Editorial

Editorial

“An Automotive Love Affair”
By Joseph Mavilia

The Modern Diesel Engine in America

A Discussion with Merkel Weiss

Another View:
This week I had the opportunity to visit with my friend and car enthusiast Merkel Weiss. If you’ve read my column before you’ll know the name of this professor and automotive design engineer with an excessive passion for automobiles.

Me… I’ve grown up with the American Icon, the automobile, and have come to love the freedom it provides. I suspect you have been afforded a similar freedom whether you grew up in California, as I did, or in Europe where the car evolved. The automobile has afforded Americans and Europeans the transportability the rest of the world can only imagine. American’s in particular grew up with a Pioneer Spirit that got us off our feet, bicycles, horses, wagons and horseless carriages and into the 20^th and now the 21^st century automobile that was barely conceivable just 100 years ago. Europeans had a passion to Colonize far off places while Americans were content exploring the vast oasis of North America in their beloved automobile.

Well, Merkel is not as old as I am, but close enough and from his work at Chrysler Corporation to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, he has always been an automotive voice asked for or not.

Merkel and I often sit down and invariably end up discussing cars and their implication to the world at large. Both of us tend to get passionate about the stupidity of us humans and how we seem to miss the mark in “Common Sense”.

One has to ask, in today’s world, what are the options to fossil fuels or how can we economize on the use of such limited and non-renewable resources? So we made it the topic of today’s discussion.

Joe, maybe you have not heard about what has been going on in the European community with new generation diesels. This is a good time for us car folks. BMW, for instance, offers a diesel alternative to every gasoline-powered car they sell, and Mercedes, VW, Audi, Renault, and FIAT all build modern diesel engines for their cars too. What's more, people buy them. People prefer them. Why? Simple. They are a much better alternative than gasoline.

Naturally that is your opinion Merkel, but why reinvent the wheel? Gasoline has powered cars for a long time just fine, especially in this country.

Well Joe, because times have changed and the US is stuck in a rut. The modern diesel has bags of torque (listen up, muscle car fans) because it has a very high compression ratio. That makes the cars responsive to drive, just what American car buyers want. Modern diesels even rev up, almost to the point of being like gasoline engines. Even so, with modern 5 or 6 speed automatic transmissions, engine rpm hardly matters anyway.

Ok, Merkel, but diesels with bags of torque come with bags of clatter and gas engines run quiet and smooth.

Well Joe, engines like the turbo diesel are more efficient and offer significant fuel economy improvement over the gas engine counterpart. Diesels are constructed to last a very long time (engineers call it "robust") in service. Last, and very important, there is every reason to believe that modern common-rail turbo-diesel engines will meet emissions goals set by EPA. The known carcinogenic particulates have been largely controlled. That's right. These are NOT the leaky, greasy, sooty, smelly, diesels that we all know and love in large trucks.

Ok Merkel, you’ve sold me that if I can have fuel economy I can put up with a little clatter from under the hood. I’ve always bitched about Car Company’s that seem unable to improve gas performance and now you’ve shed light on the fact that we CAN improve in this area.

Well Joe, Lets not dwell on the obvious need for light truck and SUV fuel economy improvement. The auto companies have a ready market for an SUV that drives the same as the current one, but achieves 25mpg instead of 15mpg. But more to the point, a Toyota Corolla with a common rail turbo-diesel could easily achieve 50mpg, 5mpg more than the high tech hybrid Prius. And similarly, what would the Prius get with one? Maybe 60 or so. OK now. How about we put a 1.3-liter common-rail turbo-diesel in a lightweight sports car with modern aerodynamics; 90mpg is certainly possible. Witness the Opel Eco-Speedster, a GM concept car last year. It measured 94 mpg with sports car handling and acceleration.

Hey Merkel if that is true what are we waiting for?

Well Joe, what we’re waiting for is good, clean diesel fuel with low sulfur content. The USA, guardian of the free world, has the worst quality diesel fuel in the world.

Wait Merkel; don’t get mad, we’re just talking. But go on; get it out of your system.

Joe, where are our priorities? Why has the current Federal plans for clean diesel fuel been rolled back? Why can't we Americans have our big vehicles, sell lots of reformulated diesel fuel, clean our air, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil? OK, I realize that it's not that simple, but this is really big. We could make a huge dent in all of our goals at one time by substituting this modern technology into our same old cars. If it's OK with the EPA, it's OK with me.

And Merkel, it’s ok with me too. I guess our readers will just have to vote with their dollars and voice their opinion as well. Here are some places for them to go to learn more.

www.epa.gov/ www.ogjonline.com/ www.eia.doe.gov/ www.nrc.uscg.mil/