Anyone know when will hydrogen cars be more widely available?
In Singapore, there are some Mercedez Taxis that are hydrogen driven. Some buses as well, but they have some weird cylinders on top of the hydrogen buses.
I'm now driving a 2003 Toyota Corolla and most likely not buying a new car untill the hydrogen cars are mass produced. =)
The only viable (read: cost effective) way to mass produce hydrogen is as a by-product of refining crude oil, so untill that changes I won't take hydrogen seriously as an alternitive fuel.
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not sure if it's still as expensive but I think it was $15000 - $25000 for a fuel cell, most of us can't really afford that, but just as everything else it will come down. The issue with Hydrogen is how unstable it can be and with most big cities not having as much room and parking spaces getting smaller alot of people will continue to drive things like civics and corolla's which in a bad accident can be ripped in half which would be pretty devastating if the car was hydrogen power :s
Right on, Europe is so far ahead of North America. As for the guy complaining about diesel pollution I say we should have more available here & as for the argument that diesels pollute more, well figure this: if you travel the same distance with a diesel vs. gas engine & you get 2-3x better fuel economy with the diesel then you've put that much less crap into the air & kept a few $$ in your pocket, gotta a problem with that? Ever get blown by a diesel!!
Most of Europe geta lots of Rain, we have parts in the USA which hardly ever see rain. These parts like the huge deserts area, tha cover 1/3 of the USA can fill with smog, and there wil never be enough rain to cleanse the air. Europe you have weather like rain, snow.. that clears your much smaller area... also the mountain ranges here create barriers, that trap huge areas of air, that becomes stagnant. where in Euope the air constantly moves out of the area.... you cannot compare the 2. Please, learn a bit about the environment before you say what works where.
Last edited by retiredat44; 08-07-2006 at 01:25 PM.
umm yea do I have to say it again? You don't have to buy rgular diesel anymore. You can make it run off old cooking oil which is better for the enviroment than gas. Bio Diesel is also becomming more available. Some companies here use only bio diesel in their snow plows , garbage trucks and such which helps the cost come down and help the growth of the area it's available in.
as for the states and saying europe has rain, snow well there are alot of parts of north america that have those too... and for mountains... ever been to italy? I would think we have more issues with smog because alot of North americans like to drive pick up trucks, and large cars because thats what they were used to when they were younger. Places like Europe and japan have had smaller cars for a long time. While we were over here burning fuel like no tomorrow in cars that had huge v8's and weight alot in the 40's 50's 60's and 70's they had small cars.
as for regular diesel being better on the enviroment because you don't burn as much thats questionable. They put out alot of crap even if your not burning as much. E-test for a diesel here is them starting it, running it for a bit then checking to see the colour of the "smoke" out the tail pipe. As long as it comes out a certain colour you pass...
Most of Europe geta lots of Rain, we have parts in the USA which hardly ever see rain. These parts like the huge deserts area, tha cover 1/3 of the USA can fill with smog, and there wil never be enough rain to cleanse the air. Europe you have weather like rain, snow.. that clears your much smaller area... also the mountain ranges here create barriers, that trap huge areas of air, that becomes stagnant. where in Euope the air constantly moves out of the area.... you cannot compare the 2. Please, learn a bit about the environment before you say what works where.
WTF. Want to make up any other random things??
Diesels are far better for the envirnment than petrol, they produce less green house gasses (remember you can't see those) and use much less volume of fuel per km.
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Well, I can tell you in South America we had and there still is a lot of air pollution. It is so bad it makes Anywhere in the US look like nothing. I remember coming here to the USA and breathing the Air the first time and I could not believe how clean it was.
There are a large percent of diesels there and most people ride in a Bus or a Taxi to go anywhere and I would say most of them (80%-90%) run Diesel. Smog is horrible down there as the wheather doesn't change like here in the North. So it is always around. Now I can not speak for all of South America just the upper West Coast.
I would like to see more Bio-Diesel and Ethanol being used there but It will be years before that will happen as there is too much corruption and this makes it hard to change.
One of the countrys to copy though is Brazil, if anyone has every heard about them lately and that they have been self sufficient with no imported oil for over 30 years.
They make their own Ethanol from Sugar Cane and they make enough that it is cheap there. It is also sold at Regular Gas Stations such as Texico or Chevron.
At times, I also think there is corruption with the oil here as well and that is the main reason you don't find as many small diesels here or more fuel efficient vehicles as they want Americans to finally start to pay more for Gasoline like most of the rest of the world has had to.
The one thing I have learned from living here, Americans don't like to be forced feed something. They have a tendency to fight back when they can. So.. I think soon enough you will see the change of ways. Where Petroleum Fuel will have what they never had before. Competition!!!
This will be interesting to see. I think it will take less than 5 years to find alteritives in every town like those coffee huts selling lattes...??
Then maybe the JDM diesels for our Toyotas will be all the rage?? 300-400HP Turbo Diesel Corollas running on Corn Oil??? lol
We do factory diesel conversions here in the USA. You can check out our website at: www.dieseltoyz.com. As far as diesels being crappy because they have interference engines, look at BMW, VW, Mercedes, Acura, Honda etc etc. They all use timing belts with gasoline interference engines and would not be considered crappy. Timing belts are great; they're quiet, cheap to replace, and inexpensive to manufacture. Just because someone is too lazy to look into servicing their engine every 80,000 miles doesnt mean something is bad. Timing chains are bad because most of the time, the owners neglect major engine service because they can. This causes excessive emmissions, poor fuel economy, and premature engine failure.
timing belts are actually a BAD idea with an interference engine. THey are cheap for the manufacutre to put in, but in some cases the engine has to be moved, or supported to change the belt. On top of that there's a greater chance for them to snap than a chain. Which is why Toyota uses chains in the newer corolla motors, because they are interferance where as the 4afe and 4age (not sure about the 20v) weren't...
Not saying they are horrible motors, my v2 turbo diesel has a timing belt. I'd just prefer a chain, besides they last ALOT longer than belts...
I personally beleive the reason Diesels didn't catch on is because of how they used to be. My 1990 jetta for instance has to be plugged in after a certain temp or the oil gets to thick and the car won't start no matter how much you try. Where as the newer ones use syentetic and it's not as much of a problem. But it's the previous rep that will affect how they are sold now.
Diesel always reminds me of those noisy, smelly old mercedes diesels that I still see driving around. I wouldn't mind having one now, but there is definitely a lingering stereotype surrounding diesel engines.
That's also probably why the band Midnight Oil named one of its albums "Diesel and Dust". They wanted to invoke the image of something grungy and dirty.
I'm surprised that in the 2 years that this thread has been up (and repeatedly revived), no one has pointed out one of the biggest problems with hybrid fuel economy: they don't get anywhere near their advertised mileage in real world driving. The 2007 Prius was rated at 60mpg city, 51 mpg highway, and 55mpg combined, but according to the Federal government actual mileage for "drivers like you" (real world user submitted mileage) is 45.1mpg. The 2006 VW Golf is rated at 37/44/40, but "drivers like you" got exactly the same 45.1mpg. The diesel engine,basically unchanged for a decade, got the same mileage as the fancy hybrid. The VW Lupo makes a Prius look like a gas guzzler (78mpg, and you can actually get it in real world driving!). When VW drove a Lupo diesel across the country as part of some publicity campaign, they had to bring their own fuel with them. If the federal government would finally get around to mandating low sulphur diesel, we could get modern diesels, and the fuel economy would go even higher. As I understand it availability of low sulphur diesel is the real thing standing in the way of getting diesels in the U.S. Modern car diesels will choke on the diesel fuel sold in the U.S., and manufacturers aren't interested in designing diesel engines just for the U.S. market. if they could just sell existing diesel engines here I think we would see more diesels offered.
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