Does Merc have the BlueTec Diesel’s out yet?

1c3d0g — exactly. Just lower the regulations people. This is rediculous. The technology is here, we just can’t use it.

It makes no sense.

Liberal hippie evrionmentalists all of them.

Grow up renton, even Europeans think diesels could be cleaner why attach the term liberal to anything you don’t like or understand? In the rest of the world Liberal is not a perjorative term and means nowhere near communist.

Well, diesel fuel is a smaller fraction of refined petroleum than gasoline, so if demand for diesel increased, its price would rise proportionally more, and the refiners would make even higher profits; thus I doubt the oil companies are behind it. We’re in a transition period where lower-particulate diesel engines exist, but they don’t work well with the US’s high-sulfur diesel. In time the infrastructure will be in place, and the transition should be a lot quicker than it would take to set up ethanol, E85, CNG, or hydrogen across the country.

It’s silly to compare the 300C diesel’s efficiency to the Hemi V8’s when the performance is so different. If you don’t want to guzzle gas and the diesel’s performance is adequate, why not try the 2.7l or 3.5l V6? Of course, it would help if Chrysler (and everyone else) offered some of the higher trim content with the smaller engines.

But he’s not excited by the Vue hybrid’s “unexciting” 33% improvement, which would result in 25% lower fuel usage/cost. I don’t know if that matches the figures that have been published elsewhere. If the premium for the hybrid is too great, true, it doesn’t make short-term sense. But he acknowledges that a clean diesel engine is going to be more costly than a gasoline one, plus the higher mileage is partially offset by more expensive fuel. Which, as I noted, will get more expensive if diesel usage increases as more people buy them. Changes in refining can adjust the yield of various products, but you can’t get around the chemistry completely; there’s a limit to how much you can change heavier fractions into lighter ones by cracking.

For vehicles at or over 2 tons and/or run at a steady state diesels are a good trade off in power if the pollution can be kept down and the sulfer low.

Cruising across 1-40 at a steady-state 75mph in a 300CD would be cool ride, fetching close to 40mpg…

yeah in the USA where most roads are very straight it would even get BETTER mpg. I would love a car like this in America, of course regulations won’t let us Guess I’ll have to live in Europe to buy a good diesel

You mean Hummer isn’t all about fuel efficiency? Or the other dozen GM SUV’s?

I’m completely shocked.

I know I’m completely shocked too… but then again the Hummer (H2 atleast) I believe isn’t a hydrogen hybrid car kickin (LOL).
They should lower the regulations we already have technology but if we can’t use it… then there’s no use for it. Diesels are the way to go, atleast for a while (it’s still a fossil fuel, right? Tell me if I’m wrong I’m no expert). And plus it’s easy to convert to other fuels, even french fry grease from Mickey Ds! Are there any diesel cars on the American market currently besides large trucks and SUVS?
Of course we won’t see any cars like the FCV Focus. It’s very new technology and is still being developed. Aside from that Oil companies will find some way to kill it. Hey did the internet movie “who killed the electric car” come out yet?

Oh yes and Mickey mouse diesels are fairly efficient IF done right. Renten and 1C3d0g are not saying totally drop the regulations, and having gas guzzling Diesels running about the street, but the regulations make it very tight and strict for ANY diesel car to make it into America. Better yet make a diesel hybrid! That would be something funny yet productive.

Why not just adopt the Europen emissions regulations for Diesels? That would make sense. The US regualtions are too stringent.

i think it is because the US cities are alot more crowded and have alot more people than european cities. also because the US has alot more SUVs that consume alot more gas then our european counterparts.

“Why not just adopt the Europen emissions regulations for Diesels? That would make sense. The US regualtions are too stringent.”

Too stringent? I don’t know about you, but as long as I have to live on Earth, those standards can never be stringent ENOUGH!

Last time I read about fuel, Europeans use a cleaner diesel fuel than us, thats one thing to consider. But large Euro cities have just as much smog as the US ciities, if not more because they do not have tight regulations on sulfer count in emissions.

re: diesel being a smaller portion of fuel output.

Where are your stats on that? I would have thought with the size of the trucking (and train + ships?) industry and the like that diesel would be a massive (but relatively unseen to the general motorist).

Additionally, I’ll put another question out. How are the emissions measured? Do they take into account the emissions per km (or mile), per kilo, per % efficiency or is it a non-relative thing?

The bluetech diesel should replace that horrible 2.7L V6. That would gain Chrysler sales from normal people and good press from the eco freaks. Vdub, European cities have more than twice the number of people per square mile, however European countries have different standards for gasoline and diesel cars. I have to disagree with the columnist though about getting 12.5 mpg, I have never gotten below 16.5 mpg (average 18) and I live in an old, hilly northeastern city. I get 28 mpg at 70 mph on nothing that even approaches being a flat road (Penn turnpike). The engine obviously is not as efficient as a diesel, but it is hardly a gas guzzler.

I’m from Graz, an austrian city with approximately 300000 inhabitants. 60% of the cars in Austria are diesels. If you look at some of the buildings in the downtown area you will stop wondering why the U.S emission standards are so high. The buildings are coated in a layer of black dust emitted by the diesel cars. Highways in metro areas have constant speed restrictions because these areas have to cope with extreme levels of “dieseldust”. Also, new reports are showing that diesel particulate filters aren’t as clean as we believed they are and can actually make us sick. I am not an expert, but I think gasoline cars are the way forward for now, just by telling what effects diesels have on nature.

I’d be willing to bet he was using the trip computer to compute mileage, and being a european specification car it was displaying KILOMETERS per gallon. 37.7 kilometers is 23.42 miles per gallon, which is a MUCH more realistic number. It’s right in line with a diesel E-class, which shares its engine with this euro 300C. It’s also extremely good mileage for a 4000 pound car in stop/go traffic.

The problem I have with these federal diesel emission regulations in 2007 is it is too much, too fast, at the exact WRONG time. Just when diesels are gaining popularity in the states because of their better fuel economy and new technology to make them cleaner and quieter, they get smothered out by new emission restrictions that are virtually impossible to meet. If it wasn’t for the urea injection system of the DCX BluTec diesel, there would be absolutely NO diesels that would meet the 2007 emissions requirement. Kudos to the DCX engineers who discovered the urea injection process, but it seems to be more of a bandaid fix to a ridiculous problem (over-strict regulations).

The problem I have with the new emission regulations, is they require passenger vehicle diesels to meet the same emissions as a gas engine on all categories. This is a result of politicians and environmental lobbyists who don’t have a clue about how internal combustion engines work. A diesel engine is inherently cleaner on SOME emissions versus a gas engine, and dirtier in other categories. Even the dirtiest old diesel engine produces less carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide emissions than a modern gas engine. CO2 is a green house gas, believed to contribute to global warming. Where diesels have trouble with is sulfur, nitrogen oxides, and particulates (soot). These are contributors to smog and acid rain, but are not greenhouse gases. The sulfur issue is largely taken care of with the new ultra low sulfur diesel fuel coming out by October, same as Europe has. The U.S. should have had this fuel a long time ago. Particulates are also taken care of with new direct injection technology and soot traps. That leaves nitrogen oxides, which the urea injection system that DCX invented solves.

Bottom line is, a modern diesel without the urea injection burning ultra low sulfur fuel, will be cleaner than a gas engine except for oxides of nitrogen. But CO2 emissions will be far lower than a gas engine. And how harmful are oxides of nitrogen compared to a greenhouse gas such as CO2? I think diesels should receive an emissions “credit” for having low greenhouse gas emissions, and be evaluated on a weighted average total of emissions, with weights based on each emission category’s harmfulness to the environment (i.e. a greenhouse gas would have a higher weight than a particulate).

Even more idiotic are state emissions like CA and NY, which have relatively loose standards for heavy duty truck diesels that produce a big portion of smog in those states, yet have severe emission restrictions on passenger car diesels, which make up less than 1% of all the vehicles on the road in those states. Want more stupidity? You can’t buy a NEW passenger car diesel in CA or NY, but you can buy one used after it has several thousand miles on it. How does that make sense? People in AZ and NV buy new Jetta TDI’s, drive them for 10k miles, then sell them used in CA for more than what they paid for it new. It’s crazy.

The MB Bluetec’s are coming this fall. And yet again not to CA and NY among others, at least according to MBUSA’s web site.

There are legal ways of getting a new diesel into CA. You have to a) read the DMV’s web site and b) think a little outside the box.

I agree with the statement that higher efficiency CLEAN diesel powered cars are needed now, not later and that every possible measure should be taken to ensure that this is the case. More importantly these should be available in every market. Let’s face it, the emissions from any new technolgy diesel with appropriate downstream exhaust treatment is a pittance compared to poorly maintained older vehicles and especially vehicles which bypass smog restrictions due to age.

The spokespersons of the big three were overheard saying, “There just isn’t any money to be made in fuel-efficient vehicles.”

-he who stacks pork

charles, europeans do not use gallons but liters.

Walk around any European crowded city and you’ll be thankful we have the regulations we have. The stench of diesel is so overwhelming that you’ll gladly drive a gas guzzler just so you don’t have to smell it.

190e – they use litres not liters laste i looked too

Yes pollution is fairly bad in Euro cities with many diesel cars. YOu can smell it and see it on buildings even. I do think a few diesels should be aloud in the US. What diesels do are not totally good for the enviroment, but they last longer and currently diesel here is less expensive then Gasoline (but I have seen vice versa in different states, where diesel will be more expensive and gasoline will be cheaper). It’s good that we have strict rules for diesels, but let some diesels loose into the American market and see what happens

The Jetta TDI made it to America, and it gets great fuel economy. On a highway test (I think it was Motor Trend), it got a better fuel economy than a Toyota Prius (but, of course, you’ve gotta remember the Prius is built for stop and go driving). For some reason, I’ve only seen one Jetta TDI on the road, let alone any VW Group TDI…So this passed regulations and has proved to be successful for its purpose…

VDub, you don’t know what you’re talking about. European cities are more crowded with higher densities. If you want to know what its like to have diesel cars running by you all day like in europe, then go hang out at a truck stop.

Diesel is dirty, even Europe’s clean Diesel. We in the US have higher standards and we should hold on to them. Or else, then we’ll be criticized for being dirtier and being a bigger pollution contributer. You don’t get hazy smoggy skies purely from CO2, its mainly PARTICULATES from grills, cooking, smoke, DIESEL ENGINES. Deisel contributes too much particulate pollution, even though its CO2 pollution is less than gasoline. Not sure if that’s an even trade off. We’ll end up with coal miner deseases. And just because Diesel is cheap today, doesn’t mean it will be cheap tomorrow.. all about supply and demand.