After a long drought, an American-made compact car will finally offer a diesel engine later this year.
The 2014 Chevy Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel will bring the diesel engine to the world of US automakers in July, and consumers in this country are expected to receive the technology with open arms. The introduction could be a step forward for Chevy, as well as for an American auto industry that's searching for solutions to looming corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) mandates.
"The time and place is exactly right for this," Michael Siegrist, assistant chief engineer of General Motors Powertrain, told Design News recently. "We think there's a pent-up desire for this product."
Click on the image below for a closer look at the Chevy Cruze Diesel.
With a starting price of $25,695, the Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel is expected to appeal to those who want to combine high fuel efficiency with an engine that offers high torque. (Source: Design News)
Indeed, the higher energy levels of diesel fuel could appeal to Americans, many of whom wonder why diesel technology has grabbed about 40 percent of the European auto market, while being virtually ignored by North American-based manufacturers of passenger cars. Chevrolet, for example, hasn't offered an American-made diesel compact since the 1986 Chevette.
But that will change over the next few years, experts say. Chrysler will market a diesel version of it Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV and Mazda plans a diesel for its Mazda6 midsize sedan later this year. Moreover, diesel car sales are expected to jump from 3 percent of US sales in 2012 to 6 percent in 2015, according to market research firm Baum and Associates.
Chevy's new product, slated to hit the streets in July, will take a step in that direction by using diesel technology to deliver a luxury twist to Cruze's entry-level customers. Instead of the 150 lb-ft of torque offered by the Cruze's gasoline burning inline four-cylinder engine, the turbo diesel will provide 258 lb-ft of torque at 2,000 rpm, while maintaining Cruze's fuel efficiency at approximately 42 mpg.
"If you're on an on-ramp, you won't need to squeeze the throttle and you won't need to downshift," Siegrist told us. "This engine has an immense amount of torque. It accelerates to highway speeds almost effortlessly."
The 2.0-liter diesel engine will also employ a turbocharger to help with low-end torque and high-end horsepower. The variable nozzle turbocharger, manufactured by Honeywell, employs a pneumatic actuator to change the position of its vanes when the engine's ECU decides it needs a boost.
Designed at General Motors' (GM's) diesel center of excellence in Torino, Italy, the Cruze engine already has served in several GM vehicles in Europe, including the Astra small family car, Insignia large family car, and the Zafira minivan. Engineers in Torino worked closely with counterparts in Michigan to tweak the design for US emissions and diagnostic requirements, as well as for the wider temperature swings and higher altitudes often experienced by American cars.
My father had a 1986 ford Escort diesel that got 50 mpg rock solid. once up to speed would cruze all day. It did not have a lot of power, as turbos were only on large over the road trucks then.
When you consider there are gasoline cars that can get close to this MPG, the difference in price buys a lot of fuel.
I am surprised we are not seeing more MPG, especially when you consider the technology explosion in engine managment that has ocurred.
Anyway, my main point was that I have personal exoerience between hybrid and diesel performance, which still makes the increased tax worthwhile.
To Charles point about Eupoean diesel engines, they certainly have taken a big jump in both performance and MPG in the last 5 years. My wife previously had a older technology Citroen diesel C4 and that gave no better performance than her current hybrid.
I agree for the most part with bob from maine. Other threads blame GM etc for bad engines. But the main reasons for the dislike of diesel are soot and smell. Personally the Manufacturer that did the most to put a bad rap on diesel is Mercedes. Their older cars with the soot pouring out at every acceleration were horrendous! The entire rear of the Mercedes would be black from soot. They smelled horrible to even be around, etc. For some reason there were quite a few on the road. Poor man's Mercedes? Now we have the Dodge Ram trucks that people are hopping up that pour the soot out. I have not been in the emissions business in several years but I understand that at least here in California there are steps to regulate the amount of soot. Finally! IMO American manufactures should not be allowed to sell their version of diesel engine, I understand in Europe the technology is much better.
Be careful when comparing European MPG to US MPG. In the UK, a gallon in 4.55 liters, but in the US a gallon is 3.8 liters. That makes european MPG seem about 20% higher.
Seeing the comments below, I just wanted to point out that the UK also taxes diesel more than regular, but the mpg more than makes up for it.
I drive a Peugeot turbo-disel and get 59mpg, whereas my wife has a Toyota Auris hybrid and only gets 42mpg. I also get much better highway performance due to the significantly higher torque, so my one surprise is that the GM US mpg is so low.
Yes, GM did have a lot of expertise with diesel engines:
Detroit Diesel made engines for use in GMC truck and busses, and for sale to other truck manufacturers.
Electromotive Division made its own engines for its locomotives.
GMC Truck & Coach made its own engines for trucks, as well as for driving irrigation pumps. (I don't remember exactly when they stopped, but they built the GMC motor homes in the same building--Building 29--that they used to build engines in, and that started in 1973.)
Sometimes different GM divisions worked very well together. But I think that was more the exception than the rule. There were not well-established communication paths between the divisions, and sometimes there was a bit of not-invented-here syndrome, so it would not surprise me if the problem were that the people designing the Chevy diesel engine did not have access to all the design wisdom that existed in the other divisions.
I don't know any of the specifics of that particular engine, but this would make sense based on my experience working at GM for several years. (BTW, the problem isn't just GM. My experience is that in huge corporations, sharing of information is awful, because people don't know who has the information and how to get access to it.)
Ratsky, the point we were trying to make is that diesel fuel in Europe is taxed differently than gasoline in Europe. A representative from GM and another from the Center for Automotive Research used the term "diesel subsidy" -- meaning that diesel fuel isn't taxed quite as heavily over there as gasoline is. If there's information to refute that, I'm certainly open to hearing it.
I retired my '84 300D after 375K miles when the lift went through the rocker panels. Maine winters and road salt ate my car! The American market has not been receptive to diesel engines. The stigma of driving a smelly, sooty, slow accelerating, noisy vehicle which made your hands and clothes smell when you filled the tank was too much to overcome. Add to this the premium cost of initial purchase and inability to get anyone other than the dealer to service the engine and it becomes difficult to convince buyers. Volvo and Peugot in the 70's and 80's had a low compression (18:1) diesel which smelled terrible, accelerated poorly, and due to lack of sympathetic service mechanics usually were fairly unrelible. VW and Mercedes never gave-up but their sales were quite slow and diesels owners became almost a cult. Because of the legislation to limit soot, both companies had to come up with particulate filters which needed frequent changing, plus as the compression ratio was upped to increase fuel efficiency, temperature and thus NOx emissions went through the roof which required heroic efforts to meet emission laws. Today's best diesel engines meet (for now at least) the soot and NOx limits set by CA, but there is every indication that new laws will be enacted to further limit soot, odor and efficiency.
The GM Duramax diesels seem to be pretty good. Their new 2.8 L V6 Duramax sounds promising. The original Olds 350 diesel was a disaster because GM rushed the engine market. It was a shame that it happened and that another manufacturer didn't jump in and fill the vacuum before the market totally soured. State and federal fuel taxes may prove to be a problem, but VW has been able to sell diesels. Hopefully, GM will have better luck this time around.
Tesla Motors plans to roll out a “compelling, affordable electric car” that will sell for about half the price of its high-profile Model S by the end of 2016, company chairman Elon Musk said last week.
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