The recent corporate stumble by Volkswagen into the abyss of bad press
gives me pause. As you have probably heard through 100 other sources (so I
won’t belabor the point other than mention it as background), Volkswagen was
caught in a type of software hijinks, programming turbo-diesel engine
management software in such a way that it switched into a more eco-friendly
mode when it recognized the load cycle to be typical of an EPA treadmill. IE:
It put the engine on its best behavior when the feds were watching.
So what concerns me about this whole deal? VW has had a long history of
marketing diesels successfully. In Europe the diesel has really become the main
viable option to hyper-tiny engines in family sedans as they will typically do
more work on less fuel than gasoline engine. VW has been hammering away at that
market consistently since the 1970’s. They know their stuff on diesel engines.
Volkswagen announced that it would pursue electric vehicle technologies
after the firestorm let down a little. Huh? You see, Volkswagen AG has access
to the best and the brightest in automotive engineering. Owning such marques
and Audi, Porsche, Bugatti, Ducati and Lamborghini. These are sharp guys, and
they can’t make a diesel run clean without particulate filters and urea
injection? Uhmmmm, what I end up saying to myself is “Self, if Volkswagen can’t
make a diesel perform up to current emission standards without these exhaust after-treatment devices, it can’t be done”.
These mentioned devices are effective, but also big, bulky and heavy,
and key to Volkswagens whole (falsified) market ploy was the ability to run
clean without them. All these technologies can be and are used on trucks (big
and small) but they require real-estate that passenger cars don’t have, suck a
lot of power and generate a lot of heat. Not stuff you want to engineer around if
you are designing for the economy or performance car market segments.
So in effect what I believe we’ve just seen is the death of the diesel
in domestic automobiles. This is a shame on many levels. It is a long-lived
technology almost as old as the internal combustion engine itself. As the fuel
is a light oil, it burns longer and hotter than lighter distillates (gasoline) allowing
more push to be harnessed every time the piston goes down the bore on a power
stroke. Small engines/big torque and high economy. And this is exactly why this
technology still excels in trucks and off-road equipment – for now.
I wonder how long before we legislate diesels out of existence there
too?
©
2015 D.W. Williams
