DaewooOfDeath wrote:
alfadriver wrote:
In reply to DaewooOfDeath:
There are still issues with diesels. Mainly in the exhaust steam. And those issues are going to hit the fan in Europe in 2014. Even with EuroVI, the EU allows diesels to emit more gaseous and PM emissions than gas engines. EPA and CARB say a car is a car- emissions are be equal.
There's nothing really stopping BMW from importing diesels like VW and Mercedes do. If one can meet the requirements, anyone can.
Interesting about EuroVI, I was under the impression that everybody in Europe was really jumping on the diesel bandwagon, making new engines right now.
What gasses do they emit more of? I thought particulate traps had gotten pretty advanced in recent generations.
As for why BMW/Subaru/Mazda/Ford/Honda/Toyota/Nissan/Porsche/Fiat/Hyundai/Kia/Chevrolet/
LandRover/Jaguar don't import their car diesels, I think it's a combination of the US having dirt cheap gasoline (as compared to almost everywhere else) and the lingering prejudice people have as a result of the 1980 Olds 350 diesel and its ilk.
Europe jumped on the diesel band wagon a long time ago- they started taxing gasoline at a much higher rate than diesel back in the 90's as part of the Kyoto Treaty that they were all bound to meet.
In addition to the tax, emissions rules for diesels have always been looser in Europe than the US (gas to diesel relative), so it was reasonably easy to make an economy car that can make Euro(whatever) and sell it cheap.
But what has happened is that even with the tightening of gas emissions, air quality in Europe has not been getting better, and appears to have leveled off or gotten worse in some areas. And PM emissiond have gotten a lot worse. Now, I do belive that in observation visting, but that idea is very much backed up by EuroV and moreso for EuroVI- were diesel emissions are being tighted quite a bit- not as much as gas, but to the point were the solutions are going to be very tough to sell on the A, B, and C segment cars that are not luxury brands. That, and visting shows that the tax break for diesel fuel seems to be drying up all over the continent.
It's very possible to be PZEV with diesels. But it costs SO much less to do that with gas, it's not even funny. Diesel emissions are always higher in NOx and still have PM problems.
Gas is cheap here, as the taxes on fuel in general are a lot lower, and there's no fuel bias for the taxes. If diesels offered real cost benefits, more people would buy them. But spend $4000 more for it, and then pay $.30/gal more, and the fuel economy benefit out of that is virtually impossible to get.
BTW, European buyers are just like Americans- they buy with their pocketbook. Manual cars are cheaper and get better gas mileage- that's why they sell more in Europe. Here- the benefit is much more subdued, thus manuals are more of a fringe for people who like driving.
Things will be changing mid 2010 decade. EuroVI is 2014, LEVIII starts in 2015, and Tier3 should be starting in 2016.