Diesel is 20% more than regular so you'd have to do 20% more than the equivalent vehicle to break even here. Not too many small diesels available and unless I'm mistaken, the only ones easy to come by new are trucks and that's definitely less efficient than my cars anyway.
More diesels than EV sold in Europe in January 2024
- Thread starter Jetronic
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Also, when you factor in the price of a new battery, you could buy a nice used car.
For me, there is ZERO incentive for an EV, maybe because I like to keep more $$ and see more of a return on my $$ over the years. Safe bet many others do also.
It really has upset me that diesel options are just disappearing from the market. The new BMW 5 series doesn't look like it has a diesel option at all.
My little diesel Duster costs me 11p/mile in fuel. My colleague who has an EV and can't charge at home pays around 25p/mile.
I was playing around with an interactive tool in the MG dealer on Friday. If I swapped to an MG 5 EV, I'd save a whopping £650 in fuel over 4 years... assuming I only charged up at home at 27p/KWH. For that, I'll stick to my diesel.
My little diesel Duster costs me 11p/mile in fuel. My colleague who has an EV and can't charge at home pays around 25p/mile.
I was playing around with an interactive tool in the MG dealer on Friday. If I swapped to an MG 5 EV, I'd save a whopping £650 in fuel over 4 years... assuming I only charged up at home at 27p/KWH. For that, I'll stick to my diesel.
If consumer is not interested why is it stupidity? There are so many great ideas however if not properly presented, marketed and priced you failed as company or industry.
JHZR2
Staff member
Why did people not like them?
Because GM modified gas engines? Because they were “underpowered” by wasteful peoples’ standards? Because fools turned them up and rolled coal? Because they didn’t maintain them and got costly repairs? My 40+yo and diesels that have hundreds of thousands of miles, which is a known attribute, not a fluke, certainly last.
No. Daimler was fighting emissions issues in the early 90s. The Vw thing, over minor levels of certain pollutants drove controversy. The latest emissions controls result in massive overprice for what otherwise has had a superior ROI when longevity and economy is considered.
Joe six pack didn’t want 120hp and 0-60 times. That’s the situation. Especially when then the cost of entry was parity or higher. In Europe that doesn’t seem to be the issue, and they drive plenty fast.
Again, 300M folks over here versus literally billions the world over tells me something.
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I'd take a hybrid I6 turbo diesel.
We're old enough to know that the US consumer historically does not want diesel powered cars. The sales numbers prove it and it truly is unfortunate. The higher upfront acquisition costs, higher fuel tax, and the generally dirty experience of refueling a diesel at the pumps just don't justify the additional investment in the US market.
Perhaps it may have been different if vehicles in the US were taxed based on displacement rather than value?
Perhaps if diesel fuel was tax at the same level as gasoline?
Perhaps if there was no VW Dieselgate the US market would've continued to grow and justify the financial investment in diesel hybrid technology?
JHZR2
Staff member
We encountered this every time we have rented an EV. Using charging stations is worse economically than driving a relatively low MPG vehicle like our minivan.
It's not just CARB but quite a few major metro areas outside California were having difficulty improving their air quality during the late 1990's and early 2000. Metro-Atlanta for example and we still have severe air quality days during the summer months though not as bad as what it was back then (no longer on the map as a nonattaintment area).
Dallas, Huston, NJ, CT, N. Illinois, N Indiana, etc all continue to have air quality issues. I remember the air quality in Houston being especially bad. Living near the astrodome I could occasionally smell the chemicals in the air from the refineries/chemical plants 10 miles to the E and SE.
Nonattainment areas in the US
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JHZR2
Staff member
That’s valid, but they have gone so far past doing minor things to affect NOx and soot (heck, early 80s MB diesels have EGR) to splitting hairs on ppm/ppb emissions. And CARB will always want to one up.
There’s a difference between being good stewards of the environment, and splitting a PPB of something and then making the instantiating of the solution unreliable and not cost effective.
Again, gross polluter 50mpg vw vs “partial zero” 8 MPG trucks…
JHZR2
Staff member
Even then they don’t. The heavy OTR operators have more issues, folks towing are going for lower MPG large gas engines, and generators, notionally used double digit hours or less a year incur a huge expense…
On gesnsets I can avoid all the air pushing stuff as long as it's not a primary power source or above X HP. There are a few loopholes for stuff like Rv or home backup gens.
On towing the big turbodiesel still seem to have the mileage and capacity edge but the ROI is WAAAAy out there now.
Remember you're trying to improve air quality while your metro area continues to add more emitters as the population grows. This is why some cities in Germany were experiencing worsening air quality and they couldn't understand why because the emissions were supposed to be so much tighter. Enter VW Dieselgate.
The partial Zero 8mph is probably some weird subsidy/carve out thrown to the domestics because we all know the domestics have a hard time building profitable cars vs heavier and larger SUV'/Trucks. Trucks/SUV's already get an exemption of sorts.
Of course the whole calculation changed with Mass vs EPA 2007.
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IIRC, they put relatively low revving, non turbo mechanical diesels in those 1980's cars. Lots of tourqe but painfully slow acceleration even for those times. Once up to speed though, they could run seemingly forever while beating the 1980's ICE driven vehicles fuel mileage. They tended to put out some black smoke now and then which turned some buyers off.
The diesels of today with turbos and higher revving are a different breed.
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