Just a thought. Why aren't there diesel-electric cars?
I’m from a railway family and I can tell you that the diesel engine in locomotives doesn’t turn the wheels, it turns a generator to power the electric traction motors to turn the wheels, this is known as diesel-electric. The diesel engine isn’t mechanically connected to the driving wheels at all. I’ve heard of buses using a diesel-electric set-up, but why haven’t we seen cars use this? Electric motors have their advantage in day to day driving.
Comments
diesels pollute more
That was true in the 90’s.
That setup is very efficient with constant power delivery over a long time. Cars often do a lot of stop-start, speed changes and trips don’t take all day (trains often drive all day long).
Plus keep in mind that every conversion in energy loses energy so that diesel-pressure-motion-electricity-motion is theoretically less efficient than diesel-pressure-motion
Volvo V60 D6 is a diesel/electric hybrid car
Fisker does this in the Karma. Well its not diesel but the same idea.
I think it is because the car manufacturers want to sell their hybrids in the US to bring down avg. fuel consumption, because in Europe, they just have normal diesel engines as an economical alternative to gasoline. So maybe they use gasoline engines for the hybrid, because diesels don’t sell that well in the US.
Just look at Fisker great and failure on their Karma
Isn’t the e300 a diesel hybrid setup?
There are a few, one of which you can buy today is a Volvo (V60 I think?)
But I guess, one if the reasons is high costs: diesel engines are generally more expensive than petrol engines. And hybrid system is even more expensive. So combining the two will create a £50,000 car with like 150bhp and over 2000kg of weight.
There’s the maruti ciaz or Suzuki abroad in India its a hybrid diesel I believe (we Indians love diesel)
Diesels are a bad engine choice in this day and age imo. The premium you pay for a diesel vs a petrol car, the higher maintenance costs, the fickle emissions control units that clog up after 1 year do not offset the cost of fuel saving vs petrol unless you drive around 20k km a year.
One true advantage diesels have is smooth low down torque which is a great boon for an every day car, but this only applies when compared to <2000cmc and non turbo petrol engines. Most diesles will never thrill like petrol engines, but there are exceptions like a 535i E60 which is not your average joe vehicle.
for some reason, people here in europe buy diesel cars because they are efficient and less expensive than petrol.