Motors The 65 mpg Ford the U.S. Can't Have

The problem is that most of that is already going to biodiesel production in the US. Despite what it may seem like, the food industry doesn't produce anything like enough vegetable oil to meet diesel demand.

 

it was a little joke about the amount of junk food consumed in the USA..

 

Remember the US Gallon is about 25% smaller than a "real" imperial Gallon - I think the figures quoted for the Fiesta were from an American source....

 

I don't get why the emission laws are so tight for diesel's in America, yet a huge pickup that gets 12mpg is quite fine?

Isn't a simple (yet slighly costly) answer just to fit particulate filters to the diesels? Or is it a specific chemical in their emissions? (I want to say Sulphur, am I right with that?)

 

Diesel here is a low sulphur fuel, which was called 'city diesel' and older diesels couldn't run on it for some reason, well they would but power was a pointless effort. It was to try and reduce the fumes in the cities hence the name. Now all diesel including red diesel is the same low sulphur fuel. Its also the same reason four star disappeared off the pumps even tho it had higher octane levels, nice and dense giving big bangs.

There are already fuel filters in diesel vechicals, me and my friends say it helps filter out the coal, lol! Many private owned commerical vechicals i.e man in a white van, dont service such parts so the they end up blow loads of soot out the back.

 

It could be sulphur, but I do know that some of the 'anti-diesel' arguments that still appear are based on research done in US cities in the late '50's, and that all related to particulate matter (PM). PM10's (particulate matter <10 microns) was used as an indicator of effects on health.

The game has changed completely. Here in the UK, the emphasis is on getting CO2 levels down, hence legislation which favours diesel combustion. Particulates are still an issue, hence the advent of diesel particulate filters (DPF). A well-serviced diesel should not be a 'smoker'; indeed black smoke from a modern 'common-rail' or 'PD' diesel engine is a sign of a fault. (faulty injectors or sticking EGR valve).

As I said before, I would avoid any vehicle with a DPF at all cost. My EuroIV Mondeo meets the regulations without one - why can't the others?

 

Or booting it with a remapped ECU

 

Or booting it too low down the rev range in the wrong gear lol

 

More info - a new article on why the US gets shortchanged on fuel-efficient, good small vehicles like the MINI Cooper D, etc.:

http://comcast.vehix.com/automotive/Article.aspx?artid=15B000000000022&cid=44

 

Last I checked about every fifth gas station has diesel.... wtf that's a stupid excuse its cause the car company's work for the oil company's.

 

All gas stations I pass up and down Florida sell Diesel..

 

You do realise folks that Diesel is only a cheap alternative while demand is low.

The US Diesel demand can be met with local production and thus is less susceptible to the world market and the low demand keeps the price low.
If the US was to heavily dieselise you'd be in the same position as Western Europe which imports a fair percentage of its demand basically because refineries are geared up to produce petrol.

As it is your refineries are geared up to mainly produce petrol and you still need to import about 10% of your demand the situation would not be helped only moved around by switching to diesel. Instead of buying petrol cheap from Europe, which last year produced about 40% more petrol than there was a local market for and thus exported it to the US and other regions, both regions would be fighting for high quality diesel which would only drive the price up and with it the cost of crude which eventually becomes cyclical meaning both petrol and diesel become hyper inflated. The crude distillate correlation is a bit complicated and a whole other post.