factor is that the quality of diesel throughout your country is very different (most of it being worse than McDonalds frying oil after three days in the pot), so you can't have a proper reference or ensure any consistancy as far as "guaranteed" exhaust limits go.
That part, I think is slowly being rectified in some states, but it is true that it's not yet implemented nationwide. Then again, there are some grades of regular petrol that aren't even available in all 50 states just because they don't want to encourage people to purchase cars that demand such fuels.

EDIT: as for that consumption figure, while it does sound impressive at first, it's not the real-life consumption. All of us lie there, the tests are rigidly defined and there's lots of cheating going on everywhere. Modern engine ECU will even recognize the test pattern and adjust accordingly.
Well, even without that, it would certainly explain why a 300 hp+ vehicle, petrol or diesel would score better than 30 mpg since much of what constitutes the testing schedule falls in the range of daily driving, where you're really not pushing into massive engine load. Diesel especially, would probably benefit here since it has the capacity to limit fuel flow rates to points far leaner than gasoline spark ignition. Closest that gasoline engines can do is cylinder deactivation under low load, which is quite feasible to produce good results in the highway driving schedule (also a good reason why the Mustang sees such a large gap between its city and highway rating).

That said, if it does something like that in general on highway driving, then for a daily driver, it's not impossible to say that 30 mpg is a realistic hwy result. Well, unless Ford actually says something about how they get there beyond "it's lighter and has more cams," it'll be hard to say for sure.

_xxx_ said:
New turbos are either two-stage turbo (a little fast rotor for lower engine rpm and a big one for high rpm), or adjustable blades, so that is not a problem any more. But still it's way less responsive than a gasoline engine.
Responsive on what scale?
You go to a drag strip and just about anybody will see the gasoline engine as the more responsive one that feels more powerful.

You do the same thing on a daily commute, and the average American driver -- the kind who isn't actively seeking to find and stay in the powerband all the time for the hell of it -- will almost invariably find the opposite is true because power will be available earlier even at low rpms. With a gasoline engine, you only get the same effect by having significantly more power everywhere at all rpms, and that's part of the reason why so many Americans think that a mid-size family sedan needs to have 400 bhp in order to be usable. It basically needs 400 because people want to wring out 100 out of that 400.
 
@xxx
Have you guys tested biodiesels? These seem promising, at least from a health perspectve because they have no aromatics so they are less carcinogenic than petroleum diesels.

Biodiesel is already (mandatory) 5-10% of any diesel you buy in Europe (which made it even more expensive due to forced addition of - heavily subsidized - biodiesel). Other than that, with a compatible engine there is no difference if you're using bio or regular diesel.

Biodiesel is a catastrophy for the environment though, You need to invest about 2-2.5x more energy than what you get out of it. Then you have HUGE pollution due to fertilizers. And of course the hunger and food prices increased severely world-wide because of crops land being abused for methanol and "biodiesel" production. All in all, that's not the way to go.

The old VW Golf II/III would run on frying oil without any major problems, you just had to swap some rubber sealings which were not resistant to oil.

Shoot: "responsive" meaning the time between you pushing the throttle and the reaction of the engine. Diesels still need a "moment to think about it", even the most modern ones. Also due to self-ignition instead of sparking, it's harder to control the timings as precisely as with a gasoline engine.
 
This morning I helped my friend out moving stuff to the dump. he has a 2001 /2002 dodge truck that has a desiel engine. While driving around I noticed how few and far inbetween desiel pumps are in Bergen county New jersey. There is 1 desiel station for every 10 gas stations. Not to mention that The stations are still 90% gas and 10% desiel which normaly amounts to 1-2 pumps for desiel .

That is another eason hy desiel wont take off.
 
I have a Dodge Caliber SRT-4 08 model that consumes about 10.5L/100km or 22.4mpg combined. I have to drive more now than when I purchased the car, and lately I've been quite pissed, from having constantly to stop at the gas station. Today I ordered a new VW Golf 1.2 TSI, that is rated at 5.2L/100km or about 45.3mpg combined. Highway should be 4.5L/100 or 53mpg.

Horsepower goes down from 290 to 105, but I no longer care. I didn't do it to be green, I just don't want to throw all my money to the goverment on fuel tax and other payments, which are now tied to the CO2 emissions or engine size. I wanted to get the 1.6TDI, but I just couldn't make it work on paper, as it was 15 % more expensive and to be honest the 1.2TSI is surprisingly punchy little engine, with the power coming at really low revs. It's like night and day compared to the old 1.6 liter NA engine, which it replaced.
 
I don't know what the obsession with diesel is about. When we refine oil, we get diesel and gas in a fixed ratio. Right now we have a good balance between the two types of vehicles, making the price roughly similar.

If there were many more diesel vehicles, demand for diesel would go up, price would go up while gasoline cost would go down, and you'll have pressure to restore the balance back to the way it is now. It would be pointless for car manufacturers to make push for diesel cars in North America.
 
I don't know what the obsession with diesel is about. When we refine oil, we get diesel and gas in a fixed ratio. Right now we have a good balance between the two types of vehicles, making the price roughly similar.

If there were many more diesel vehicles, demand for diesel would go up, price would go up while gasoline cost would go down, and you'll have pressure to restore the balance back to the way it is now. It would be pointless for car manufacturers to make push for diesel cars in North America.

Not when you make biodiesel! :)
 
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