Bits and Bobs and why auto mfrs are morons.
So I decided that I need to buy a new car ... or more correctly, a something to carry three kids, their gear, their friends and their friends' gear, plus food and other stuff. That means 7 seats, probably, since I have 5 members in my family we automatically default into 7 seats assuming that one or more kids will bring a friend.
This conveyance will need to do 300 miles most every weekend and about 3 hours per day in the city and suburbs. It should get reasonable mileage -- the 12.5 mpg real mileage of my old BMW X5 will NOT do. I was lucky to stretch it to 18 mpg on the highway. And when I see those Suburbans, Yukons, Tahoes, Escalades, etc. booming down the interstate at 80, you know that they are simply lining the pockets of Middle Eastern types and the odd oil company exec. at 12 mpg (if they are lucky/honest). That won't do either.
So, a minivan? Well given that most of my serious travel is also done during the winter when snow can make conditions difficult, I need AWD or 4WD. That excludes most minivans, and the ones that are "awd" tend to have BS versions of said systems that are a joke for all intents and purposes (95% to the front wheels, until you "need" it). Just last weekend, the going was seriously tough: a 2:20 trip took 5:10. And my current car, a Merc E320 4matic wagon is really good in snow (it has 7 seats, but the rear seats are for small kids). The awd-lite resulted in numerous mini-vans in the ditch, up the banks, etc. So a real 7-seat SUV, with dedicated AWD, then. The trouble with that is no manufacturer makes one that is both good to drive and gets better than 20 mpg. And, ideally, I'd like to get 30 mpg on the highway.
Does anyone make one -- at least for U.S. delivery? No. Why? Because California and a few other states have placed barriers to import of diesel engines that would make this possible. The issue is particulate matter emissions -- but not greenhouse gases. So in California, you can drive a Toyota Tundra with a 7 liter (litre) engine that gets 10 mpg real world, spewing blimp loads of gases, funding Al Qaeda, but you cannot drive a VW Jetta TDi, getting 40 mpg. Or, of course, you could drive a Prius whose real world dust-to-dust impact on the environment is equivalent to a Ford F-150.
In Europe, technology has progressed to the point that 70+% of all vehicles sold are diesels. And Euro Bin-5 regulations are quite strict too. So what gives? It would be easy to say that the auto manufacturers are being held hostage to the greenies in California La-La, Never-Never land. But in truth, while there is a lot to say about that, up until last year the diesel fuel sold in the US was crap. Full of sulfur that caused lots of emissions problems. The oil companies were screwing us and the environment there: it was cheaper to produce the crap diesel than re-tool to produce diesel that burns cleanly. I have written about this before. Yada, yada -- conspiracy between oil companies and engine builders, etc. All true.
But the simple fact is this: we could get hybrid-style fuel savings in the U.S. using diesel engines. A BMW 530d gets better than 40 mg on the highway ... at 80 mph ... because it is about torque. The greenies will say that hybrids do this too, but only with a miniscule poop-box of a car, and at lower speeds. Many of my friends that went the hybrid route have been horrified at the mileage they get with their Lexus 400h and Toyota Highlanders when barreling down the road at 80. My Merc E320 easily bests them (26 mpg at 80 mph).
The next best thing to no fuel at all is the hybrid diesel. The best of both worlds: the non-regenerative engine is efficient where and when it is actually needed, and in the city you can benefit from the regenerative cycling. Mercedes is planning to come out with an S300 H -- a diesel hybird -- for Europe only distribution. What? An S-class Mercedes that gets better than 40 mpg and we can't get one. Typical.
Also true is that out of a single barrel of oil, you can extract more diesel fuel than gasoline. The oil companies would need to re-tool to crack the oil for diesel production maximization. But it is more profitable to make gasoline. And have you checked to see the diesel prices here? Considerably more expensive than gas and it shouldn't be. There is simply no logical reason for that, just what the market can bear -- and to keep people in gas cars.
People need not be afraid of diesels, either: they don't smoke and they don't rattle like a tin can filled with ball-bearings anymore, either. We all remember those dreadful Oldsmobile and Cadillac diesels from the early 1970's that were all about smoke and black soot. They are history. But remarkably, nobody wants to tell the public that here in the US.
So where does this leave me -- and you? The technology exists, but we can't get any of the diesels, the diesel hybrids or the straight hybrids in a format that we really need. At least until ... now. Chevrolet/GM has come out with a Tahoe/Escalade/Yukon with a hybrid format. And you can bet your ass that Lexus will have a 7 seat hybrid soon. The estimated mileage is about 20 mpg. Not bad, especially when you consider what they are shoving through the air (a barn door), but the petroleum-burning part of the system is still a 6 liter V8 gas engine -- albeit with fuel saving cylinder shut-down, etc. But Mercedes sells their 7 seater in Europe with a V8 diesel that gets 26 mpg without the use of a hybrid system ... why can't we get that here? And, on a dust-to-dust basis, this car is FAR greener than any of the U.S. available SUV hybrids.
As an absolute minimum, I want something that is not based on a truck frame and that drives (more or less) like a car. And the American and Japanese offerings are truck-based confections that wobble like drunken sailors along the roads. I am physically nauseous every time I get in one of those. So what to do? I e-mailed the CEO of Mercedes America. I received a nice return e-mail -- from his Blackberry while he was in Germany!! Then a phone call from marketing and customer support. Is the GL 420 CDI coming to the U.S.? No plans for now. What diesel will you offer? The ML is coming out with the 320 CDI, and in certain states you can buy the GL with the 320 CDI, but not Mass or Calif. Later this year, they will sell the "Bluetec" hyper-clean, 50 State version of the 320 CDI diesel. It will get better than 30 mpg in (most) all uses, and even over 45 mpg in the E class sedan. Well. Now that's a start, but....
A 7-seat vehicle needs more than 215 puny ponies (although a mountain of torque) to shove it along, and furthermore, the Europeans already get the car (and mileage) that I, and most likely thousands more want -- AND IT IS BUILT IN THE U.S. But we won't. Instead we will get the GL 320, which will take just under 10 seconds to 60. The Tahoe Hybrid does the same in about 7. I'd like to be green as I can, but I don't want to be Captain Ahab of the good ship white whale trying to accelerate to join the Interstate. Thar she blows!
You see, Daimler-Benz has determined that we don't need this fuel-efficient GL 420 CDI here. Right. Just like the Germans determined that we didn't need cup holders so everyone interested in this class of car went out an bought a Lexus instead. Talk about pissing away your market share. But the vastly inferior GM products are here and ready to go, at 20 mpg and with a hybrid. So what to do? What to do? If I buy a GL with the requisite power, I need to buy a gas-powered beast that gets 14 mpg at best. If I buy GM, I buy a blancmange on wheels getting 20 mpg and depreciation like a swan dive from the Golden Gate Bridge. Great choice!
Daimler-folks: listen up ... Americans like their V8s. Love them. And in the class of vehicle that we are talking about, we can afford them, no matter what. We want the performance determine to be needed by our driving habits and styles. However, the type of people that make the requisite money to buy large SUVs, also tend to be better-educated and want to try and be greener than before, and save a few Franklins (20 dollar bills) at the pumps. With your cooperation, we could have our cake and eat it too -- the technology and cars exist, but you have chosen not to sell it in the U.S., just like Ford makes the brilliant European Focus but doesn't build or import it here.
So we Americans will do the next best thing and buy the GM-crap. Good for GM, they need the bucks to fund their pension schemes, but you guys are missing the boat. Again. You just don't seem to "get" it: the average European drives a tiny little car with a tiny little diesel ... and even richer Europeans drive expensive luxury cars with small diesel engines (compared to U.S. standards). But get this: we won't. Why you persist on thinking that we would do the same is like ... smoking illicit substances. On the American Interstate, you are surrounded by 18 wheel trucks that would obliterate a small European car without even noticing it. People are afraid (justly or not) of being ground beef. And just in case you think I am mixing arguments (small car/ small engine), if the truck can out-accelerate you, you are just as much "toast" in your SUV as someone in a Fiat Punto, an unhappy position.
Ford, when trying to figure out why people bought SUVs, found out that with 70% women buyers/drivers for those vehicles, the primary impulse was to put as much steel between themselves and the others on the road. Then make it cushy inside. Viola: a sales miracle. It also makes some twisted sense, even if the actual fatality numbers do not support it. And, Americans have MUCH larger families, and drive much longer distances. If you ask why we have to -- it is because it is what we do ... and just leave it at that. You cannot change how we think or act by offering us products that should change our attitudes ... to be more like yours. We'll stay away in droves.
And that might just be the disconnect that the Germans don't get: we simply cannot stick 3+ children in a Jetta wagon, plus skis, plus food, plus the dog, plus friends, etc. and then drive 3 hours twice every weekend. Germans can and do and don't mind the inconvenience, but we don't and won't -- because we don't have to. We don't live in tiny, under-heated houses either. We like air conditioning in the Summer. We take more than one shower a day. It just "is." If you want to sell to us, then don't preach, just deliver. I mean, just because a German wouldn't think of buying Japanese products, they presume that we wouldn't for the same reasons -- "after all, it is the only sensible way." Wrong. And we might even buy GM....
It is a miracle that people here are even looking at hybrids, and if you offer them the power they crave with even superior mileage you might actually sell a few. Otherwise ... remember them cup-holders.
This conveyance will need to do 300 miles most every weekend and about 3 hours per day in the city and suburbs. It should get reasonable mileage -- the 12.5 mpg real mileage of my old BMW X5 will NOT do. I was lucky to stretch it to 18 mpg on the highway. And when I see those Suburbans, Yukons, Tahoes, Escalades, etc. booming down the interstate at 80, you know that they are simply lining the pockets of Middle Eastern types and the odd oil company exec. at 12 mpg (if they are lucky/honest). That won't do either.
So, a minivan? Well given that most of my serious travel is also done during the winter when snow can make conditions difficult, I need AWD or 4WD. That excludes most minivans, and the ones that are "awd" tend to have BS versions of said systems that are a joke for all intents and purposes (95% to the front wheels, until you "need" it). Just last weekend, the going was seriously tough: a 2:20 trip took 5:10. And my current car, a Merc E320 4matic wagon is really good in snow (it has 7 seats, but the rear seats are for small kids). The awd-lite resulted in numerous mini-vans in the ditch, up the banks, etc. So a real 7-seat SUV, with dedicated AWD, then. The trouble with that is no manufacturer makes one that is both good to drive and gets better than 20 mpg. And, ideally, I'd like to get 30 mpg on the highway.
Does anyone make one -- at least for U.S. delivery? No. Why? Because California and a few other states have placed barriers to import of diesel engines that would make this possible. The issue is particulate matter emissions -- but not greenhouse gases. So in California, you can drive a Toyota Tundra with a 7 liter (litre) engine that gets 10 mpg real world, spewing blimp loads of gases, funding Al Qaeda, but you cannot drive a VW Jetta TDi, getting 40 mpg. Or, of course, you could drive a Prius whose real world dust-to-dust impact on the environment is equivalent to a Ford F-150.
In Europe, technology has progressed to the point that 70+% of all vehicles sold are diesels. And Euro Bin-5 regulations are quite strict too. So what gives? It would be easy to say that the auto manufacturers are being held hostage to the greenies in California La-La, Never-Never land. But in truth, while there is a lot to say about that, up until last year the diesel fuel sold in the US was crap. Full of sulfur that caused lots of emissions problems. The oil companies were screwing us and the environment there: it was cheaper to produce the crap diesel than re-tool to produce diesel that burns cleanly. I have written about this before. Yada, yada -- conspiracy between oil companies and engine builders, etc. All true.
But the simple fact is this: we could get hybrid-style fuel savings in the U.S. using diesel engines. A BMW 530d gets better than 40 mg on the highway ... at 80 mph ... because it is about torque. The greenies will say that hybrids do this too, but only with a miniscule poop-box of a car, and at lower speeds. Many of my friends that went the hybrid route have been horrified at the mileage they get with their Lexus 400h and Toyota Highlanders when barreling down the road at 80. My Merc E320 easily bests them (26 mpg at 80 mph).
The next best thing to no fuel at all is the hybrid diesel. The best of both worlds: the non-regenerative engine is efficient where and when it is actually needed, and in the city you can benefit from the regenerative cycling. Mercedes is planning to come out with an S300 H -- a diesel hybird -- for Europe only distribution. What? An S-class Mercedes that gets better than 40 mpg and we can't get one. Typical.
Also true is that out of a single barrel of oil, you can extract more diesel fuel than gasoline. The oil companies would need to re-tool to crack the oil for diesel production maximization. But it is more profitable to make gasoline. And have you checked to see the diesel prices here? Considerably more expensive than gas and it shouldn't be. There is simply no logical reason for that, just what the market can bear -- and to keep people in gas cars.
People need not be afraid of diesels, either: they don't smoke and they don't rattle like a tin can filled with ball-bearings anymore, either. We all remember those dreadful Oldsmobile and Cadillac diesels from the early 1970's that were all about smoke and black soot. They are history. But remarkably, nobody wants to tell the public that here in the US.
So where does this leave me -- and you? The technology exists, but we can't get any of the diesels, the diesel hybrids or the straight hybrids in a format that we really need. At least until ... now. Chevrolet/GM has come out with a Tahoe/Escalade/Yukon with a hybrid format. And you can bet your ass that Lexus will have a 7 seat hybrid soon. The estimated mileage is about 20 mpg. Not bad, especially when you consider what they are shoving through the air (a barn door), but the petroleum-burning part of the system is still a 6 liter V8 gas engine -- albeit with fuel saving cylinder shut-down, etc. But Mercedes sells their 7 seater in Europe with a V8 diesel that gets 26 mpg without the use of a hybrid system ... why can't we get that here? And, on a dust-to-dust basis, this car is FAR greener than any of the U.S. available SUV hybrids.
As an absolute minimum, I want something that is not based on a truck frame and that drives (more or less) like a car. And the American and Japanese offerings are truck-based confections that wobble like drunken sailors along the roads. I am physically nauseous every time I get in one of those. So what to do? I e-mailed the CEO of Mercedes America. I received a nice return e-mail -- from his Blackberry while he was in Germany!! Then a phone call from marketing and customer support. Is the GL 420 CDI coming to the U.S.? No plans for now. What diesel will you offer? The ML is coming out with the 320 CDI, and in certain states you can buy the GL with the 320 CDI, but not Mass or Calif. Later this year, they will sell the "Bluetec" hyper-clean, 50 State version of the 320 CDI diesel. It will get better than 30 mpg in (most) all uses, and even over 45 mpg in the E class sedan. Well. Now that's a start, but....
A 7-seat vehicle needs more than 215 puny ponies (although a mountain of torque) to shove it along, and furthermore, the Europeans already get the car (and mileage) that I, and most likely thousands more want -- AND IT IS BUILT IN THE U.S. But we won't. Instead we will get the GL 320, which will take just under 10 seconds to 60. The Tahoe Hybrid does the same in about 7. I'd like to be green as I can, but I don't want to be Captain Ahab of the good ship white whale trying to accelerate to join the Interstate. Thar she blows!
You see, Daimler-Benz has determined that we don't need this fuel-efficient GL 420 CDI here. Right. Just like the Germans determined that we didn't need cup holders so everyone interested in this class of car went out an bought a Lexus instead. Talk about pissing away your market share. But the vastly inferior GM products are here and ready to go, at 20 mpg and with a hybrid. So what to do? What to do? If I buy a GL with the requisite power, I need to buy a gas-powered beast that gets 14 mpg at best. If I buy GM, I buy a blancmange on wheels getting 20 mpg and depreciation like a swan dive from the Golden Gate Bridge. Great choice!
Daimler-folks: listen up ... Americans like their V8s. Love them. And in the class of vehicle that we are talking about, we can afford them, no matter what. We want the performance determine to be needed by our driving habits and styles. However, the type of people that make the requisite money to buy large SUVs, also tend to be better-educated and want to try and be greener than before, and save a few Franklins (20 dollar bills) at the pumps. With your cooperation, we could have our cake and eat it too -- the technology and cars exist, but you have chosen not to sell it in the U.S., just like Ford makes the brilliant European Focus but doesn't build or import it here.
So we Americans will do the next best thing and buy the GM-crap. Good for GM, they need the bucks to fund their pension schemes, but you guys are missing the boat. Again. You just don't seem to "get" it: the average European drives a tiny little car with a tiny little diesel ... and even richer Europeans drive expensive luxury cars with small diesel engines (compared to U.S. standards). But get this: we won't. Why you persist on thinking that we would do the same is like ... smoking illicit substances. On the American Interstate, you are surrounded by 18 wheel trucks that would obliterate a small European car without even noticing it. People are afraid (justly or not) of being ground beef. And just in case you think I am mixing arguments (small car/ small engine), if the truck can out-accelerate you, you are just as much "toast" in your SUV as someone in a Fiat Punto, an unhappy position.
Ford, when trying to figure out why people bought SUVs, found out that with 70% women buyers/drivers for those vehicles, the primary impulse was to put as much steel between themselves and the others on the road. Then make it cushy inside. Viola: a sales miracle. It also makes some twisted sense, even if the actual fatality numbers do not support it. And, Americans have MUCH larger families, and drive much longer distances. If you ask why we have to -- it is because it is what we do ... and just leave it at that. You cannot change how we think or act by offering us products that should change our attitudes ... to be more like yours. We'll stay away in droves.
And that might just be the disconnect that the Germans don't get: we simply cannot stick 3+ children in a Jetta wagon, plus skis, plus food, plus the dog, plus friends, etc. and then drive 3 hours twice every weekend. Germans can and do and don't mind the inconvenience, but we don't and won't -- because we don't have to. We don't live in tiny, under-heated houses either. We like air conditioning in the Summer. We take more than one shower a day. It just "is." If you want to sell to us, then don't preach, just deliver. I mean, just because a German wouldn't think of buying Japanese products, they presume that we wouldn't for the same reasons -- "after all, it is the only sensible way." Wrong. And we might even buy GM....
It is a miracle that people here are even looking at hybrids, and if you offer them the power they crave with even superior mileage you might actually sell a few. Otherwise ... remember them cup-holders.
posted by Zaphod at Monday, February 25, 2008
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