Re: [OM] [ot] for all the car nuts, petrol heads

[Winsor Crosby]

>  > Your diesel engine information is about 20 years out of date.  They
> >  are in production. There is an infrastructure to support them.
> >  Modern turbo-diesel engines are very competitive in performance to
> >  gasoline engines and they use much less fuel.
> They use much less fuel but like for like they are still light years behind
> the any petrol engine of similar size and displacement in refinement and
> performance , take a petrol engine of similar capacity and turbo charge it
> and the resulting car will leave the turbo desisel version like its in
> reverse. Diesels soot production is still approximately a thousand time
> higher than a petrol engine and its these particulates that can cause asthma
> once the link is proved it will be interesting to see what happens in
> california..  as for Gas powered cars the infrastructure is there you just
> have to look for it.. LPG has another name.. Propane, I think you will fnd
> its fairly easily available but not from a gas station!
>
> Stewart
The energy density of gas is way lower than a liquid fuel impacting 
mileage and tank size.  There is not enough natural gas around to 
supply cars if there is a massive shift in its use.  You are jumping 
on the propane infrastructure for home heating. It is totally 
inadequate for a shift to transportation usage.  I think the use of 
dual power LPG/gasoline is a way to deal with driving without running 
out of fuel.  Some of its economies to the user will be lost as it is 
taxed like gasoline.
Modern diesels are not stinky and slow.  Some have already dealt with 
the soot problem. As for performance they race them in Europe.  If 
you look at performance as efficiency there is no turbo-charged 
gasoline engine that approaches the turbo diesel. The end market for 
turbo engines for the two types of engines is different.  Turbo is a 
performance add on for small gasoline engines.  On diesels its 
purpose is average acceleration with great efficiency.  It is kind of 
pointless anyway to compare ultimate performance when people do not 
buy that kind of car.  Most people buy comfortable, middling 
performance cars and diesel engines provide that with exceptional 
economy.  For instance a VW Golf TDI has better mileage than all but 
one of the hybrid cars with much better performance and its mileage 
is substantially better than any gasoline engine with performance 
equal to or better than most of the high mileage small gasoline 
engine cars.
I am not a big diesel advocate. I just thought that many of the 
things you said were true a long time ago.  Not now.
--
Winsor Crosby
Long Beach, California


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