The OIL companies have NOTHING to do with diesel vehicles,

the OIL companies have NOTHING to do with the high fuel prices,

and the OIL companies are not making any more money than they ever were.

When the Liberal government taxes the living shit out of the oil companies like 80-90%. The oil companies aren’t going to pay for those government taxes, government additive crap and shit, they are going to make us pay it. I dont care how much money the oil companies are making otherwise.

Now, I’d like to share an observation any of you would be able to test on your own diesel vehicles. For many years, raising a family and hauling students to many types of events (our school didn’t use busses) I drove Suburbans. My first diesel Suburban was a dog, just like all the other 6.2L diesels they put in those during the 80′s and early 90′s. That is, if you were going down the highway at 65 and gradually caught someone traveling 64 you had better have a long flat stretch because this thing could not accelerate rapidly at all. A simple little switch out from the factory exhaust manifolds to a set of tuned headers and from the factory muffler to straight-through glass packs and everything changed. With no back pressure on the engine, power, performance and efficiency jumped off the charts. Now if I came up behind that other vehicle I would just step on it and be running 90 as I zipped past him. Oh yes, there was a deep mellow bass roar to it so I would know where my teenage son was anywhere in our small town if he stuck his foot in it. The other thing I experienced though was a radical mileage change; here I am driving one of the largest SUVs on the road, remember, and now I was getting 23-25mpg while driving this thing even with my lead foot. Suddenly, it had gone from a dog to a muscle machine that could run without hesitation well above the 100 mph mark. I’m sure with a turbocharger my mileage would have been even better.

So, I am convinced there are engineering decisions made for multiple reasons, many political, which rob us of the performance we could be getting. I had a vehicle go from 15-16 mpg up to 23-25 mpg with just an exchange of the exhaust system and know I could have compounded that by changing the intake system.

2. Diesel cars are about 30% more effiecient (MPG) than petrol. Check the US MGP for VW Jetta TDI vs. the US petrol versions for confirmation.

It can be claimed that europe has legislated diesel use and the US has ignored strategic planning in this arena (no diesel fuel incentives or price regulation), allowing HP/power over economy. Cheap petrol and a refining infrastructure ‘bolted’ to petrol production (no new refinery has been built in the US since the ’70s), plus the petrol/distillate refining ratio has made petrol the fuel of the US (hence the emphasis on petrol hybrids). Petrol yields snappier performance, which also lends itself to the US market (power!).

3. The US has tougher emission controls than europe. Diesels in the US must now produce the same emissions as petrol engines. These emission controls degrade diesel performance ~10% and cost quite a bit, particularly since the US is the only market with them. You won’t find this exhaust/emission system on the euro TDI’s: http://tdi.vw.com/frequently-asked-vw-tdi-questions/

Further damaging diesel sales has been the 20% greater per gallon cost of diesel in the US recently (since excess production has been exported). But, it has reached parity now, running a few cents cheaper than petrol (due to supply increase of diesel due to worldwide recession), but the refining issues still cloud the future, “Will diesel in the US remain cheaper?

So, with the cost of fuel cloudy and the unique ‘pioneer’ market emissions certifications require great effort (cost). So, diesel sales in the US are tough to predict.

Which is unfortunate. There are some terrific cars we are missing out on. This Smart, Volvo C30 D5, Mini D and Ford models would be wonderful here. If we can be more sure that the cost of diesel will remain stable and at par with petrol (it should even out, in the long term?) then diesel sales will increase and models will become available. But, manufacturers are hedging that diesel supply may get tight with an worldwide economic upturn blowing the cost up again relative to petrol, so they are only conservatively bringing the models to the US.

Unification of emissions policies would solve the problem, but there is nothing to indicate that will happen.

So, Europe and most of the world will stress diesel and the US will head toward more expensive technological solutions like petrol hybrids and EV for high mileage models, for better or worse.

rat #1 is the oil industry they do not want cars that can get outstanding milage they would loose money. The diesel smart car in canada has been seen to get about 80mpg.you can not even ship one acrost the boarder. and deisel dose produce more hp/tq per a gallon,there is also a question of low sulfer diesel fuel which suposedly we do not have the infrastructure or the refining capacity for.

rat # 2 is the auto industry its self. there have been cars that achieved mpg of 45-50 the geo metro was one,but again many top brass in the big three also have there hands in oil. so money is gain the primary reason

rat #3 members of congress same old reason they have there hands in the oil cookie jar and have for decades. why would they want to pass any legislation that would require better mpg,or better fuel quality because the more you have to refine the fuel the more profit you loose.so why would you push the oil industry into the corner of haveing to change the infrastructure or the deisel so it was better then gas?

However, I’m still not sure the question has been answered outright. Many comments debated the efficiency difference of diesel. Some say there is no difference or a very slight one. Others say it is a big difference. even if we compromised to say there was a notable difference, there is still not enough to explain the gigantic change in MPG we are talking about.

As far as emission standards and US car companies getting hammered, I think Jack may be misinformed. As far as I knew it, America’s emissions standards were embarrassingly behind almost all other industrialized countries, even China. And the weight question has already been answered.

I think J Kent hit on a good point of different marketing obstacles in America for diesel cars. If they can’t sell the diesel version, they won’t import it. Makes sense… Only this does not answer the question if, as what some other said, the difference between diesel and gas is nominal. A gas version should have at least comparable MPG.

I agree that it does sound like a rat is in the building. No on has said it yet, so I will throw it out there—maybe the forces at work do not WANT a car coming into the US that makes our other cars look so…well stupid. They say there is a psychological pattern in the work place, wherein the people who have been there a long time always push the new guy “not to work so hard” because it makes them look bad. Maybe that is what is going on here. Maybe the US automakers or government, do not want the new foreign guy to come in and shake things up, or show up the competition so quickly, so they force him to dull down his MPG over here so it is comparable to their other US cars…unfortunately at the expense of the people.

I have heard crazier ideas.